The Thinephile
by Tim Cooper
April 2023
Tim Cooper recalls a surreal series of run-ins with former world-champion boxer Chris Eubank.
I’m in the car, listening to talkSPORT, when a familiar voice comes on the radio.
I recognise it immediately, not only because it’s easily identifiable but also because I used to bump into its owner on a regular basis. The voice belongs to former world-champion middleweight boxer Chris Eubank.
Mostly he’s talking about himself (that’s how it usually is with Eubank); but on this occasion my ears prick up as he is asked about his offspring—also a boxer, also called Chris—whom he then describes in characteristically self-deprecating fashion: “He’th hith father’th thon.”
I’ve never heard Chris Jr speak, so I don’t know how much of his father’s son he really is; but as Chris Sr holds forth, in his wonderfully articulate, (almost) immaculately-enunciated English, I begin to wonder, not for the first time, whether he deliberately uses words with Ss in as often as possible in order to deploy his lisp for max. attention-seeking effect. Hearing him talk is like listening to Biggus Dickus.
Eubank has been entertaining me for years. Not just in the ring, but ever since I first started encountering him at movie premieres, back when I was a showbiz journalist and he was a fixture on the London celebrity circuit, with his country-gentleman fashions, plus monocle and cane.
In one particularly purple patch, I found myself seated right beside him at three or four premieres in just a few weeks. “You theem to be thitting nextht to me whenever I go to the thinema,” he remarked on the second occasion. Anxious not to theem—sorry: seem—like a stalker, I explained that my job involved covering celebrity comings and goings at screenings and other film-industry events, and he asked me whether I had enjoyed the movie we had just watched. “Yes,” I replied. “It was fantastic. How about you?”
“I would not exthactly thay it wath ‘fantathtic’,” replied Chris, carefully. “I would thay it wath a good film. In fact an exthellent film. But I would not thay it wath ‘fantathtic’.”
As I attempted, Cleese-like, to keep a straight face, Chris carried on. “I shall tell you what ith a fantathtic film in my opinion,” he said. “… The Uthual Thuthpectth.”
He wasn’t finished with me yet.
“I thee it ath frequently ath I can,” he said—and I was wondering how frequently that could possibly be when he elaborated: “Tho far, I have theen it more than thixthty timeth. I can thpeak motht of the wordth in the thcript.”
“Blimey,” I said. “That’s a lot.”
“It ith a thignificant number of timeth,” he concurred. I stared at him to see if he was pulling my leg, but he gave no hint at all that he was joking. “The thcreenplay ith thkilfully thcripted,” he continued, “with itth ingeniouth twithth and turnth.”
“Not to mention the acting,” I added, agreeably.
“Yeth,” said Chris. “Kevin Thpathey’th performanthe ith ethpecially imprethive”.
Biting my lip hard, I glanced around and pretended I’d just spotted a friend so that I could make my excuses and leave before Eubank moved on to deconthtruct the thinematography, the thound dethign and the thpecial effectth. But about a week later I ran into him again, this time at the opening of an enormous new multiplex in Finchley, where the special guest was Arnold Schwarzenegger—almost certainly Arnie’s first visit to a retail-park off the North Circular.
A huge crowd had assembled outside the cinema, and there was a platform onto which a DJ was bringing celebrities, one by one, so they could say a few words to the crowd along the lines of how excited they were to be at this new Finchley multiplex, before autographing a plastic football and kicking it into the crowd.
One of these celebs turned out to be Chris Eubank.
Now, Chris in his heyday—what with the preposterous outfits, archaic language and (exaggerated?) lisp—was something of a pantomime villain, the celebrity boxer everyone loved to hate. And his introduction to the stage, decked out in the usual eye-catching uniform of hunting jacket, jodhpurs, cane and riding boots (I can’t be sure about the monocle; but in my mind he’s always wearing it), was met with an immediate chorus of boos.
Ever the professional, he made a few polite remarks, and signed a football with a felt pen – at which point the DJ made the fatal error of inviting Chris to punt it into the crowd.
“I am thorry, but I cannot do that,” said Chris, amid a crescendo of rather ungenerous crowd noise.
“Oh go on... please?!” implored the baffled DJ.
“I do not think you underthtand,” said Chris. “My bootth are highly polished. And if I were to kick a football with them, there ith a rithk that they could become... thcuffed!”
And with that he walked off stage, to an eruption of catcalls and jeering, and accompanied his wife into the cinema… where he found himself once again sitting next to me.
The film itself could not begin until Schwarzenegger arrived, so I decided to stave off an eternity of small talk with a little mischief.
“I hope this film is good,” I opened, innocently. “Perhaps even as good as The Usual Suspects...”
“The Usual Thuthpecth ith an exthellent film,” Eubank responded instantly, clearly forgetting any previous conversations. “I have theen it more than thixthy thixth timeth.”
“That’s more than the last time I saw you!” I yelped, in disbelief.
“Yeth,” he half-snapped, “becauthe I watch it motht weekth. Ath I thay, it ith one of my favourite filmth.”
Less than a month later I was at yet another movie opening (for several years I really did live almost entirely on champagne and canapés), and once again ran into my old film-watching buddy Chris.
This time, I had brought along my pal Bernard, with whom I had—perhaps unwisely—already shared the detailed story of Chris Eubank Sr and his favourite piece of celluloid history. After a few flutes of the complimentary champagne, Bernard espied the man himself, and, deciding the opportunity was too good to miss, went over to have a word, largely to see whether what I had told him was all true.
“Hello Chris!” he began, brightly. “Did you enjoy the film?”
“I did enjoy it,” said Chris, immediately adopting his Serious Film Critic persona: “although in my opinion it wath not an outthtanding film.”
“I concur,” nodded Bernard thoughtfully, before diverting the conversation exactly as I had feared. “You know what is an outstanding film…? The Usual Suspects. Have you s—?”
“Yeth, I have theen it,” Chris replied, without waiting for him to finish. “Ath you thay, it ith an outthtanding piethe of thinema. Ath a matter of fact I have theen it more than theventy timeth...”
At this moment, he noticed me lurking just behind Bernard, who was by now struggling to hide his own giggles. For a chilling moment, the former middle- and super-middleweight world boxing champion looked at Bernard, then looked at me, then looked back at Bernard, and asked, after a dramatic pause: “Why exthactly do you athk?”
In the extremely pregnant pause, I tried to calculate how little time I’d have to dodge a haymaker if Eubank twigged that he’d become the butt of someone’s private joke.
“Because,” said Bernard, levelly, “it’s such a great film, as you so rightly say.” And then: “You have excellent taste in cinema.”
“Thank you,” said Chris. “I do conthider mythelf to be thomething of a thinephile.”
And with that, Bernard and I turned our backs, and tried to hold the laughter for as long as we could manage, before we got outside and howled until the tears ran down our faces. Tears not only of laughter, but also of relief that Chris Eubank had not just called us out and knocked us both thenthleth.
