Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 6, 1993 TAG: 9311060152
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TORONTO LENGTH: Medium
The former Canadian heavyweight boxing champion's 30-year-old son, George Jr., died of a heroin overdose earlier this week.
On Thursday, Chuvalo's wife, Lynne, died of an overdose of sleeping pills. Police said there "are no suspicious circumstances" surrounding the 50-year-old woman's death.
"She'd been depressed over the death of her son," said Det. Randy Hatherly of the Toronto police.
Despite police confirmation that Lynne Chuvalo's death was a suicide, an autopsy will be performed, said coroner James Young. It could take two months to complete toxicology tests.
A haggard-looking George Chuvalo said Friday he was devastated by his wife's death.
"I loved her like crazy," he told CBC-TV. "She was crackerjack smart, she had a great heart, [she was] the best grandmother in the world.
"I'm just coping hour by hour," said Chuvalo, 55.
He found his wife's body on their bed Thursday afternoon. He spoke to his former manager on Friday.
"He thought she was just sleeping when he checked on her at noon," Irving Ungerman said Friday from Hollywood, Fla. "He knew she was depressed, but he had no idea she took something the night before."
The two deaths are the latest in a string of tragedies to hit the Chuvalo family.
George Jr. and his brother Steven, 32, were released from prison recently after serving time for armed robberies of pharmacies in Toronto. In 1985, Chuvalo's youngest son, Jesse, killed himself with a gun in the family's home. He was 20.
George and Lynne both came from lower-middle class families in Toronto. They married when she was 15 and he was 18.
By 16, she had given birth to a son, Mitchell, the first of five children born in seven years.
George Chuvalo was known as a boxer who took 10 punches to land one and Lynne hated to watch her husband fight. But she said she couldn't stay at home when he was in the ring.
In 1970, he blamed her for his loss to George Foreman when she ran to the edge of the ring, screaming for the referee to stop the fight as he absorbed a beating.
Chuvalo was the Canadian heavyweight champion in the 1960s and faced Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Foreman. He lost to all three, but he never was knocked down in 96 fights.
He retired in 1979 and the family often struggled after that, said Mort Greenberg, a family friend.
Greenberg said he spoke to Lynne before her death and the former hospital technician was worried about losing their heavily mortgaged home, "the one prize that was left."
"She begged me to come to grieve with the family, but I chose not to because I couldn't add anything but extra misery," Greenberg said.
"She was the backbone of that family," said Greenberg, a former CBC cameraman who met the Chuvalos in 1963. "She held everything in place until the effort just overcame her."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB