Allen LaCombe

Allen "Black Cat" LaCombe​ (Colorful New Orleans sports promoter and politician)​
Born	January 15, 1919​ Echo, Rapides Parish Louisiana​
Died	July 18, 1989 (aged 70)​ New Orleans, Louisiana Resting place: ​ St. Patrick's Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans​ Parents: Camille and Clementine Charrier LaCombe
Political Party	Democrat​

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Allen George LaCombe, known as Black Cat LaCombe (January 15, 1919 – July 18, 1989), was an eccentric sports promoter, racetrack figure, and politician from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Background

Lacombe was born to a French-American couple, Camille LaCombe (1888-1954) and the former Clementine Charrier (1890-1968), in the rural unincoporated community of Echo in Rapides Parish, some twenty miles south of the parish seat of Alexandria. As an infant, he moved with his family to the Irish Channel section of New Orleans, where he attended St. Michael's School and St. Aloysius High School. He joked that he had received "college training" at the Press Lounge, a bar on Poydras Street popularly known as Raymond's Beach. He promoted fights, first at the age of thirteen when responding to a dare from a girl. He had already been betting on horses for three years despite not being old enough to place the bets legally. He said that he was addicted to gambling after he won $1.40 on his first bet. His first full-scale sports promotion was the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl, in which rival sandlot football teams in Irish Channel competed. The event soon moved to City Park Stadium and drew 15,000 or more spectators.

In 1942, LaCombe was drafted into the United States Army and staged military boxing matches in Iran. The Shah reportedly sparred with LaCombe's boxers, LaCombe also hunted gazelles with King Farouk of Egypt and staged a camel race among the ancient pyramids.

Political activities

In 1959, LaCombe campaigned for governor of Louisiana by hitchhiking across the state. In a crowded field including former Governor James A. Noe and former Lieutenant Governor Bill Dodd, and state Senator William Rainach. In his campaign, LaCombe predicted that he would win in the community of Echo, in which most of the inhabitants were his relatives and estimated that he would poll about three thousand votes by mistake because his name appeared on the Democratic primary ballot between Jimmie Davis, who ultimately won his second nonconsecutive term as governor, and then New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, Sr., who had also run in 1956, losing to Earl Kemp Long, and would do so again in 1963–64, when he was defeated by John J. McKeithen. Lacombe finished with 4,917 votes.

In 1962, while drawing unemployment compensation, LaCombe ran unsuccessfully for mayor when Morrison stepped down and was succeeded by Victor Schiro, the last conservative mayor of New Orleans. In 1969, LaCombe managed the mayoral campaign of Rodney Fertel (1921-2003), a Jewish real estate owner who had inherited his fortune from a maternal grandmother. The eccentric Fertel, a devotee of animals and zoos, ran as “the gorilla man," announced his candidacy in a gorilla suit, and used the comical slogan, “Don’t settle for a monkey. Elect Fertel and get a gorilla.” Fertel polled only 310 votes but later donated two gorillas that he acquired in Singapore to the Audubon Zoo. Victory went to Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu, who went on to defeat later Lieutenant Governor Jimmy Fitzmorris and then in the 1970 general election the Republican Ben C. Toledano, the only member of his party to wage a serious bid for mayor of New Orleans since Reconstruction. Fertel was the former husband of Ruth Ann Udstad Fertel (1927-2002), who established the high-end restaurant chain, Ruth's Chris Steak House.

LaCombe promoted several special events during the 1960s, including a benefit concert at the Municipal Auditorium in 1965 to raise funds for the victims of Hurricane Betsy. The concert starred Eddie Fisher (1926-2010), Mel Tormé (1925-1999), Bobby Vinton (born 1935), and Loretta Young (1913-2000). In the 1960s, LaCombe was named public information spokesman for the New Orleans Fair Grounds race track, a position that he held into the late 1980s, He claimed that he was “so busy and so happy” that he never thought about retirement. LaCombe taught a course on handicapping at Tulane University and was known for his many lost bets and incorrect predictions. He hence acquired the nickname, "Black Cat."

Death

Upon his death in New Orleans at the age of seventy, a hearse drove Lacombe's body around the track of the Fair Grounds one last time before interment at St. Patrick's Cemetery, No. 1.

References

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