Ali: sweet and brutal, vilified and beloved
Ken Burns keeps immersing himself in large lives, filled with contrasts.
There was Thomas Jefferson, the champion of freedom, who owned slaves. And Ernest Hemingway, the macho man with a fragile ego. And now Muhammad Ali is profiled in a four-night film, Sunday through Wednesday (Sept. 19-22) on PBS.
With the hyper speed of his boxing and his tongue, Ali could be brutal. At other times?
“He was so sweet and cuddly,” Rasheda Ali, one of his nine children, told the Television Critics Association. “Daddy was very affectionate. I think all of us are now, because of him.” Read more…