Jake LaMotta's Curtain Call

Alan Feuer: Jake LaMotta was standing in his kitchen on the East Side of Manhattan the other day, wedged in front of his refrigerator, puffing on a Marlboro in the dark. He was blowing smoke out the window and tapping ash into a small bowl of water. LaMotta, 90, is the onetime middleweight champion of the world, a boxing Hall of Famer who retired with 30 knockouts; but his soon-to-be seventh wife, who is nearly 40 years his junior, will not let him smoke in his own apartment.