Also known as The Bearded Wrestler
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The Bearded Wrestler
The Bearded Wrestler was something of an enigma for us for years. No mask to conceal his identity, but who was he? He certainly wasn’t the Bearded Monarch Ken Davies, and there were other wrestlers sporting beards. A breakthough came when Ron Historyo found a poster that not only named him but gave a bigger clue, “The famous portrait artist.” Really? Well, yes, really.
We wouldn’t be so bold to state that this was the only use of the nom de plume Bearded Wrestler, there are no certainties in professional wrestling. Indeed, when Australian Willy Clarkson wrestled in Britain in 1934 he too was described as the Bearded Wrestler, and from around 1938 Pat Magee was described as Antrim’s Bearded Wrestler. But we certainly have enough instances to say that Patrick O’Connor was at times The Bearded Wrestler of the 1930s.
Patrick O’Connor had quite a story to tell.With Irish heritage he was born in Paris on 7th May, 1909, the youngest son of a Andrew O’Connor, a sculptor, and his wife Jesse. This birth date would place him in his mid twenties when he started wrestling the likes of Jack Pye, Douglas Clark and Francis St Clair Gregory.
Patrick’s parents were both of Irish birth, and had moved to Paris in 1905. It was said that Patrick had little formal education. With the outbreak of war in 1914 they were on the move again, this time to Massachusetts in the United States. Patrick was taught painting and sculpture by his father in his own study.
With the resumption of peace the family returned to Paris in 1926, where Patrick developed as an accomplished artist in his own right with his own exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Français and exhibitions of his work in Ireland. A collector of paintings he was a respected and successful dealer.
None of this sounds like the background of a professional wrestler. But in the case of Patrick O’Connor it was. Flitting between Great Britain, Ireland, France and the USA in the 1930s to develop his art career was a very expensive business. With both sides of the Atlantic enduring an economic depression during the 1930s it was a difficult time to sell paintings. Patrick O’Connor turned to his other talents to benefit from a parallel career. He excelled in quite a few sports, swimming, boxing and wrestling amongst them. As a professional boxer in the United States he challenged World Heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Maybe it was no more than a stunt with little chance of the challenge being accepted, but it was a challenge he performed with some flair, even having posters printed for the contest.
Our earliest finding for Patrick wrestling in Britain came in 1934, when he wrestled and lost to another artist, sculptor and wrestler Sam Rabin. The two were to meet many times. They certainly wouldn’t be short of anything to talk about in the dressing room. O’Connor was a well built powerful man who wrestled many opponents of note with wins reported over Sam Rabin, Stan Roberts and Phil “Black Arrow” Siki. In a ten round draw against Dave Armstrong he was reported to have been an accomplished wrestler whose tactics did not meet with the approval of the crowd.
It wasn’t just in Britain. He wrestled professionally in Ireland, the United States and France, where in Marseilles he offered a thousand francs to any of the dockers and seamen who could defeat him in combat.
When transatlantic traffic resumed in March 1946 one of the passengers on the first voyage of the Gripsholm liner was Patrick O’Connor, who disembarked at Cork to settle in Ireland. In October 1955 he was appointed Curator of the Dublin Municipal Art Gallery.
Following the death of his wife in 1963 Patrick O’Connor returned to live in London. He died on 27th April, 1997, whilst holidaying in Florida.
Page added 14/04/2024
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