Kenneth Richmond

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Olympic medal record
Men's Wrestling
Bronze	Helsinki 1952	Freestyle Wrestling Heavyweight

Kenneth Richmond (10 July 1926 – 3 August 2006) was a British wrestler. He won a bronze medal at the 1952 Olympics and was also a whale ship crewman before he got into the gong business. He stayed fit enough into old age to win medals for rollerblading and windsurfing in his 60s.

Though he made a memorable appearance as the wrestler Nikolai in Jules Dassin's Night and the City, Richmond was most recognizable as the shirtless gongman banging the enormous gong preceding the opening credits for J. Arthur Rank's famed British productions of the Rank Organisation (movies such as Great Expectations, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and Kind Hearts and Coronets).

He died at age 80 in his home in Christchurch, England. According to the BBC, before he died, he revealed to friends a closely-guarded secret that the gong was a papier-mâché stage prop.

[edit] Sources

• London Daily Mirror, August 12, 2006
• BBC Radio 4 Last Word, August 18, 2006

[edit] External links

• Ken Richmond at the Internet Movie Database
• Film world mourns man who banged the (paper) gong for Rank