Book Ade Makinde and he will enthrall your listeners with a tale which
is already capturing the imagination of Hollywood producers; one possessing the
raw components of Rocky meets Raging Bull on
the Mean Streets of Jersey City.
The story of hard punching Frankie DePaula, one of the American Dream
gone awry, is a true-life cocktail of corruption, betrayal, hubris and murder
set against the backdrop of the sport of boxing and the world of the Mafia in
the 1960s.
It is a gritty retelling of the world epitomised by the ‘Soprano
State’ culture bedevilling contemporary New Jersey; a world inhabited by a charismatic but flawed figure who was close friends with both
Frankie Valli and Joe Namath, and counted Frank Sinatra among his fans.
Ade will reveal to your audience what he discovered from long-buried
government documents as well as the testimonies of first hand witnesses to
uncover the murky goings-on in the ‘Dead End’ culture of Jersey City
- The death of his manager in
circumstances which point to a Mob orchestrated plan to gain control of
Frankie’s drawing power
- suspicions that he threw a
world title bout at the behest of the Mob
- his involvement in Mob
sponsored endeavours and how suspicions that he was an FBI informant and
- his dalliance with the
daughter of a high-ranking member of the Genovese family led to his
execution-style shooting in an alleyway in Jersey City
Part historical chronicle and part expose, it is a story that will shock
as well as inform and entertain listeners.
CREDENTIALS: Adeyinka Makinde trained as a barrister and is a
lecturer in law. Based in England, he has served as a programme consultant and
provided expert commentary for BBC World Service Radio. He wrote the well-reviewed
biography, Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal,
which was published in 2005.
AVAILABILITY: Nationwide by telephone & New York City by arrangement
CONTACT: Jed Dimatteo, Ade's US Representative (201-309-0021) and
thelawacademy@aol.com
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