Goulet remembered for anthem at Ali fight
‘The guy was three sheets to the wind’ while singing before Liston bout
 Ethan Miller / Getty Images file | “Even though I had never sung the national anthem, I said ‘OK’ because I wanted to see the fight,” Robert Goulet said. “So I went and had dinner with the governor (John Reed) that night. I left the table three times to go to the porch and practice.” |
LEWISTON, Maine - Robert Goulet is being remembered in this former mill city for mangling the lyrics to the national anthem before the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston heavyweight championship fight more than 30 years ago.
Goulet, 73, died Tuesday in Los Angeles while awaiting a lung transplant.
“The guy was three sheets to the wind,” fight spectator David Bernier, then a 15-year-old high school freshman, told the (Lewiston) Sun Journal. “He finally managed to slur his way through it.”
“He was in the bag,” Chuck Frechette recalled.
Goulet’s May 25, 1965, performance at the Central Maine Youth Center was described as being off-key and out of synch with the organ accompaniment. Newspaper stories at the time said he sang “dawn’s early night” and “gave proof through the fight.”
Interviewed years ago by online boxing writer Barry Lindenman, Goulet only admitted his mistake on the opening line.
“Even though I had never sung the national anthem, I said ‘OK’ because I wanted to see the fight,” Goulet said. “So I went and had dinner with the governor (John Reed) that night. I left the table three times to go to the porch and practice.”
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Goulet’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” wasn’t the only aspect of the fight that came into question. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott mishandled the count when Liston hit the canvas, and skeptics complained that Ali toppled his challenger with a “phantom punch.”
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