“THE stuff we deal in is life and death,” Joe Frazier said, long after he had stopped smokin’ and accepted that there would be no phoenix rising from the ashes. “I got my brain shook, my money took and my name in the undertaker’s book.” This is the hurting business, rhyme without reason.

It is why boxing remains so fascinating for drama junkies and incurable romantics alike and why Hollywood has decided to commit the story of James J. Braddock to film. The Cinderella Man, due out next March, was the tag given to Braddock by Damon Runyon, that legendary chronicler of New York life.

It has a plot so over the top it makes Rocky look like reality TV. The difference is that Braddock really was a washed-up welfare man who became the hero of Depression-era America by providing one of the greatest shocks in the history of heavyweight boxing. Later this month his family and fans will gather to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.

Joseph Mallon was in the Long Island City Bowl that night in June, 1935 to watch Uncle Jimmy take on Max Baer, the maverick world champion who had a fleet of Cadillacs and boasted of lighting elephantine cigars with thousand dollar bills. Mallon is the last surviving family member to have witnessed what was described at the time as a “fistic sensation” and is amused by the prospect of Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger playing his aunt and uncle.

“I was at the championship fight and I’m 86 now, so you can guess where most of the others are,” the resident of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, said. “

What a night! Uncle Jimmy used to train in a gym in west New York. He had a dressing-room in a bar and I’d go there before each fight and pin a medal on his stockings. Nobody gave him a prayer against Baer. He was a 10-1 shot and they called him a bum.”

Braddock’s rise, fall and rise is a heartwarming story in an age when boxing has a dearth of real heroes. He had been a promising light-heavyweight until overwhelmed by Tommy Loughran in a world title bout. He lost four of his next five contests and descended to the ranks of journeyman plodder, complete with broken ribs, fractured collarbone and a squat, bulbous nose that resembled a melted candle.

He lost money in the stock market crash of 1929, twice broke his right hand and then quit boxing to become a stevedore to support his wife, Mae, and their three children. As the Depression deepened, he lost his job and the family survived on welfare of $24 a month. “His kids came to live with us for a while because he couldn’t afford to keep them,” Mallon recalled. “It was tough. He never had a decent job, but the good thing about working on the docks was it strengthened his injured hand.” Joe Gould, his Runyonesque manager, proved his salvation. When Braddock’s gas was cut off, Gould begged and borrowed to get him on the undercard of Baer’s title bout with Primo Carnera, the freakish giant.

That convincing victory over Corn Griffin for a less than impressive $200 purse paved the way to the Baer pit.

In the six years since the Loughran contest, Braddock had lost 18 of his 36 bouts, but now he had a shot at the title and he was desperate.

“I’ve got a picture taken at the fight with the family and my uncle,” Mallon said. “I treasure that. At one point, when he got hit by Baer, my grandfather was all for getting in the ring himself. He was on welfare when he won the title, but he made sure he paid it all back. He was an honourable guy.

“Afterwards it went mad. People were trying to pull his hair as he went back to the dressing-room and they were blowing their horns outside. A lot of people made money out of him and he became a hero. He had a bar in Times Square for a while, but people would drink for free, so that didn’t last long. He never was a good businessman.”

Baer dabbled in acting, but Braddock was happiest at home. “I only heard of him using his status once,” Mallon said. “He had a buddy who’d got in some trouble and was locked up in the Ohio State Penitentiary. My uncle went to see the governor. A little later his buddy got out.”

For a nation in the throes of an economic crisis, the Braddock story was a salutary one. The son of Irish immigrants had beaten the hard times to a bloody pulp. Hollywood may well end the story there, but that would do a disservice to Braddock’s place in history. Two years later, he lost his first defence to an up-and-coming fighter named Joe Louis, who would go on to become an iconic legend and a totem for cultural change.

“The Louis fight was in Chicago and I couldn’t get time off,” Mallon said. “I remember lying on the floor at home listening to the wireless. My uncle had him down early on, but when Louis knocked him out he said he could have stayed down for three weeks. I met Louis, I met them all, a nice, unassuming guy. My uncle liked him a lot. There won’t ever be another like Joe.”

Mallon revealed that Braddock, who weighed 17lb at birth and died on November 29, 1974, was suffering from an arthritic left arm when he fought Louis and needed pre-bout injections. However, the 23 stitches Braddock needed in his face and the tooth that had been driven through his gum-shield and into his lip were testament to Louis’s power. “It’s like someone jammed a light-bulb in your face and busted it”, was Braddock ’s description.

More pithy still was Joe Bugner’s description of Crowe as “a gutless worm and f*****g girl” after he was dropped as an expert adviser on the Braddock biopic. Throw in a dislocated shoulder for the leading man and a change of director and it appears that the film has been no fairytale. As for the Cinderella Man, himself, a remarkable deal that netted him 10 per cent of Louis’s earnings for the next decade meant he really did live happily ever after.