Tony Burton

Burton was born in Flint, Michigan.^[4] He had a younger sister named Loretta.^[5] A Flint Northern High School graduate,^[6] he was a Michigan Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing champion and two-time all-state football player.

At Northern, he played halfback.^[6] In 1954, he scored 13 touchdowns and led his team in scoring. Many of his scoring runs were of 50 yards or more. He gained 820 yards rushing that year, and one of his runs was for 95 yards. That same year, he was selected to the first teams of the All City and All Valley teams as a halfback. He was also chosen as an All State honorable mention. He was the team's co-captain and Most Valuable Player. Burton led his team in yards gained and receiving yards. In one game against Grand Rapids Catholic, he gained 213 total yards. At Northern, Burton was also the leading baseball pitcher, pitching the team to the city championship title.

Burton's boxing career included the Flint Golden Gloves light heavyweight championship in 1955 and 1957.^[4][6] Burton won the State Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Championship in 1957 and lost in the Chicago Tournament of Champions semi-finals.

He made his professional debut in January 1958 against Bob Smith at the Hollywood Legion Stadium.^[7] Burton fought in a total of 14 professional bouts between 1958 and 1959. His final fight was a defeat against knockout artist Lamar Clark, who holds the record for most consecutive knockouts at 44.^[8] His final record was 10 wins (2 by knockout), 3 losses (all by knockout), and 1 draw.^[7]

After prison, Burton began finding work with small theater companies in and around Los Angeles, garnering favorable notices early on.^[9][10]

A life member of the Actors Studio,^[11] Burton numbers among his many credits a co-starring role in Frank's Place and parts in films, such as Stir Crazy and The Toy. He also appeared as Wells, one of the prisoners trapped in the besieged police station in John Carpenter's 1976 Howard Hawks-inspired action film Assault on Precinct 13. He later starred in the Rocky films as a trainer to Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) and later Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). He appeared in an episode of Gibbsville in 1976. Burton also appeared in The Shining, House Party 2, and Hook.^[12] He had guest appearances in Kojak, The Rockford Files, CHiPs, Twin Peaks, and The A-Team.^[12] Burton also guest starred as Conrad King Baylor on In the Heat of the Night in the episode "King's Ransom," which aired in January 1990.

In 1993, Burton was inducted into the Greater Flint Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame.^[13]

Burton resided in California for 30 years.^[6] He attended Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, California.^[14] He was married to Aurelain (Rae) from 1980 until his death.^[15] The couple had two sons, one of whom, Martin, died of a heart attack at the age of 43 on May 8, 2014.^[6] They also had two daughters, Juanita and Christal.^[14][16]

Burton was a talented chess player.^[17] He defeated Stanley Kubrick on the set of The Shining, in which Burton played Larry Durkin, the garage owner. Speaking with Kubrick biographer Vincent LoBrutto, Burton recalled his first day on the set:

My contract was for a week. I just had two short scenes in the movie. I stayed for six weeks because Stanley and I were playing chess... Stanley was a stronger player than I but I was strong enough to give him sufficient struggle to where he enjoyed it. I beat him in the first or second game we played, and then I didn't win any more after that, but it was always a tight struggle. That's what he loved; I guess there was no one else around that played strong.^[18]

After his brief professional boxing career, Burton served more than three years in a Chino, California prison for robbery. The acting exercises he performed as part of a therapy program helped steer him into an acting career after his release. NEA's Frank Sanello in March 1988:

Prison for me was productive because I got my high school diploma and a degree from the University of California. But most important, I got myself together and found out who I was and how I could proceed without destroying myself.

More specifically, one of the skills acquired at Chino landed Burton his wife Rae, who he met on a TV-repair house call. Moreover, a workshop in the prison that used psychodrama as a form of therapy pointed Burton toward his acting career, when an emotional breakthrough achieved by one of his partners in an acting exercise dramatically demonstrated theater's potential power.^[19]

Burton had been frequently hospitalized for the last year of his life, according to his sister.^[4] On February 26, 2016, he died at the age of 78, from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Menifee.^[5][20]