http://blogs.canoe.ca/gregoliver/wrestling/the-elusive-ricki-starr/
The elusive Ricki Starr
It took us about five years to complete The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: Heroes and Icons, and we spent every bit of it working on Ricki Starr. Starr was a sensation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a lithe little wriggler who incorporated ballet-style moves into his repertoire. A delight to watch, he parlayed his fame into something of a crossover career as a recording artist and bit actor. Here’s British announcer Kent Walton:
You could almost imagine Ricki is on some opera-house stage holding aloft a seven-stone-six-swam-necked ballerina instead of a fifteen-stone massively muscled Pole. At the end of the spin Starr doesn’t so much dump his now dazed opponent as gently lay him out like a considerate undertaker. The crowd are silent for a moment. Then they lift the roof off.
Ricki Starr
My personal collection includes a brochure signed to Buffalo publicist Earle F. Yetter, with whom he worked; the piece contains sample articles for placement in the women’s or features sections of newspapers.
Starr, or Bernard Herman, went to England in 1963, more or less never came back, and has been reclusive for decades. He’s in his 80s now. We made great headway into his existence and got a lot of material to some of his relatives who still live near St. Louis, where he was raised. No spoilers here: you’ll have to check out the book to learn why Ricki broke off contact with his past, and his family, for that matter. But I still think the profile is one of the strongest in the book. We drew on the detailed recollections of one of his friends and fellow dancers of 60 years ago, and a lot of intimate letters he wrote to Jack Pfefer, his booking agent. In fact, those probably provide a more candid look at Starr than he’d provide in an interview. You wonder if he was saying as much in a Wrestling World interview in 1967:
There is something lacking in my makeup that prevents me from winning true and lasting friendships. I guess I sub-consciously feel that I have a hard enough time getting on with myself without inflicting ‘me’ on others.
Still, just the same, I have my list of questions by my phone, in case Ricki calls back.
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