How to Survive a Knockout by Mercedes Ganon; Cardiff, California: Waterside Productions; © 2024; ISBN 9781962-984393; 200 pages including glossary of music and boxing personalities; $16.95.
SAN DIEGO – Singer Mercedes Ganon spent the first part of her childhood in Givat Olga, Israel, a coastal hamlet about midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa, before her Moroccan-immigrant family moved to Columbus, Ohio, from which as an adult she made her way to New York City and then to Los Angeles.
Although never an A-Lister, Ganon’s singing was exceptional enough to earn the respect of such an A-Lister as Penny Marshall. Similarly, her public relations skills won her the admiration of former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier. Marshall and Frazier, now both deceased, are among the people Ganon writes about extensively in this stream-of-consciousness, tell-not-quite-all memoir.
Ganon’s career included singing (see video above) as well as public relations for boxers, including Frazier and Roy Jones Jr., who has held world championships as a middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight. Her career also involved developing the perfume Jus D’Amour and the ownership of Love Champs Gallery in Studio City.
The ”knockout” from which Ganon had to recover may have been the termination of a longtime relationship between her and Roy Jones, which ended in court, or her grisly discovery of the body of her lover Mike Shipley, a record producer who committed suicide. She describes both relationships at length.
Stars like to mingle with other celebrities – particularly in other fields. Ganon writes about her joy in introducing her celebrity friends to each other.
Her memoir provides the flavors of the recording industry and the boxing world, as well and discloses the love of her life – the one who got away, until he came back and she realized he wasn’t the one – was an Israeli soccer player.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.