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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 13, 1960)
4s ( M m Mki Life Johansson-of-all-trades rehearses one of his scenes from the TV production of "The Killers" with Diane Baker and Dean Stockwell. '-.". ' "i : i i il I - ; fit.- : .. AM He stands over Floyd Patterson in the championship bout that brought the world to his feet. Ingo kids with Dinah Shore while waiting to go on her TV show. easy confidence that his interest will be recip rocated. And, let's face it, the woman never lived who didn't feel flattered by the knowl edge that the handsome fellow taking her out can beat the stuffing out of any other man in the world. Elaine Sloane, a perky brunette who works for a sports magazine in New York, testifies gigglingly to the celebrated Johansson charm. "I had to deliver a note to him," she says, "and when I got to his hotel he wasn't there, so I made up my mind I'd wait until he showed up. He came in at about 6 o'clock, and he was really very nice to me. He read the note and gave me an answer to take back to my boss, and then, just like that, he took me out to the Stockholm restaurant to make sure I didn't miss my dinner. In fact, he took me out three times that week end. He can really dance up a storm." Ingo's whirlwind social life isn't inhibited by any legal ties. He was married to a Gote- borg girl named Bertha Abramson when he was a boy of 17, but they were divorced after their two children, Jaen, nine, and Thomas, five, were born. Since then, his only attach ment has been his somewhat puzzling (to Americans,' anyway) semi-engagement to his secretary, pretty Birgit Lundgren. Birgit runs his office for him,- travels with him al most everywhere he goes, and never presses him about when or if he intends to marry her. "The striking, 23-year-old, green-eyed bru-r nette came to America with Ingo when he set up training quarters for the Patterson fight, and wherever Ingo went, Birgit went, too. Old-time American boxing men were shocked. They didn't think a man could get ready for a championship fight by living in a million aire's mansion on the grounds of a famous re sort hotel in the company of his mother, his father, his sister Eva, his brothers Rolf and Henry, Rolfs fiancee, Annette, and his own secretary-fiancee. The 18 custom-made suits in his closet made them uneasy, too. What, they wondered, was this guy train ing for, anyway, a prize fight or a honey moon? But in the third round of the big bat tle at Yankee Stadium, Ingemar let go his destructive right hand, and he convinced them. He convinced everyone. EVERYBODY knows now that Ingo's one round knockout of Eddie Machen more than a year ago was no fluke. They know, too, that his disqualification for "not fighting" in his 1952 Olympic bout with big Ed Sanders of the U. S. was a fluke. "We both wanted to counterpunch," Ingo says. "It was a very bad match." Of course, a lot of fight buffs think Patterson was simply overconfident the first time and was am bushed, and that hell scientifically chop Ingo to pieces if their return bout comes off as scheduled in late June. Ingo is untroubled. He doesn't like to talk about what he will do (Continued) Family Weekly, March 13, 1960 7
