WEST PALM BEACH — Alicia Shulman served as a boxing photographer for only four years, but she shot all of the pugilistic greats.
None of them adored Alicia like “The Greatest’’ – the late Muhammad Ali. The 10-year anniversary of Ali’s death is June 3.
“I feel like it’s not that long at all,’’ Shulman told The Palm Beach Post in her luxury apartment in downtown West Palm Beach. “I had three private times with him – all unexpected. I developed a really nice rapport with him in that small time. He was very warm, very sweet. You see how he’s smiling (pointing to one of her photos) when they’re doing the makeup. It was special to have that time with him.’’
Shulman’s famed photograph of an older, pensive Ali in 1998 in his suite at the Sheraton Hotel in New York graces the back cover of Thomas Hauser’s Ali biography, “A Tribute to The Greatest.’’
Hauser, a famed boxing author, pre-wrote the book and released it at the time of Ali’s death on June 3, 2016 at age 74 after years of battling Parkinson’s.
Shulman, who grew up in Great Neck, Long Island and has lived full-time in West Palm Beach for four years, had received an email on her blackberry from Hauser when vacationing in Rome in 2015.
Shulman and Hauser had nearly collaborated on a major boxing coffee-table book for Rizzoli years earlier. The deal collapsed because of 9/11 and led Shulman to leave the boxing world in 2002.
“Would you mind if I send your photo of Ali looking down in the Missoni sweater?’’ Hauser’s email read. “I want that to be the back cover of the book.’’
“He sent it to the head art person to see what they thought,’’ Shulman recalled. “He got back to me and said ‘They love it.’ It was full circle – a punctuation of that chapter in my life. Unbelievably unexpected.
“(Hauser) liked the dichotomy of a young Ali and mine,’’ Shulman added.
Shulman’s photo of Ali graced back cover of Hauser biography
The photo of Ali was taken at the Sheraton shoot that happened because of Shulman’s ballsy persona.
In February 1998, only months after starting out in boxing, Shulman learned Ali was in Manhattan for the NBA’s All-Star Weekend and he was staying at the Sheraton.
Shulman, who stands 5-foot-1, likes to take tall chances. Her father was a Great Neck North coach. Her grandfather, Sidney Bennett, was a boxer in the 1920s.
She was 39 years old when entering that hotel lobby to give a note to the concierge that contained a request for an Ali photo session.
“I told the concierge I heard he was in town and told him it’s very important he received this note,” Shulman said. “I enclosed photos of Ali I had taken for HBO at a press conference.’’
Shulman returned to her Manhattan apartment and didn’t expect a response, knowing it was as big a longshot as Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston. She fell asleep early that night, only to be awoken at 9:30 p.m., by a ringing phone.
It was Ali’s wife, Lonnie Ali, and she put “The Greatest’’ on the horn.
“This is Muhammad Ali,’’ the voice said. “Would you like to come over and take some photos?”
After Ali’s death, Shulman taped an audio essay of the experience called “Shooting Ali.’’
“In that blurred zone between slumber and waking, I’m not sure if I’m dreaming,’’ she says in the video essay.
“Minutes later, I’m in a taxi, my pedestrian point-and-shoot camera clenched tightly in hand. Except for my thumping heart, it’s a quiet ride to the hotel, where the Alis have arranged for security to escort me. Lonnie, warm and welcoming, ushers me through the suite’s double doors and marble foyer into the vast living room.
“He’s sitting at the dining table. The Greatest. A gentle giant in a color-drenched sweater. Ali invites me to put the coat down and motions for me to sit in front of him. He’s fascinated that this girl-next-door would be on the apron of a boxing ring in the testosterone-fueled circus of the fight game. He wants me to know it’s a tough arena for a woman.
“I tell him I’m deceivingly scrappy — and that my father was an athlete and a coach.
“ ‘Let’s take some pictures,’ ” he suggests.”
Twenty eight years later, now 68, Shulman says in her dining room overlooking Okeechobee Boulevard. “(Ali) was comfortable with me. I was non-obtrusive. I didn’t take advantage. I didn’t want to trespass on his hospitality.”
Shulman has taken dozens of Ali photos that she reimagined in arty ways. Though Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 15 years earlier and no longer was the super loquacious legend, Shulman really couldn’t tell any other signs as she had no basis for comparison.
She has also taken photos of Ali’s daughter, Laila, a former undefeated professional boxer in the early 2000s. “Laila was reserved, focused and a kind, class act,’’ Shulman says.
Shulman has photographed Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield
Shulman has seen her share of boxing gyms and rings. Her first-ever photo landed on the cover of Fight Game. She has taken photos for Arturo Gatti. She has pointed the lens at Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Roy Jones, Oscar De la Hoya, Gerry Cooney, Floyd Mayweather, Larry Holmes and Miguel Cotto, among others.
“I’ve shot everyone,’’ she said. “Some guys laughed, didn’t take me seriously. Didn’t want me in the spot in the ring. I was all dressed up – in heels. All dolled up.”
Her last photo shoot with Ali came by accident in Las Vegas in 2000. She witnessed a commotion at the MGM Grand and saw Ali being taken to a back entrance.
“He saw me and took me with him,’’ Shulman said. “We go up the back elevator with security, got to the suite overlooking The Strip and I find out it’s his birthday. We talked a little and he said, “C’mon take some photos.
“Soon after, I told him I had to go, had a flight to New York. He said my birthday party is tonight – you can’t leave. I said, ‘no, I checked out already.’ He said, ‘Please stay for my birthday party. I’ll get you home. Don’t worry about a thing. Stay. I’ll get you another room.’
“Guess what I did?’’ Shulman remembers. “I don’t stay. And I regret that I had an obligation. I was stupid.’’
She never regretted getting out of boxing after the Hauser coffee-table book collapsed. The day she was to sign the contract with Rizzolli, the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks happened and the company later balked.
A former Syracuse student who did statistics for Jim Boeheim’s Orangemen, she went from boxing art to designing jewelry for David Yurman – one of many memorable pieces of Shulman’s career.
Shulman is a former Sassoon publicist involved in the infamous commercial shoots of former New York Rangers stars Ron Duguay and Phil Esposito.
But for four years, she took boxing photos for all the magazines, having to deal often with Boca Raton resident Don King.
“How I came to boxing, I had imposter syndrome,’’ Shulman said. “I used to go to Gleason’s Gym or Vegas, climbing into boxing rings with Don King up my ass. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t feel comfortable at that age in the sometimes seedy environment.’’
But “Shooting Ali’’ will always be her top memory.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Muhammad Ali remembered by West Palm Beach photographer
Reporting by Marc Berman, Special to The Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
