Columnist Dean Juipe: Tyson plays the role public wants

Dean Juipe

Friday, July 18, 2003 | 9:52 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

He has everything but a Screen Actors Guild card.

Spontaneity ... charisma ... a stage presence ... the ability to deliver a quick line upon demand.

If a camera is rolling, Mike Tyson will rarely disappoint. He has a schtick and it works.

Almost effortlessly, the former heavyweight champion produces memorable footage and quotes. Without benefit of lessons or a scriptwriter, time and time again he is able to fascinate viewers with off-the-cuff remarks and insights that humor those who know him and spellbind those who don't.

I laughed out loud several times while watching Tyson in his latest feature, a two-hour installment of "Beyond The Glory" on Fox Sports Net. The documentary debuted this week and will be repeated several times in the near future, including Saturday.

It isn't that Tyson is acting per se. But he is what he is, and that's a man who is not only quick-tempered and good with his fists but one who knows the value of portraying himself as a manic-depressive bully with a soft, sensitive side.

These characteristics have both made and ruined his life.

They also assure him of a lifetime of financial independence in spite of periods of mammoth debt. He will always be able to turn a buck.

Having sat with Tyson for what was a fairly private, 90-minute interview last year and having studied him from both near and afar since he burst upon the sports scene in 1985, I have lost the ability to be surprised at anything he says. I have also come to the conclusion that he not only enjoys his celebrity status but goes out of his way to embellish his views, simply for effect.

He gets a kick out of being outrageous, out of drawing a reaction with his sometimes preposterous, sometimes heartfelt take on life.

He's clever, when you get right down to it. He realizes he is something that everyone else is not: a captivating, famous, dangerous man who brazenly defies authority while openly predicting he will be killed in a combustible moment of his own doing.

This much is fairly certain: He will not die of old age, unless it's behind bars.

But I like Tyson and forgive the bulk of his trespasses, which, surprisingly or not, puts me in the majority. The man people supposedly love to hate is really one of the most endearing sports figures of his or any other time, as public-opinion polls, box-office receipts and pay-per-view windfalls verify.

Yet he wants you to look at him with detest, so he'll spice his language with coarse and offensive words not spoken at the dinner table. And he has no reservations about his lengthy police record, which so regularly needs updating that it has twice been revised within the past month.

He's vulgar, he's sexist and he's pathetic. But he's also kindhearted to animals and wildlife and charitable causes, and idolized by millions of people of all races and social strata throughout the world.

Kill or be killed is how Tyson paints himself, knowing that's how mankind has wanted its finest prize fighters since the beginning of time. It's a role he grasped and grew into, and one he expanded with personality quirks and implied psychosis.

For all of his sorrowful flaws, I find him entertaining. Which, bottom line, is just what he's trying to be.