SCOTTISH radio’s Mr Superbad, aka boxer Freddie Mack, died 13 years ago in January. To this day, his life story – relayed here – remains a little-known globe-trotting epic of fists, laughs and soul.

“He was larger than life and, in his own words, a milk chocolate guy with a white red-headed Italian mum called Florence and a black American father called Freddie Mack from South Carolina,” explained Scot Jan Samuels, Mack’s widow.

The former boxer was born on a South Carolina cotton plantation in 1934 when interracial marriage was outlawed. His parents later wed anyway. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he befriended future world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson.

Together they learned to box under the iconic coach Cus D’Amato and were called to represent the USA at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, with Patterson competing and Mack as his alternate. Athletes had to be 18 to compete, but Mack was only 17.

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“They needed him to be 18 to go, so they made him a year older. He didn’t even have a birth certificate to show his age, as black babies born in South Carolina were not deemed fit to need a record of birth. So they created one for him,” said Samuels. Patterson, with Mack’s sparring assistance, won the middleweight gold medal.

Mack became a professional boxer in 1954. The American’s 11-year career saw him fight in the USA, Italy, Peru and the UK. For a time, he was the world’s third-ranked light-heavyweight. According to boxing statistics website BoxRec.com, he fought in 51 bouts, winning 27, losing 19 and drawing three.

These included victories against British champions Jack Bodell and Chic Calderwood. Mack also sparred with Muhammad Ali and others.

Hollywood came knocking in 1963, after he befriended the late Welsh actor Sir Richard Burton, who got Mack a part in the blockbuster Cleopatra. Mack played one of the enslaved people carrying the film’s star, Liz Taylor, into Rome.

He also acted in Taggart and other productions. Mack then retired from boxing in 1965 and became a soul singer in the UK, leading several line-ups. He signed with K-tel under the stage name Mr Superbad and released numerous tracks throughout the 1970s, including Kung Fu Man with Ultrafunk.

DURING his time in the UK, Mack drove a bright pink and yellow Jaguar E-Type with the licence plate 3X-KK. He jokingly told police officers who pulled him over

that he was the leader of the

Ku Klux Klan, with Mack relaying the story in a 2008 video interview with the Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser.

He became a DJ for Radio Clyde, where his trademark voice could be heard for years on Saturday nights. Mack was also a DJ for Clan FM and East End Radio in Glasgow.

He has children in the UK, Italy, and the US. Some, such as American Kenneth Sapp and Briton Nicole Mack, didn’t meet him until they were adults. Nicole said Mack had a “massive impact” on her life and even inspired her children – Mack’s grandchildren – to pursue careers in the music industry. Sapp is now writing a book about his father’s life.

“My father was the toughest man I knew, a fact that may have ultimately been his demise,” said Mack’s other son, also named Freddie Mack. He explained how his father told him that he had all the symptoms of prostate cancer but never told anyone.

“He was the kind of man that if he had a toothache, he wouldn’t go to the dentist. Tough and stubborn. He said he had a great life, met so many people and been to so many places. He was content. I wonder if he had told someone, would he still be here today?”

Mack found true love after he met his wife in Glasgow’s Victoria nightclub. “He told me I was the most beautiful woman in the building that night and he wanted to marry me,” recalls Samuels. “I just laughed and said, that will be shining bright, never happening.”

But they did get married and settled in Plains, North Lanarkshire in the mid-1990s.

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Throughout his twilight years, Mack helped raise money for local charities and performed gigs.

One of his last sets was the 2008 Monklands Hospital staff Christmas party, according to Samuels. She explained Mack was “determined to live” to do that because “they treated him well”.

One of Mack’s most significant contributions to Scotland was the Scottish Boxing Hall of Fame, created to honour the sport’s Scottish heroes. It operated from 2001 to 2014, with Mack as its president until his death.

“I am the luckiest woman alive to have had this wonderful man in my life,” said Samuels, “he was a phenomenon in his own lifetime.”