DALLAS – There was an Oscar winner, yes, the Academy Award, on board the chartered Boeing 757 that flew Manny Pacquiao and his oversized entourage Monday.
He occupied seat 10D. His name is Leon Gast.
The American film director, producer, cinematographer and editor rolled into one is currently working on a documentary on the life and times of the 31-year-old Filipino boxing champion.
With a crew of six on hand, Gast is committed to put on the same type of work that won him an Oscar in 1996, the best in documentary, with his feature entitled “When We Were Kings.”
And it’s all about the “Rumble in the Jungle,” that iconic Oct. 30, 1974 heavyweight championship bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire (now the DR Congo).
“We filmed it in 1974 but got to release it only in 1996. We got sued by almost everybody because we didn’t have the permission of a lot of people. Then it won the Oscar,” he said.
The rest is history, so they say, but Gast is out to repeat history.
“This documentary on Manny Pacquiao is a dream come true for me,” he said during the 150-minute flight from the City of Angels to this Lone Star State, both enormous and cold.
It was the first time Gast has followed Pacquiao in the days leading up to a big fight.
But he said this is just the start.
“We will be coming to Manila by the end of this month. And we plan to follow Manny even for the next two or three years as we work on this documentary,” said Gast.
“Or until he fights Floyd Mayweather Jr. That’s the fight we all want to see. It guarantees the fighters $40 milion each. And do you know that United States bought the Philippines from Spain for only $20 million then? That’s how big this fight is gonna be,” he said.
He said he first came to the Philippines many years ago, as part of Don King’s team that covered the “Thrilla in Manila” contest between Ali and Joe Frazier, on Oct. 1, 1975 at the Araneta Coliseum.
“I was a bachelor then, and I worked for Don King (who promoted the fight along with Bob Arum). I haven’t been there since,” he told couple of scribes from Manila, seated a row behind him.
Then he pulled out from his black leather bag what looked like an old school ID.
It turned out to be his credential for the “Thrilla in Manila.”
“Do you know what this is? I was there, right in Muhammad Ali’s corner, holding the boom mike,” he said.
Gast said he remembered the Marcoses seated just a few meters away from him.
“And I just kept on noticing that that Imelda, each time the bell rings at the start of a round, would bow her head, and pull it up only when the round ends. She was there but she never really watched the action,” said Gast.
He also talked about Ali visiting the Marcoses at Malacañang, and the then President telling the heavyweight champion of the world, “You have a very beautiful wife,” when the lovely lady who was with Ali was not the wife.
He would have gone on and on, with anecdotes of what many consider as the greatest heavyweight fight ever, but time was running out.
“Thank you for listening,” he told the scribes who did.