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Home | American actors | Veronica Porsche Ali
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Porche was born in Los Angeles, California on December 16, 1955 to Ethel and Horace Porche. She attended Holy Rosary Catholic boarding school in Lafayette, Louisiana and graduated from Belmont High School in Los Angeles in 1973. Her brothers, Anthony (Tony) Porche and Leonard Porche, were football and track & field athletes at Belmont High School. Porche graduated high school and attended the University of Southern California (USC) and majored in Pre-Medicine. She was the third wife of American boxer Muhammad Ali, and the mother of actress and undefeated professional boxer Laila Ali and Hana Yasmeen Ali, author. Ali and Porche began a relationship in 1974 while in Kinshasa, Zaire and were married at the Presidential Compound in N'Sele according to the Islamic tradition when Porche was 18 years old. Porche was one of the four poster girls who had promoted the Rumble in the Jungle fight in Zaire versus George Foreman; which led to erroneous reports that she was a professional model before meeting Ali. Porche and Ali were married in Los Angeles in the summer of 1977. They divorced in December 1986. Porche later married jazz artist and the legendary "Judas" of Jesus Christ Superstar, Carl Anderson , in 1992. Anderson died of leukemia in 2004. Prior to meeting Ali, she spelled her last name Porche. As her fame grew, and she began to have contact with reporters and other media, she began to tell them that her name was pronounced "like the sports car". This led to people spelling her name Porsche. Her name appears on documents using both spellings. Reportedly, she favors the style and sophistication of the Porsche spelling, though her family name was originally Porché, the version still used by many family members in Louisiana. Porche was fluent in French as a child and her mother called her Véronique. Porche studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse to overcome shyness and had limited experience as an actress. She played a tour guide, Ranger Emily, in the 1986 film Terror on Alcatraz and made a cameo appearance in "Freedom Road" starring Ali and Kris Kristopherson. She co-hosted a segment of "Good Morning, New York" and appeared as herself in a made-for-TV documentary, Intimate Portrait: Laila Ali (2001) (TV) and in many other broadcasts and television appearances around the world. In the movie Ali, starring Will Smith, the role of Veronica Porche Ali was played by Michael Michele. Both Porche and Ali commented that their relationship and other occurrences were not accurately portrayed. There has been much misinformation about Porche's character and background. Ever elusive and private, Porche remains a mystery. |
