Kay Noble, one of the greats of women’s wrestling from the 1950s to the early 1980s, lost her final battle — to inoperable stomach cancer. She died Thursday, April 27, 2006, at about 6 pm CT, in Amarillo, Texas, surrounded by friends and family. Earlier this year, her many friends in pro wrestling took the time to celebrate the great career of Kay, and recall her toughness.
Again and again in their recollections, Kay Noble is called one of the toughest females to ever step foot in the ring. Coming in at just 5-foot-7 and 132 pounds at the height of her career, the St. Joseph, Missouri-born Noble was able to look legit whether against the bigger girls or those smaller than her.
“See these muscles? They are muscles of an athlete, not an Amazon. They are long muscles, not short ones,” she’s quoted as saying in the May 1963 issue of Wrestling World. In the June 1962 edition of Wrestling Revue, Noble is described as having “the whipcord type of muscle rather than the bulky heft of some lady wrestlers. She looks more like a swimmer.”
The auburn-haired Noble took her wrestling seriously and competed just as hard — if not harder — than the men.
“She could do anything that the men could do, and very, very real. She was great,” recalled Leo Burke, who worked as Tommy Martin when he was in Kansas City and got to know Noble best. Burke laughed deeply before launching into a story. “It was a mixed tag team match with me and her against [Betty] Nicoli and somebody … He started doing one-handed push-ups, so I went down and did the same thing. Then Kay Noble gets down and starts doing nip-ups! I’m kicking her to get up before they make me do it!”
Noble started wrestling in 1957 when she was just 18, after being approached by St. Joe promoter Gust Karras. She was trained by Laura Martinez and Sonny Myers.
“Kay Noble was a tremendous girl wrestler. She just absolutely was great. She didn’t back up from nothing. If she had a job to do, it was done,” said Myers, recalling how tough she was with a chuckle. “She didn’t take no shit from nobody.”
Later, she worked out with Ed Wiskoski in St. Joe, helping him break into the business. “I worked out with the midgets and a girl wrestler named Kay Noble, who could do shit men at that time would not attempt and she could really work,” said Wiskoski, who was later Colonel DeBeers.
Her career lasted, at least on a part-time basis while raising five children, until her last match in 1987 against Marie Laverne. Noble held both the Texas Women’s Championship and the Central States Women’s Championship. She wrestled across North America, and worked in Japan as well in the 1970s. The WFIA named her 1971’s Girl Wrestler of the Year.
On October 16, 1958, Lorraine Johnson, Penny Banner, Laura Martinez and Kay Noble were charged with “fighting outside the ring” in Amarillo, Texas. All four girls pleaded not guilty when they appeared before the judge.
It was one of the few fights, it seems, that Noble shied away from.
Tom Andrews recalled being in Omaha, working under a mask as The Claw. He broke his leg and couldn’t work, so the promoter had him manage Ox Baker. “They wanted to keep the heat on me when I was The Claw, so they brought Ox in and let me manage him while I was healing with this broken leg. I was out at ringside like a manager and — I forget the name of the town we were in, somewhere there in Nebraska — we really got the heat going,” said Andrews. “Ox jumped out of the ring and took off. I had these people swarming me, and of course, I’m on crutches. Kay Noble came out and saved me. I’m not kidding you. She came out. I did have a walker on my cast, and I could walk. Of course, I was swinging punches just like her. Boy, she led me back to the dressing room, just knocking guys on their butt.”
Bob Geigel knew Kay Noble on a couple of different levels. She worked as a bartender at Geigel’s bar (“She was a good bartender too. She wasn’t bashful.”), her was her employee when he was part-owner of All-Star Wrestling out of Kansas City, and he tagged up with her in mixed tag bouts on occasion.
One night in particular stood out for Geigel, though he couldn’t recall the place or their opponents — just the actions of his tag team partner Kay Noble. “I was in the ring and Kay Noble was on the apron. Some guy came up and grabbed her by the leg and pulled her off on the ground, which was a mistake on his part. Kay Noble tore him apart. I didn’t know she was gone. I looked, and said, ‘Where in the hell is she?’ I looked, and she’s out on the ground having a fight with this guy. She had the guy down on the ground. When she stood up, there was a big black lady who weighed about 240 pounds who had a Samsonite chair. She cracked Kay on top of the head with the chair. I jumped down from the ring. Kay said, ‘Let’s get the hell back in the ring before they beat the shit out of both of us!'”
