On May 7, 1937, the entertainment page of The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the Loew's movie palace at Sixth and Grace Streets would add early morning and late-night showings of the blockbuster film “A Star is Born.” The 1937 Technicolor original, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, was wildly popular with audiences, and "A Star is Born" would be remade in 1954, 1976 and again in 2018.
There was another news item buried near the bottom of the entertainment page that day. It's only about four lines, and it's easy to overlook. It reports that hometown sports hero Joey Goodman, 27, a welterweight prizefighter recently ranked #6 in the world, was arrested after a street fight near Sixth and Franklin Streets in downtown Richmond. His sidewalk sparring partner was Harry Donovan, 28, a bootlegger who had recently launched a numbers syndicate in Richmond.
Details of the skirmish remained murky even after the case went to court. Like young men everywhere, each said the other started it. Harry reportedly was with his brother, Guy, and the Donovan brothers are described as the co-owners of a Chesterfield County nightclub recently destroyed by fire.
We learn that Harry suffered a broken nose in the fight, and Joey Goodman ultimately would be charged with felony assault. We also discover that Donovan conveniently skipped court the day Goodman was scheduled to be prosecuted: Harry sent a note from a doctor indicating he was still recuperating from his injuries.
In 1937, Goodman's name was a familiar one to regular readers of the sports pages of the Times-Dispatch. Two years earlier, Goodman had hung-up his boxing gloves at the age of 25.
SOURCE: BoxRec The Boxing Encyclopedia
By 1937, Donovan's name had appeared in print dozens of times, too -- mostly on the local crime page, and occasionally under the alias "Harry Dunnavant."
May 1929: Donovan is charged with acting as a decoy for bootlegger Jimmie Johnson, who was busted with 150 jars of whiskey in his car after a police chase through the city. Donovan was slightly injured when his vehicle crashed and overturned.
June, July and August 1930: Donovan racks-up three reckless driving charges in three consecutive months. Each is resolved by paying a ten-dollar fine.
April 1931: Donovan is arrested for street fighting, and later that fall he is busted for reckless driving and hit-and-run. Those charges will be dismissed.
April 1932: Donovan is charged with reckless driving, street-fighting and disorderly conduct -- all in the same day. It's not clear if the three charges stemmed from the same incident.
Summer 1934: Donovan is arrested after a near riot breaks out at a free beer party he was cohosting at a Black-owned nightclub in Henrico County's Washington Park. Charges are later dropped.
Spring 1936: Donovan is among nearly 60 people arrested in a citywide sweep of gambling parlors and numbers operators. He'll skate on the gambling charges, but gets jacked-up by the IRS over unpaid taxes.
Years later, when the Richmond News Leader had reason to recount Donovan's dozens of run-ins with police, the article appeared under the headline "Donovan's Tilts with the Law: Strange Immunity Enjoyed Over Period of Years.”
All of which brings us back to that street fight in May 1937. What could have provoked a sidewalk dispute between the former prize fighter and the future numbers kingpin?
It turns out Joey Goodman had his own connection to the Richmond gambling underworld. The previous fall, shortly after retiring from professional boxing, Goodman was arraigned in Richmond police court on charges of writing numbers for a syndicate that apparently competed with Donovan's start-up operation.
The takeaway, then, might be this: it is never a good idea to trash-talk a criminal rival -- especially a former welter weight boxer with a 98-14 record, including 26 KOs.
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