This is former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey accompanying guests into his Miami Beach restaurant at the Vanderbilt Hotel on Collins Avenue.
Dempsey was known as the “Manassa Mauler” and held the world heavyweight championship from 1919 to 1926. After his boxing career ended he opened a series of restaurants, the first “Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Restaurant” in Times Square, then his Miami Beach restaurant in the Dempsey Vanderbilt hotel he also co-owned. The Setai hotel now stands on the site of the original Vanderbilt hotel.
