Muhammad Ali at Home: Photos Trace the Champion's Life Beyond the Ring

By Daniel Okafor

A stolen bicycle started it all. Muhammad Ali was 12, living in Louisville, Kentucky, when his brand-new bike went missing; the police officer who took the report owned a boxing gym and became his first coach.

Ten years later, in 1964, Ali — then still Cassius Clay — took the world heavyweight title from Sonny Liston. He would win it twice more, add an Olympic gold medal, and collect honors for civil rights activism and humanitarian work. Ahead of Prime Video's new series The Greatest, which charts his rise, a photographic look at his life off-duty is making the rounds.

Where did Ali live after converting?

Days after winning the title, Ali announced his conversion to the Nation of Islam, changed his name, and moved to Chicago, where the movement had its headquarters. (He later converted to Sunni Islam.) In 1967, citing his faith, he refused Army service in the Vietnam War. His license was revoked, his title stripped.

A 1968 photo shows him reading a book by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in that Chicago home. The single-story brick house in Avalon Park was a fully furnished gift from the Nation of Islam. He married his second wife, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, there on August 17, 1967.

What about the family years?

Daughter Maryum arrived in 1968; twins Rasheda and Jamillah followed in 1970. A November 1970 photograph shows the newborns between Ali and Maryum at the family's West Philadelphia home in Overbrook Park. They stayed about a year. Kobe Bryant's grandparents later owned the house — quite a provenance for one modest property.

Ali bought his Deer Lake training camp, Fighter's Heaven, in 1972, the year after the Supreme Court overturned his draft-evasion conviction and restored his license. He custom-built a log gym, dining hall, cabins, a mosque, and a courtyard with a large stone fireplace. Sessions were open to the public; an August 1974 photo shows fans gathered behind him. He sold the camp in 1997 to martial arts instructor George Dillman. It's now a tourist site with a small museum.

How did it end?

Ali retired at 37 in 1979, returned in 1980 to fight Larry Holmes, and lost. Early Parkinson's symptoms were already affecting him. He fought once more in 1981, then quit for good.

"I know it's the end. I'm not crazy. After Holmes, I had excuses. I was too light. Didn't breathe right. No excuses this time. I'm happy. I'm still pretty. I could have a black eye. Broken teeth. Split lips. I think I came out all right for an old man."

Photos from 1980 through 1985 show him in Hancock Park, Los Angeles: the home office, the game room, a cereal breakfast in 1985 beneath a crystal chandelier. The house — a 1916 Italian Renaissance mansion by architect John C. Austin, 14,500 square feet, seven bedrooms, stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany — was bought in 1979, two years after he married his third wife, Veronica Porché.

The divorce was finalized in 1986; Ali left the mansion and soon married his fourth wife, Lonnie Williams. Diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1984, he made her his primary caregiver. The couple's Arizona home hosted his 70th birthday shoot in 2012, the year he received the Liberty Medal; the Presidential Medal of Freedom had come in 2005. Ali died in Arizona in 2016, at 74. The series, and these photographs, keep the domestic record as sharp as the boxing one.