{"id":13007,"date":"2017-09-20T20:34:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T20:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/09\/20\/jake-lamotta-boxer-of-raging-bull-fame-dies-at-95\/"},"modified":"2017-09-20T20:34:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T20:34:04","slug":"jake-lamotta-boxer-of-raging-bull-fame-dies-at-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/jake-lamotta-boxer-of-raging-bull-fame-dies-at-95\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake LaMotta, Boxer Of 'Raging Bull' Fame, Dies At 95"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Camila Domonoske<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Former world middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta attends a dinner in New York City in 2012. LaMotta has died at 95.<\/p>\n

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Jason Kempin\/Getty Images for The Buoniconti Fund To Cure Paralysis<\/p>\n

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Jason Kempin\/Getty Images for The Buoniconti Fund To Cure Paralysis<\/p>\n

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Boxer Jake LaMotta, the former world middleweight champion and the inspiration for the movie Raging Bull, <\/em>has died at age 95. His longtime partner Denise Baker told NPR that LaMotta died Tuesday from complications of pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Raging Bull<\/em>, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, won an Oscar for De Niro and is now regarded as a modern classic. It vividly depicts LaMotta’s struggles in his career, as well as some of the domestic violence that the boxer has admitted to perpetrating.<\/p>\n

In his autobiography, which inspired the film, LaMotta describes beating his wives and raping another woman.<\/p>\n

In the ring, his fury was an asset. His career was also marked by endurance, as he submitted to extraordinary physical punishment and suffering.<\/p>\n

“LaMotta says he was born angry,” NPR’s Tom Goldman reported in 1997. “He grew up in poverty on New York’s Lower East Side. He started fighting when he was 8 years old, fighting for pennies and nickels and dimes the old Italian men in the neighborhood would give to the winner.”<\/p>\n