This iconic photo of Muhammad Ali was rejected
Inspiration can come from anywhere.
I was watching an interview with basketball coach (and former player) Steve Kerr, and noticed a familiar photograph hanging on his wall.
Recognize it?
I was curious…
What’s the story behind that photograph?
Who was the photographer?
And how did they come up with the idea?
A little Nancy Drew detective work (and purchasing a used copy of a book from a Kentucky library) gave me the answers.
The photographer was named Flip Schulke.
And in 1961, Flip had a problem.
Schulke had been hired to take photographs of a 19-year-old boxer he’d never heard of named Cassius Clay. When the two men met, Schulke tried to impress Clay by sharing his recently published first spread in Life. It featured photographs of water skiers that Schulke had taken underwater.
The day of the photo shoot, Schulke went to the Sir John Hotel in Miami to meet Clay – and found him training in the pool. Clay explained that a previous trainer had encouraged him to practice in the pool, using the weight of water for resistance.
And that gave Schulke an idea.
He called the editor at Sports Illustrated and pitched an idea of photographing Clay in the pool.
“He [the editor] thought I was crazy for taking pictures of a boxer in a swimming pool,” said Schulke.
“Luckily, they said, ‘Go ahead and ask Life if you want to. If they’re dumb enough to, let them do it.’”
“So I called Life magazine, and they liked the idea. In those days, Life loved to beat out its sister publication on a story, so I went back to take pictures in the pool.”
Schulke put on his scuba gear and took several photos of Clay practicing punches in the water. He had forgotten his swim trunks, but Clay let him borrow a pair of boxing shorts (as shown above).
Then he saw Clay standing on the bottom of the pool.
“I swam over real quick and I got about six pictures of him,” Schulke said. “He was holding his breath all this time and not making any movement.”
That’s when Schulke captured the iconic shot from that day – Clay standing on the bottom of the pool in a perfect boxing pose.
Life used five of Schulke’s photographs for a spread in their September 8, 1961 issue, although not the iconic shot of Clay standing on the bottom of the pool.
But the pictures from that shoot turned out to be iconic for both Clay and Schulke.
Clay went on to become the heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali – and Schulke went from an unknown photographer to a celebrated artist.
And the most entertaining part of this story?
Muhammad Ali made up the story about training in the pool.
He couldn’t even swim.
But it made for a great story – and fantastic photographs.
Several years later, Schulke released that iconic photo of Ali underwater.
Over his career, Schulke took iconic images of Elvis Presley, President John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.
But it’s the picture of Ali underwater that was his most famous.
“More people have requested that picture worldwide than any single picture I ever shot.”
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Keep Smiling - and Stay Curious!
-Beth
