Mickey Goldmill

Mickey Goldmill
Rocky character
Burgess Meredith as Mickey Goldmill
First appearance	Rocky
Last appearance	Rocky III (physical) Rocky IV, Rocky V, and Rocky Balboa (flashbacks)
Portrayed by	Burgess Meredith
Information
Nickname(s)	Mighty Mick
Gender	Male
Occupation	Professional boxing trainer (formerly professional boxer)
Relatives	Rocky Balboa Adrian Pennino Paulie Pennino Robert "Rocky" Jr.
Religion	Judaism
Nationality	American

Michael "Mickey" Goldmill is a fictional character created by Sylvester Stallone, portrayed by Burgess Meredith in the Rocky film series, in which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the first film, as was his co-star Burt Young. The character's gravelly voice, intense demeanor and popular catch phrases helped make him highly recognizable as well as a common source of parody and satire in pop culture.

Mickey may be based on Charley Goldman. Both were bantamweights, had Jewish ancestry, and have similar-sounding names. In addition, Goldman was the boxing trainer of Rocky Marciano, on whom Rocky Balboa is based. Goldman trained Marciano in many ways similar to how Goldmill trained Balboa, such as tying their ankles together with string to teach them to spread their feet at the appropriate width. Goldman was (again like Goldmill) well known for making wise remarks (ex. "A lot of people say Rocky [Marciano] don't look too good in there, but the guy on the ground don't look too good either.").

According to his memorial plaque, Mickey Goldmill was born on 7 April 1905 to a Jewish family. He boxed professionally from 1922 until 1947 and achieved great athletic success but never gained any measure of fame or material success. Goldmill recalled that he once knocked fictional opponent, Ginny Russell, out of the ring the same day that Luis Firpo did the same to Jack Dempsey: 14 September 1923. Goldmill claimed that the reason his victory did not garner any media attention was that he did not have a manager, while Dempsey did. He retired in 1947, with a record of 72 Wins, (70 K.O.'s), 1 Loss. Some time after his retirement (in 1948), he opened a boxing gym in Philadelphia, Mighty Mick's Boxing, and began to train fighters. There is an apparent continuity error on Goldmill's actual birth year. In late 1975, he tells Rocky that he's 76 years old, which would have meant he was born in either 1898 or 1899. However, his memorial plaque says he was born in 1905. It is possible that he lied about his age (stating that he was 23 when he was actually 17) to start boxing and kept up the pretense for the rest of his life. Although, in Rocky III, his headstone mentions that he died in 1981, which still would've made him 76, keeping in line with the Rocky "universe", and not real life.