Thanks to Lyna:

The Standard (St. Catharines, Ontario) March 17, 2004 Wednesday Final Edition

HEADLINE: In the ring with Ron Howard: Boxing coach meets with director about role in film

BYLINE: Grant LaFleche

He can't help it. No matter how hard he tries, the same tune keeps playing in his head, relentlessly, endlessly, without pause. For some, the whistle of the Andy Griffith Show theme echoing in your skull could be maddening. Not so for local boxing coach Keith Murphy.

Since he found out he would meet Hollywood director Ron Howard, former child star of the old TV show, Murphy has been dancing to that familiar tune. The coach and former fighter will be in Toronto today to meet with Howard around 4 p.m. about a possible role in the director's new film, The Cinderella Man, staring Oscar winner Russell Crowe.

"I've been whistling that theme song all day," Murphy said Tuesday. "This is really exciting. I don't want to say too much, you know, because I haven't even got the part. But yeah, this is tremendous, even just to meet him. I mean, I grew up on Ron Howard."

The film is based on the life of one of heavyweight boxing's most unlikely champions -- the Cinderella Man James Braddock.

Braddock was an impoverish dock worker and boxer during the height of the Great Depression. As a 10-to-1 underdog, the gutsy boxer took the title from the reigning king Max Baer in a 15-round war of attrition in 1935.

Braddock was the heavyweight champion of the world for two years before being stopped by Joe Louis, whose own legend was just growing.

Today's meeting with Howard in Toronto, where the film is being shot, is Murphy's second trip there this week.

On Monday, he drove to Toronto with seven other men from the local boxing community -- including former Olympian Mike Strange and head coach of the St. Catharines Amateur Boxing club, Joe Corrigan.

The group heard the movie's producers had put out a casting call for extras to be boxing officials for the film and, as a lark, packed into a car and headed to Toronto. "They took photos of us and then we had to wait as each guy went into a room behind a closed door," Corrigan said. "They told us that we would be filmed while they asked us a bunch of questions."

Although the questions were pretty simple for the group of would-be thespians -- how long had they been in boxing? What do they do now? Have they been on television or the movies before? -- the experience wasn't exactly comfortable.

"It was a little nerve-racking because you are in this room, they are asking these questions and you are just sitting there being filmed," Corrigan said. "You start wondering how you look on the camera, are you giving a good answer?"

Murphy figured his audition was in trouble from the start.

He was already getting needled from the other guys for not wearing anything that identified him as a coach at the St. Catharines Amateur Boxing club.

Still, he was able to relax by chatting and joking with the other fighters and coaches who came to Toronto for an audition, including a former boxer who played a referee in the movie The Hurricane. "They could hear us laughing from behind that closed door and told us to keep it down a couple of times," Murphy said.

Then, when it was his turn behind the camera, Murphy had to correct the woman auditioning him because she got his name wrong.

"She did warm up to me, though, after a bit. But it sure didn't help me relax," he said. "But I didn't try to play a role or anything. I'm not an actor. I was just myself."

Fairly certain he wasn't going to be considered for a part, Murphy chalked it up to a fun way to spend the day.

Until Tuesday morning.

That's when his phone rang around 10:30 a.m. Murphy was still sleeping.

When he got up, his daughter, wife and mother were in the kitchen, all with curious smiles.