Well before Alicia Doyle wrote her first book, Hollywood was interested in her story – that of the newspaper reporter who took up boxing, had some success and learned a lot about herself.
That first book, “Fighting Chance,” was self-published in 2020, released just before COVID-19 sent us all searching for books and TV shows and other distractions to keep us occupied during a lockdown. It detailed her pursuit of the sweet (yet savage) science two decades before, when she reported at length on a boxing gym in Ventura County that served at-risk youth and, at age 28, felt compelled to put on the gloves and get in the ring herself. And it won literary awards, including first place in the creative fiction and memoir category in the 2020 North Street Book Prize competition for self-published works.
“When I first retired from boxing (in 2000) I was approached by Rod Holcomb with Paramount,” she said this week. “I think I’d just turned 30 and no book was written yet. And I’ll never forget this because I was invited to Paramount. It was amazing. They wined and dined me and we’re sitting around the table and they asked me, you know, if I’d be willing to help them write the story.
“And at the time I wasn’t ready to reveal everything that had happened to me, and I knew that’d be an important part of the story. Back then I was afraid to be that vulnerable. I was afraid I’d be judged. So I said no in that meeting. This was like being given something amazing on a silver platter, and I said no out of fear.
“I look back now and I realize that I wasn’t ready (then) to reveal everything that happened. And now I am.”
And now she’s getting, shall we say, a second chance.
Producer Slavica Bogdanov and Empowering Entertainment will film Doyle’s story, with “A Fighting Chance” as the working title. It is an independent production, and thus not shut down by the writers’ and actors’ strikes against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. But while Bogdanov has a director (Johnny Martin) lined up, she can’t announce or even secure the cast until she has an interim agreement or waiver between the film production company and the Screen Actors Guild.
“We’re waiting for that final step,” she said. “But everything’s lined up … All the paperwork has been done.”
Assuming things go smoothly, filming should begin in mid-November – in New Jersey, not Hollywood – with a release date to be determined.
Bogdanov, who is based in Florida, said in a Zoom conversation that she actively seeks “true stories, inspiring stories. I like female leads. I like underdogs that achieve what’s impossible to achieve.
“I came across a post where I read about ‘Fighting Chance,’ so I ordered the book and I fell in love completely head over heels with the story. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this has to be done.’ … I thought, why not make a female Rocky that young girls can really associate themselves with?”
It is about boxing, true, but it goes deeper. Bogdanov said the script would also be “about fighting depression and how we’re all on this journey of fighting that dark side. … I thought it could encourage a lot of people to just open up about depression and talk about it more openly and maybe, you know, enlighten a younger generation that doesn’t even know that what they’re dealing with might be depression.”
Doyle readily acknowledges that she battled those demons. She did not go into as much detail in her book as she could have about those battles, though she acknowledged that there’s “a thread of depression in the book,” and she appreciated that many who read the book picked up on it.
“I had a lot of healing to do,” she said in our phone conversation this past week. “My father was still alive in 2020. And I remember him telling me, you can’t let the story die with you. You have to tell this story. And then my father passed away. And, you know, that was always something he stuck in my brain that it needed to be told.
“And so I just dove in and started writing. I had journaled the entire time I was boxing, I had tons of notes. So all the content was there. I just had to sit down and go through it. And it was hard. I also had a dear friend, Ivor Davis, who is an author out here in Ventura, who also encouraged me to write the boxing book. I was actually working on another book at the time, and I was picking his brain about that book and he said, ‘You need to write your boxing book first. You have to write your story first.’”
From her description, the process of writing the memoir was painful but cathartic, paralleling the philosophy she carried into the ring as a two-time Golden Gloves champion: “The only way out is through.” In other words, straight ahead.
“I had hoped that it would be helpful to other people, and so far, so good,” she said. “I’ve received nothing but really lovely feedback from people, people who need help, who have battled with depression or battled with domestic violence, abusive relationships. You know, those have been the most valuable people who have approached me since the book came out, who’ve gone through something similar or are involved in something similar and need a way out. That’s been the greatest blessing so far.”
Doyle has since written another non-fiction book, “The Oath,” based on the story of Flo Trapani and her experiences as one of the first female officers in the Simi Valley Police Department. She is currently working on a third book, a fictional work on caregivers.
When Bogdanov contacted Doyle to express her interest in making the movie, “it was overwhelming and very humbling and surreal,” Doyle said. “And it still feels that way.
“…I’m very grateful that I was given this opportunity again, because I believe that’s quite rare. I knew the second time around it was something that I needed to do, something God wanted me to do. And so I’m just continuing to put God first with everything and every decision I make.
“When I do that, it turns out well.”
jalexander@scng.com
CORRECTION: The boxing gym on which Alicia Doyle originally wrote about as a reporter was in Ventura County.
