Jim Londos was born Christos Theofilou in Greece and raised in New York, and by the mid-1930s he was the biggest drawing card in professional wrestling. He was not the best mat technician of his generation and he never claimed to be. He was the one the crowd came to see, which in a gate business is the only ranking that pays.
Londos against Ted Christy, 1943. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
He won a version of the world title in the 1930s and held it into the 1940s, and his matches filled arenas in cities that were still recovering from the Depression. Promoters put him in front of immigrant crowds who saw a Greek kid from the Bronx at the top of the card, and the business did what it always does with a story like that: it sold it.
The champion as a civic asset, 1943. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
When the war came, Londos went where the cameras were and sold bonds. The photographs from 1943 show him with orphans and with children at charity events, the champion used as a civic asset. That was not unusual for the era, but few wrestlers of his standing were as comfortable in the role.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
He retired in the 1940s, invested well, and lived comfortably until his death in 1975, which puts him in a small group of wrestlers from his era who did not die broke. The images here are from that 1943 period: the charity appearances, the title portraits, and the ring work that filled the buildings.
Israel Joffe edits the Monday Night Wrestling history series. More of the archive is at israeljoffe.com.
More from the series: the 1908 match that made professional wrestling · Gorgeous George and the night television learned to boo · Mildred Burke wrestled for a living · Ed Lewis held the title for twenty years