Remembering when the stars came out in Atlantic City

By Chuck Darrow

For those who follow boxing, June 27, 1988 will always be remembered as the day Mike Tyson became, well, Mike Tyson.

Prior to that night, the then-three-days-shy-of-his-22nd-birthday heavyweight was already an established giant of the “sweet science.” As he stepped into the ring at what was then called Convention Hall (now James Whelan Boardwalk Hall), Tyson already held the heavyweight titles bestowed by the sport’s three sanctioning bodies—the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation. But because his opponent, Michael Spinks, had been declared the number-one heavyweight by The Ring magazine—then generally acknowledged as the boxing “bible”– a showdown was inevitable.

So, the sport’s premiere promoter, Don King, teamed with Donald Trump and his Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino to stage an event that was dubbed “Once and For All.”

The smart money had the fight being a classic knock-down, drag-out affair. But Tyson confounded those expectations by knocking out Spinks two-thirds through the first round (131 seconds into it, to be exact). That display of pure power began Tyson’s reign as the undisputed monarch of the boxing universe, and arguably made the contest the most memorable bout in the sport’s local history—and one of the landmark bouts in all of boxing history.

But from a pop-culture standpoint, the most-unforgettable action took place not inside Convention Hall, but a few hours earlier next door at Trump Plaza. That’s where the future president of the United States hosted a once-in-a-lifetime, pre-fight party that was packed with a staggering number of the biggest celebrities of that era.

How star-studded was the raveup held in the casino’s main ballroom? Let’s put it this way: Normally, had A-listers like powerhouse comics Milton Berle, Jackie Mason and Billy Crystal had been in this kind of situation, they would have been swarmed by those in attendance. But on this evening, they were barely noticed. Neither were movie “Brat Packer” Judd Nelson and TV star Robin Givens (who, besides being a cast member of the then-popular sitcom, “Head Of the Class,” was, at the time, Mrs. Mike Tyson). I still can see Nelson standing by himself sipping a drink with no one anywhere near him and people walking right past him to get to another, more-famous face.

Givens and Nelson were overshadowed by far, far bigger names, including Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Paul Simon and Barbara Streisand with then-boyfriend Don Johnson (they’d be in Splitsville by summer’s end), as well as CNN talk-show megastar Larry King—then at the zenith of his fame and influence–and zillion-selling horror author Stephen King.

Almost unbelievably, even those bold-facers weren’t the brightest stars in that evening’s firmament:

Those of us who were there were likely convinced things couldn’t get any more glittering. But about half-way through the festivities, Sean Penn (eight years away from the first of his five Best Actor Oscars, but still a major movie star) and his then-bride, Madonna—who together at that moment comprised celebritydom’s absolute “It” couple–entered the room. This sent the paparazzi in attendance into a feeding frenzy. Perhaps my most vivid memory of the evening is of the couple—who it was later learned, had no idea the media was invited–never breaking stride as they made their way, escorted by several hulking security types, from the ballroom entrance, along the room’s right-side wall and into the kitchen in order to effect their escape from the madness they generated.

That brief, but dramatic, appearance should have been the party’s end-all and be-all. But, as they say in infomercials, “Wait! There’s more!”

Shortly after Penn and Madonna beat their extremely hasty retreat, they were actually upstaged by another (at least for that evening) couple. Rev. Jesse Jackson, then campaigning for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, arrived, but he was far from alone. Accompanying him were several network news crews, a phalanx of Secret Service agents and Oprah Winfrey.