Jack Lalor

b. Birr, Ireland, 27/03/1875 – d. Johannesburg, 23/07/1964). Irish-born boxer, trainer, manager. Born Edmund Lawlor in King’s County (now County Offaly) in Ireland, Jack Lalor was a professional South African boxer who fought between 1897 and 1919, first as a welterweight, then as a middleweight and finally as a heavyweight, winning the South African championship in all three divisions. During his career he is thought to have won 55 matches, lost 8 and drawn 8. He is also known to have acted in one film. In Joseph Albrecht’s sporting drama The Stolen Favourite (1919) he plays the heroine’s brother, a keen amateur boxer, who is instrumental in enabling the hero to regain the money he lost due to the villain’s crooked schemes. His opponent in the film, Dick Heyns (credited as Dick Hayes), had also been a genuine heavyweight boxer. He died in a Johannesburg old age home at the age of 89. (FO)