Sugar Ray Robinson - Personal Life

Personal Life

Robinson married Marjorie Joseph in 1938; the marriage was annulled the same year. Their son, Ronnie Smith, was born in 1939. Robinson met his second wife Edna Mae Holly, a noted dancer who performed at the Cotton Club and toured Europe with Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, in 1940. According to Robinson, he met her at a local pool he frequented after his boxing workouts. In an attempt to get her attention he pushed her into the pool one day, and claimed it was an accident. After this attempt was met with disdain, he appeared at the nightclub she danced at and introduced himself. Soon the couple were dating and they married in 1943. They had one son, Ray Robinson Jr. (born 1949) and divorced in 1960. She appeared on the first cover of Jet magazine in 1951. In April 1959, Robinson's eldest sister Marie died of cancer at the age of 41.

In 1965, Robinson married Millie Wiggins Bruce and the couple settled in Los Angeles. When Robinson was sick with his various ailments, his son accused Robinson's wife of keeping him under the influence of medication to manipulate him. According to Ray Robinson Jr., when Sugar Ray's mother died, Sugar Ray could not attend his mother's funeral because Millie was drugging and controlling him. However, Robinson had been hospitalized the day before his mother's death due to agitation which caused his blood pressure to rise. Robinson Jr. and Edna Mae also claimed that they were kept away from Robinson by Millie during the last years of his life.