“By the nineteen sixties, Kay really came into her own. Making Minneapolis her home base she ruled the field with victories over names of the day such as Annette Palmer and Mars Monroe,” Jim Melby wrote in a 1998 edition of LadySports magazine. “Another highlight was a torrid feud that she and her wrestling husband Doug Gilbert had with ‘Ripper’ Roy Collins and Barbara Baker, his better half. It was during this fabled series of mixed tag team contests that wrestling first became aware of the fact that Kay and Doug were married.”
Noble and Gilbert (Doug Lindzy) had three children together: Theresa, Michael and Steve. A second marriage produced Danny and David. Noble’s third — and current — marriage is to Dick Bell.
Wrestling Confidential profiled the Gilbert-Noble union in May 1964, in an article titled “I’m Glad I Married a Wrestler” by Don Hatfield. “A man like Doug offers the perfect combination … Being a wrestler, he’s big enough and rough enough to take care of me. Being a gentleman, he shows me more kindness than any man I’ve ever known. It’s not true that all male wrestlers are big, mean dopes. This one is as gentle as a lamb-with me, at least,” Noble is quoted as saying. The magazine reported that the two met in an elevator in Omaha before the matches that night, and that they were married in 1959. Initially, they tried to stay in same territory: Vancouver, Omaha, South Bend, Minneapolis. When they had kids, they settled in South Bend, Indiana and kept horses as well.
Her ability to stand up for herself was not confined to the ring, recalled her oldest son. “I watched her beat up a truck driver for touching her butt!” said Michael Lindzy, who thinks he was 16 years old at the time, and that it was in Missouri.
When Noble retired, she went into the pest control business and then into upholstery.
In 2001, the Cauliflower Alley Club honored Kay Noble as one of the legends of women’s pro wrestling, and she attended the 2005 reunion in Las Vegas as well.
In October, Noble was diagnosed with the fourth stage of stomach cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments proved unsuccessful and doctors are unable to do anything further for the aggressive form of cancer.
Her son, Michael, reported that Kay received many, many calls from a variety of old friends, including Mae Young and Bob Orton Sr.. SLAM! Wrestling readers also shared some of their own memories with Kay as well, and their messages were forwarded to her well before her passing.
Her funeral is Monday, May 1st at Boxwell Brothers on Paramount St. in Amarillo, at 10 a.m.
***
The stories of Kay Noble, in and out of the ring, flowed like water over the weekend as her life was celebrated by friends and opponents.
Noble, who died Thursday, April 27, 2006, in Amarillo, Texas at age 65 from gastric cancer, will be buried Monday.
But this story isn’t about the sadness of death, it is about the richness of a life.
Marie Laverne was one of Kay Noble’s best friends over the last number of years in Amarillo, but they weren’t close when they were wrestling against each other. They grew so close, in fact, that Laverne was able to convince Kay to come out of retirement for two final matches.
Laverne and Noble had both been retired four years or so and were fast approaching the age of 50. Marie’s son, Steve Nelson, was a high school wrestling coach and wanted to raise some money for uniforms. He thought a fundraiser with some of the old wrestlers would work, and wanted women on the card. The only women around Amarillo were Kay and Marie. “He said, ‘Mom, I don’t think they want to see old women.’ I said, ‘That’s up to you,'” laughed Laverne. A couple of days later, Steve came around to the idea, and Marie said to book them. Up next, she had to convince Kay.
“Kay, would you like to wrestle again?”
“No. We quit.”
“Yes, but wouldn’t you like to wrestle again? Steve gets to get money for uniforms for the wrestlers and stuff. He’s trying to get people to donate their time.”
“Okay, you can tell Steve.”
“No, you’re booked already.”
Noble snarled, her blue eyes dancing. “Okay.”
It ended up being quite the battle. Initially, Laverne was going to take it easy on Noble, but soon it was on. “We were in a fight, going all over the place, and they disqualified us,” said Laverne. “That’s when I found out she was really hurt.” It turns out that Kay had broken a bone in her foot. Together, Laverne and Noble went to the hospital that night. “That was the last match, and I think it was the match that sold the night,” she remembered. “Steve was thrilled. The people went nuts when they saw us. I said, ‘See, you don’t have to be young, Steve.'”
It wasn’t the last time Laverne and Noble went to hospital together, and Marie was as much a part of the family over the past few months as anyone.
After Kay’s surgery, where doctors opened up her stomach and discovered how severe the cancer was, a note was placed on the door instructing only family to be allowed in. Despite being considered as close as sisters, Laverne respected the note and stayed at home. “She called me later that evening. She said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m at the house. You’re talking to me.’ She said, ‘That note on that door does not mean you, because I want you up here.'”
Another old foe in the ring, Jean Antone, called Kay every day after learning that the stomach cancer was inoperable.
