Until his death at the age of 87, the NFL star and actor Jim Brown was the last survivor of the four people portrayed in One Night in Miami, outliving Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Muhammad Ali. Regina King’s film, released in 2020, is set in 1964, immediately after the victory of Ali (then Cassius Clay) over Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight championship.
Coincidentally, 10 years later Brown was at the ringside in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle, where Ali regained his title against George Foreman, as part of the four-man commentary team comprising himself, David Frost, Joe Frazier and Bob Sheridan.
Despite initially expecting Ali to lose (virtually every expert did), as the fight went on he realised that Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy was likely to lead to victory, expressing his indignation only midway through the bout, complaining that “Ali hit Foreman with everything and he winked at me!”
