Broadway Joe makes a Super subject - Ingles

The first Super Bowl was played in 1967. But the event truly began in 1969 when a charismatic quarterback from Beaver Falls, Pa., (via the University of Alabama) named Joe Namath put the event on the map. After guaranteeing a win, Namath’s New York Jets upset the 17-point favourite Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III to seal the National Football League-American Football League merger and to make the Super Bowl the most powerful television property in America.
This article was written by Bruce Dowbiggin and appeared in the Globe and Mail.

Before Tom Brady and before Tim Tebow, there was Namath, the first football player to wear both white shoes and pantyhose. Joe Willie. Broadway Joe. As the Super Bowl looms next Sunday, HBO has created a superb documentary on the first football player who loved the lens – and whom the lens loved back.

Namath: Beaver Falls to Broadway documents the bittersweet life and times of the athlete who transcended his sport to become a media superstar in the 1960s and a YouTube punchline decades later. Other jocks had tried (and failed) before to look comfortable in front of the camera, but Namath was the first to own it, doing movies, TV commercials and living large in New York with a twinkle in his eye and a beauty on his arm. He effortlessly mixed with Truman Capote, Ann Margaret, Howard Cosell and Bear Bryant.

In later years, when drinking and depression got the better of him, Namath also provided one of the most cringe-worthy TV interviews of all time on Monday Night Football – and that’s in the HBO film, too. Namath had drunkenly slurred, “I want to kiss you” to interviewer Suzy Kolber. Kolber talks about it for the first time, and Namath owns the moment, talking about his battle with booze.

The HBO doc shows Namath, as charming now as he was in his heyday, a 68-year-old rascal grandfather seated in his southern Florida home, spinning stories. “I liked my ladies blonde and my scotch red.”

Whether embracing his playboy image or the litany of injuries that curtailed a brilliant career, Namath is honest, engaging and occasionally profound viewing. We “guarantee” you’ll enjoy it.

This article was written by Bruce Dowbiggin and appeared in the Globe and Mail.