“I used to get so tickled,” explained Jean Antone. “She had the red hair, and she would look just like Lucille Ball. As they’re raising her hand after she’s beaten me half to death, I look at her, and she looks just like Phyllis Diller – you know how Phyllis’ hair went in every direction.”
Antone went on to explain how Noble was very particular about her looks. “She had to be perfect,” Antone said, launching into a story. “One day, we both had to leave Kansas City to go to Omaha, Nebraska. Kay was very vain, and we were too hungover to fix her hair and everything. Me, I didn’t care; I just put mine in rollers. But she put herself on a wig. She gets on the bus, gets her a seat by herself, lays back with her head on the armrest and she’s just getting settled in. Some little old woman comes down the aisle with a purse hanging on her arm. As she goes by Kay, that purse took Kay’s wig and flipped it straight over in front of her face. I tell you, I laughed till I cried. But you’d have to know Kay to know what her expressions were. It was priceless.”
On many occasions, Barbara Baker teamed with her husband Ripper Collins to face Kay Noble and her first husband Doug Gilbert. “She was light and fast,” recalled Baker. “I remember she invited me and my husband over for dinner one day. She was young — we were all young then. And she had a baby and was trying to fix dinner. She was serving fish, and she put it in frozen and it came out frozen! I remember that. Isn’t that weird that it stuck with me that long?”
Betty Nicoli wrestled against Noble and teamed with her as well. “I admired her work. I thought she was one of the best girl wrestlers. In fact, some of the stuff she did in the ring, I stole!” Nicoli said with a hearty laugh. “Kay was just a flier in the ring. She could fly, like Jimmy Snuka. I admired her. She was always in the air. The only way to get her was to snatch her hair and get her out of the air, grab her by the hair and pull her down, because she was tall and I’m short. You either got her at the beginning or you had no chance with her.”
In fact, Noble’s height — a heady 5-foot-7 — resulted in one of the most frequently recounted tales. Teaming with Jack Cain to take on Jean Antone and Terry Funk in a mixed tag match, Kay was forced to think fast. “I jump up on Terry’s back. Jack Cain looks at Kay, Kay looks at Jack Cain. Kay bends over and Jack gets right up on Kay’s shoulders because she was a head taller than him anyway!” laughed Antone.
Another time, same match-up: “Kay was not one to be outdone. We chased them out the back door of that arena. When we rounded the corner, there was Jack with a big, ol’ 2×4. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what is this woman going to come at me with?’ Then she rounded that corner with a little-bitty, long stick yelling ‘hey ya!’ That was the funniest thing.”
On a more personal level, Antone talked about Kay’s love of playing the piano, and whenever Jean found one in the arena, she’d inform Kay. “I knew Katie was going to go over there and play How Great Thou Art. She could play that beautiful. She always played it.” Noble was also known to pluck away at a guitar.
Laverne and Noble shared a love of dogs, and Marie gave Noble a German shepherd named Gunner. Kay and Gunner became so close, that it was actually the dog’s behavior that prompted another visit to the doctor, where the stomach cancer was found.
“Honestly, that dog knew that woman was sick before we found out,” said Laverne.
Stories of Kay Noble’s toughness are legendary. According to Laverne, things weren’t much different in her final days. “If anybody could go as Kay did, with as bad a cancer as she had, she did not complain. She did not complain or moan or groan that she hurt or anything,” Laverne said.
Kay Noble died about 7 p.m. that Thursday, surrounded by family, about an hour after her old friend and mixed tag partner Terry Funk had been to visit. On Monday, Funk will deliver the eulogy at Noble’s funeral, along with Steve Nelson, the son of Marie Laverne and Gordon Nelson.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Monday in Boxwell Brothers Funeral Directors Ivy Chapel, 2800 Paramount Blvd., in Amarillo, with the Rev. Perry Hunsaker, associate minister of St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiating. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery.
Her third marriage was to Dick Bell, and took place on Nov. 25, 1985, in St. Joseph. After retiring from wrestling, Noble owned and operated Kay’s Upholstery located on southwest Sixth Street in Amarillo. She later worked in pediatrics at BSA, where she dedicated her later years to children. Survivors include her husband; four daughters, Theresa Lindzy of Omaha, Neb., Lynn Brollier of Dallas and Melody Flanagan and Teresa Gibson, both of Amarillo; five sons, Michael Lindzy of Louisville, Ky., Steven Lindzy of Omaha and Daniel Fortune, David Fortune and Joe Bell, all of Amarillo; a sister, Leota Thurman of St. Joseph; 20 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. The family suggests memorials be to BSA Hospice, P.O. Box 950, Amarillo, TX 79176.
