Raging Bull II Book Reviews

Raging Bull II by Chris Anderson, Sharon McGehee & Jake La Motta Book Summary

Chris Anderson & Sharon McGehee with Jake La Motta

Jake La Motta was a symbol of courage. As the Bronx Bull, hero of the slums and the man Marciano called the greatest fighter he’d ever seen, this sullen kid from the Bronx who rarely laughed or smiled and never talked unless he had to, survived by a simple code - "hit'em first and hit'em hard." He vowed he would make it in this world or die trying.  Jake La Motta is a man who refused to let the cheering stop.
If it is true that when God examines a man he looks not for medals but for scars, then La Motta, who in his sixty-odd years of survival has taken more hard knocks out of the ring than in, has more than earned the title Middle Weight Champion of the World, for which he sacrificed everything that makes most lives worth living.
Raging Bull II is a continuation of the Jake La Motta story. When Robert De Niro won an Academy Award playing Jake in a film made from the book, La Motta's life brightened as he shared the limelight with De Niro. Since then he has gone through fortunes, been wealthy and flat broke, and married again in addition to his first five marriages, which ended in divorces before, the film was produced. La Motta now lives with Theresa Miller, his sixth wife. In her he believes he has finally found a marital state that will endure for the balance of his life.
All of the conflicts, the fights and the terrors, which have been part and parcel of La Motta’s life, are in these pages. The book takes a sharp look at the real Raging Bull, both as the controversial ring gladiator and as the older, wiser philosophically entertaining performer he has become. In the ex-fighter's own words, "this time [he] has fought not to be a champion gladiator but to become a champion human being."

Chris Anderson and Sharon McGehee, a husband and wife team, have collaborated together as a writing-producing team since 1978. A veteran New Yorker and experienced producer and director of plays on and off Broadway, Mr. Anderson established the first outdoor theater in Central Park in 1957.
Ms. McGehee, a native of Pensacola, Florida, where she was a columnist for the Pensacola News Journal, received her master’s degree in education from Hunter College in 1980. She pursued a career in dance, choreography and dance therapy. Anderson and McGehee formed a production company in 1982 for the development of theatrical, film and TV properties.
Raging Bull II is their first book collaboration.
Jake La Motta is sui generis.

Jacket design by Tim Gaydos
Photo courtesy of St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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