What ever happened to the ...
Johnny Barnes takes it on the chin from Robert De Niro in Raging Bull.
Question: What ever happened to the actor who played Sugar Ray Robinson in Raging Bull? I looked him up on IMDb, but he only had a few credits, and Raging Bull was the last.
Answer: Johnny Barnes, who was briefly a professional middleweight boxer after a promising amateur career in the late '60s and early '70s, turned to acting after retiring from the ring. His short-lived career was blighted by drug use, and he spent time in jail for dealing. Barnes only won significant roles — that is, parts for which he received credit — in four films, including a 1977 made-for-TV movie called Stakeout on Cherry Street. Raging Bull (1980) was the undisputed highlight of his career. The fact that he resembled the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson and had been a boxer helped him land the role. But Barnes, now 64 and living a Spartan life in New York City, says he's appeared in more than 100 pictures in bit parts; there's no real way to confirm his claim because bit players aren't generally credited. Barnes says optimistically that he hopes to act again in the future but hasn't worked since 1993 and lives on disability payments — he suffers from clinical depression. I would never have been able to answer this question had Barnes not been written about in the New York Times Neediest Cases, an ongoing series that spotlights ordinary New Yorkers who've received modest charitable grants from a fund supported by Times readers. Barnes is the only even vaguely famous person I've ever seen profiled in the series.
