When she first stepped into the ring in the 1930s, Mildred Burke became one of the very first professional women wrestlers. Director Ash Avildsen's new film The Queen of The Ring explores the rise of the sport, and how someone like Burke could be both so powerful in the ring and at times powerless outside of it.
"Mildred Burke was a dreamer, a trailblazer, a warrior and an all-time wrestling single mother who defied the era that she was in," said Emily Bett Rickards, who plays the biopic's lead role.
"Everything in her era was telling her that she wasn't allowed to have a dream [to do] what she was doing. And she was one of those people that said, 'Well, that's not fair, that's not right and I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway," Rickards told Morning Edition host A Martínez.
Delving into the role gave Rickards insight into the challenges facing women in the early 20th century in the United States. Female wrestlers of that era, she said, "were showing that you could be feminine and strong. That was really liberating at the time for women and looked scary to men."
Burke held the National Wrestling Alliance Women's World Championship for nearly 20 years. But she battled with demons of another sort on the home front.
While raising her son as a single mom in Kansas and scraping by on Depression-era tips as a waitress, Burke met Billy Wolfe, played by Josh Lucas. He became her husband and manager.
Burke first got her start at carnivals, where Wolfe would promote her and offer a $25 reward to any man similarly sized who could pin her down within 10 minutes, a feat no challenger managed to achieve. Their relationship is also at the heart of Jeff Leen's biography, The Queen of The Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds and The Making of an American Legend, which inspired the film.
While he paved the way for Mildred to enter professional wrestling, Wolfe also took much of her earnings, cheated on her and violently beat her.
"When Mildred Mildred's sort of stardom was picking up... Billy felt as if he was falling into the shadows," Rickards said. "The sort of decay of their relationship was Billy not accepting the change, getting so caught up in his own inferiority and not having the right outlet for himself either and taking it out on her on an evil, horrible way."
Wolfe was also a maverick of the sport, running and promoting a traveling stable of women wrestlers. Several current professional wrestlers were cast to play some members of that troupe. All Elite Wrestling stars Toni Storm and Kamille play Clara Mortensen and June Byers, respectively; WWE's Naomi plays Ethel Johnson.
"It's this really intoxicating, tumultuous, manipulative relationship of you're helping me achieve my dreams and you're a horrible partner," Rickards explained.
Burke and Wolfe eventually separated, though they remained business partners for years. Rickards said Burke ultimately found her strength by compartmentalizing Wolfe's violence and her professional wrestling dreams. She was inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016 and trained fellow Hall of Famer The Fabulous Moolah, seen in her own right as a trailblazer for women's wrestling.
Burke was a "foundation-maker" who not only fought for women's participation in her sport but also for women's freedom, according to the actress.
"She really blessed me with this role because I learned so much that I'll take for the rest of my life," Rickards said.
The broadcast version of this story was produced by Barry Gordemer. The digital version was edited by Obed Manuel.
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