ory Phoenix Files BY DOUGLAS TOWNE

To MY D E M A H C OS L I rI IG BOOM COCKTAILS

Tony DeMarco at his lounge, circa 1970. The hot real estate spot is now a U-Haul locatiorl»

ESSING WITH THE bartender photographs of him posing with luminaries like Ted is seldom a good idea, but it's Williams and Tony Bennett. Other sporting celebs of Punch especially inadvisable when the the day also frequented the loxmge, but the main draw guy mixing cocktails was an illus• was DeMarco. trious prizefighter-with a legend• Eventually, the fighter's retirement garden of Drunk Mary left hook. Not that renowned welterweight Tony drink and song went fallow. DeMarco survived innu• DeMarco ever used it at the Living Room Lounge, merable blows in the ring, but it took a family trag• Tony DeMarco's his now-defunct Phoenix piano bar. Known for his edy to knock the wind out of him and put his lauded fame as a friendliness and charm, DeMarco spent 15 years en• lounge down for the count. Today, a U-Haul occupies former world suring his nightclub hved up to its motto, "Where his former lounge space, on a street comer that's eyed champ Good People Meet." hungrily by developers and restaurateiu^ - something made his lounge "The bar never had any major fights, just a few DeMarco says he foresaw. For all his pugilistic gusto, on Camelback heated ailments," says the fighter, now 8i and liv• he was a savvy businessman, and had a few breaks Road a thriving ing back in his hometown of . "I think my world gone his way, he might still be pouring drinks at the hangout in the championship welterweight belt displayed behind the Living Room today. 1970s. cash register cooled off" any explosive situations." DeMarco was bom Leonardo Liotta - or "Nar- Opening the lounge in 1968 on the southeast do" - in 1932,, to a blue-collar Italian family in Bos• comer of Camelback Road and 40th Street, DeMarco ton. He discovered his pugilistic passion as a youth capitalized on his fighting fame and celebrity con• on a visit to the local boys club. By age 15, his talent nections to promote the business. Musicians per• had outgrown the club boxing circuit. Not content to formed nightly, usually on piano, with customers of• wait three years to meet the age requirement for an ten crooning along. The interior was decorated with amateur license, he jump-started his fighting career DeMarco's spectacular world championship belt and by borrowing the baptismal record of his older fiiend,

45 JANUARY 2014 Phoenix Magazine Phoenix Files History Tough Hooker

ACK WHEN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING WAS CONSIDERED MORE B sport than theatrics, the man to beat was six-tinne world champion Lou Thesz. A strong, lightning-quick athlete who learned wrestling from his Hungarian father, Thesz made his professional debut as a teenager in St. Louis in 1932. Five years later, he became world champion and was famous for "hooking," or stretching his opponent with painful holds. Sensing the sport's evolution, he tweaked his grappling style for televi• sion but kept his dignity. "My gimmick is wrestling," Thesz wrote in his autobiography. Hooker. • Thesz moved to Phoenix in 1961 after purchasing the six-acre Casa Siesta Lodge on 36th Street north of Camelback Road. He ran the resort with his wife, Fredda, and also started a local company, Champion Car• pets. "Lou lived close by and would stop in from time to time to see me at [my] lounge," boxer Tony DeMar• co recalls. "He was very congenial and a popular guy in town." Thesz occasionally grappled with oppo• nents at Madison Square Garden in Downtown Phoenix, but usually traveled the world capitalizing on his wrestling fame to earn bigger pay• checks. The wrestling legend took the mat for the last time in 1990 at age 74, and died in Florida in 2002. Lou Ambers. Lou Thesz and _ ^^^^^ Tony DeMarco in April 1970

Tony DeMarco. Sporting a new^ name, DeMar• Corridor - now home to The Grind, North Ital• the Playboy Club," DeMarco recalls. "After co triumphantly entered the amateur ranks by ian Farmhouse and other hot spots - was just each of his Playboy Club show^. King came to scoring a second-roimd . starting to warm up; DeMarco's bar neigh• perform at the Living Room Lounge. People His professional debut came in 1948, with bored a gas station, a barber shop, an animal flocked in to see him and it really helped get a first-round knockout of Meteor Jones before clinic, a Basldn-Robbins, and the Hitching the place over a rough spot." 8,000 fans at the Boston Garden. He buUt a Post Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge. De- Tragedy struck in 1975 when DeMarco's 45-6 record before taking on titleholder John• Marco says the location was the main reason son Vincent, then 14, died after being hit ny Saxton on April 1,1955, at the Boston Gar• he bought the lounge. "I had plans to develop by a car. It was a devastating blow that flat• den. DeMarco recalled that night in phone in• the place into a sophisticated nightspot, not tened the former titleholder. "The reason we terview?; with PHOENIX magazine, describing as glamorous as what you might experience in moved to Phoenix was to help my son's asth• his expectations in a gravelly voice thick with Las Vegas, but it would be a classy local lounge ma, but we still considered Boston home," a Boston accent. "The pressure was unbeUev- with live music," he wrote in his 20u autobi• DeMarco says. "Business was down at the able, but I honestly felt in my head that I would ography, Nardo: Memoirs of a Boxing Champion. lounge and I had only about three more not be denied." And he wasn't - DeMarco won Buzz about the champ's lair spread and the years on my lease." with a 14th roimd technical knockout (TKO) bar attracted stars like country singer Charley DeMarco sold The Living Room in 1982. and was honored with a parade in Boston, Pride. "We had a lot of regulars; a few couples and moved back to Boston to become an offi• presented with a personalized "TKO" Massa• who met there even went on to get married," cer for the House of Represen• chusetts license plate, and appeared on The Ed DeMarco boasts. tatives. He retired in 1998. The former champ Sullivan Show. But in his first title defense, in The bar also turned into a Beantowner was honored in Boston with a street renamed Jime 1955, DeMarco lost to in hangout. Boston Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn for him and a statue. A bit of the champ, how• a i2Xh roimd TKO. A rematch six months later, and announcer Johnny Most stopped by when ever, remains here. While developers - includ• which The Ring magazine named the "fight of their team was in Phoenix. Tony ConigUaro, ing dining impresario Sam Fox - have futUely the year," resulted in another tough defeat. a star for the Boston Red Sox, came by the tried to wrest control of the property fi-om DeMarco continued to fight, but was never lounge to sing. "If he had not chosen baseball, U-Haul, the current occupant pays tribute to able to regain the championship, hindered in he could have had a career in show business as the pugilistic pioneer who preceded them. part by hypoglycemia. He retired in 1962 with a lounge singer," DeMarco claims. The west-facing wall of the store is adorned a record of 58-L2-1. "The desire was gone; it Business abruptly dropped off, however, with a colossal image of DeMarco in his box• was time to move on," DeMarco says. when nearby road construction made it diffi• ing prime. "My wife, Dottie, and I were visiting He moved to Phoenix in 1963 to relieve cult for barflies to reach the nightclub. That's Phoenix a few years ago and saw it, much to his son Vincent's asthma, and purchased the when DeMarco's fiiend helped out. "Sonny our amazement," DeMarco says. "U-Haul nev• struggling Silver Poodle Cocktail Loimge in King, who once was Jimmy Durante's partner, er contacted me about it. I was really touched Arcadia in 1968. At the time, the Camelback visited fi'om Las Vegas for an engagement at by the gesture."

Phoenix Magazine JANUARY 2014 47