Thanet said farewell to "Mr Television" today, wrestling legend Jackie Pallo at a funeral service in Margate. He died at his home in Ramsgate on Saturday after battling with cancer.
One of the best known wrestlers of his era, a regular figure on the Saturday afternoon ITV sports in the sixties and seventies which attracted up to fifteen million viewers. He was immediately recognisable for his blonde hair tied back with a black velvet ribbon, his candy-striped Y-fronts and his gold-spangled boots.
Only 5 ft 6 in tall and 11½ stones in weight, Pallo was a gifted performer famous for his backchat. One night a woman at ringside shouted: "You're getting big-headed, Pallo." He shouted back: "If my head was in your mouth it would rattle."
Another woman was told: "Go and live in India, darling - you'd be sacred over there."
Pallo was born Jack Gutteridge on June 12 1926 above a gym at Islington. His father, also Jack, was a boxing trainer who worked alongside his twin brother Dick.
In the mid-1990s he and his son set up a company called 'Wrestling Around the World' (WAW), with the aim of staging wrestling matches, taping them and then selling the film to foreign television companies, including American cable channels.
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. ." - Ernest Hemingway
He was a marvellous entertainer and I was one of those 15m viewers on the odd Saturday afternoon!
We have replaced showmanship and talent with brutality and crudity.
May he grapple in peace!