Liston, Sonny (8 May 1932-30 Dec. 1970), heavyweight boxer, was born Charles Liston in St. Francis County, Arkansas, the ninth of ten children of Tobe Liston, a sharecropper, and Helen Baskin. He received almost no formal education, working on his father's farm until he was thirteen years old. In later years, he claimed that his father worked him hard and whipped and verbally degraded him almost daily. His mother left the farm after a crop failure, going to St. Louis, Missouri, during the Second World War, and young Liston followed her there in 1945.

Liston grew up on the streets of St. Louis without supervision. Although he sometimes held legitimate jobs, mainly on construction gangs, he was frequently in trouble. At age sixteen he was arrested for breaking and entering but given probation. By 1950 he had been arrested six times for muggings, and he finally received a sentence of five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary after being convicted on two counts each of robbery and larceny.

Liston started boxing while in the penitentiary, through the encouragement of the prison chaplain, Father Alois Stevens. During this time he received the nickname "Sonny" from a fellow inmate. At 6' 1" and 200 pounds, the broad-shouldered and powerful Liston improved rapidly. Before Liston was paroled on 30 October 1952, Father Stevens contacted Robert Burnes, sports editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat; Burnes found a trainer for Liston in Monroe Harrison, a former sparring partner to Joe Louis. Lacking money, Harrison secured a manager for Liston, Frank Mitchell, and together they launched him on a brief but highly successful amateur career. He won several amateur titles, including the 1953 Midwestern Golden Gloves heavyweight championship in Chicago, but lost for the first time in the National American Athletic Union tournament in Boston.

On 2 September 1953 Liston started his professional boxing career, winning his first five fights in St. Louis. In 1954 he went to Detroit for a series of fights and sustained his first loss to Marty Marshall, who broke Liston's jaw and outpointed him. Returning to action in March 1955, he won all six of his fights that year, including a knockout of Marshall, and in March 1956 he defeated Marshall again. During this period, Liston became involved with John Vitale, who had an extensive criminal record and connections to organized crime. Vitale used Liston as a labor "enforcer" and acquired a managerial interest in him.

On the night of 6 May 1956 Liston was involved in an incident that led to his being convicted of assaulting a police officer. In January 1957 he was sentenced to nine months in the city workhouse. Upon leaving prison, Liston was sent by Mitchell to Chicago to continue his career. There he won several fights, including two that were broadcast on national television. He also attracted the attention of Frank "Blinky" Palermo, a Mafia figure with a long police record and an interest in boxing. Palermo, who knew Vitale, selected a new manager for Liston, whose career then began to advance rapidly. Whereas previously he had difficulty in getting highly rated opponents, he became quickly matched with a succession of contenders. In 1959 he knocked out Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams, and Nino Valdes; and in 1960 he knocked out Williams again, Zora Folley, and Roy Harris, and he defeated Eddie Machen. By 1961 he was undisputably the leading contender for the heavyweight championship, held by Floyd Patterson.

In boxing style, Liston somewhat resembled Joe Louis, possessing an equally powerful left jab and left hook but a less forceful right hand. Powerfully built, he appeared to be a ponderous plodder, but in the ring he delivered blows with surprising quickness and was faster afoot than many other heavyweights. He attacked relentlessly and rarely seemed troubled by the hardest blows of his adversaries.

Patterson's manager, Cus D'Amato, was not eager to accept Liston as an opponent. He cited Liston's criminal record and his shady managerial connections as factors that should disqualify him from fighting for the championship. Indeed, Liston had been called to testify before the Kefauver Committee in the U.S. Senate, which investigated the connections between organized crime and boxing. Moreover, the New York State Boxing Commission refused to give Liston a license to fight in that state. But Liston finally acquired respectable new managers and taunted Patterson into accepting him as an opponent.

Liston met Patterson twice for the heavyweight championship, on 25 September 1962 in Chicago and on 22 July 1963 in Las Vegas, Nevada; each time Liston scored a one-round knockout and looked almost unbeatable in doing so. Boxing authorities predicted that he would be the heavyweight champion for a long time, and he was heavily favored to retain the title when he defended it against Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) in Miami Beach, Florida, 25 February 1964. However, Clay proved much faster and cleverer and outboxed the champion. Liston refused to answer the bell for the seventh round, claiming he had an injured shoulder. On 25 May 1965 Liston fought Clay again before a small audience in Lewiston, Maine; the fight was televised nationally on a closed circuit to theaters. Liston went down for the count in the first round from a right hand that landed on his cheek. Few persons who saw the fight could believe that the blow was sufficient to knock out a man noted for his ability to take hard punches.

From 1966 to 1970 Liston won 14 consecutive fights, all but one of them by knockout. However, his reputation as a boxer was destroyed, and he could not regain the respect of boxing authorities. On 6 December 1969 he was knocked out by Leotis Martin in Las Vegas, but he returned to win one fight in 1970. In these years he lived comfortably in Las Vegas with his wife Geraldine Chambers, whom he probably married in 1954. However, rumors connected him with the selling of narcotics. On 5 January 1971 he was found dead by his wife upon her return from a Christmas trip to St. Louis. The condition of his body showed that he had been dead for about a week. Authorities found heroin in the house, needle marks on his arm, and narcotics in his body, although apparently insufficient to cause his death.

Liston was illiterate; he could count money and sign his name, but little more. Ordinarily he had little to say, although friends claimed that he was intelligent and sometimes witty. To many he seemed sullen and dangerous, to others merely shy. His arrival as heavyweight champion coincided with the civil rights revolution, and most African Americans deplored him as a setback to their cause. To Cassius Clay, he was "the ugly bear" and the perfect contrast to his own good looks, ebullient personality, and graceful ring style. Liston won 50 of his 54 fights, 39 by knockout, and lost only four times. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991.

The chief source of information on Liston's life until his winning of the heavyweight championship is A. S. Young, Sonny Liston: The Champ Nobody Wanted (1963). His boxing record is in Herbert G. Goldman, ed., The Ring 1986-87 Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia (1986). Useful magazine articles include Robert L. Burnes, "Heavyweight with a Past," Saturday Evening Post, 13 Aug. 1960, pp. 28, 56-58; Joe Flaherty, "A Right to the Jaw--That's Black Power," Esquire, March 1969, pp. 112-14; and Bruce Jay Friedman, "Requiem for a Heavy," Esquire, Aug. 1971, pp. 55-57. Accounts of his major fights can be found in The Ring and Sports Illustrated magazines. An obituary is in the New York Times, 7 Jan. 1971.