The Fabulous Moolah

Mary Lillian Ellison (July 22, 1923 – November 2, 2007) was an American professional wrestler, promoter and trainer better known by her ring name The Fabulous Moolah.

She began her career working with promoter Billy Wolfe and his wife, wrestler and trainer Mildred Burke, as well as working alongside professional wrestler "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers.

Mary Lillian Ellison was born in 1923 in Kershaw County, South Carolina, and grew up in Tookiedoo, 12 miles from Columbia.

The youngest of five children, Ellison was the only daughter of a part-Cherokee father and an Irish mother.

Her parents owned a farm, a grocery store, and a service station.

When her mother died of cancer, eight-year-old Ellison went to live with her paternal grandmother and worked on her cousin's cotton farm to make money.

At age 10, Ellison was still deeply distraught over her mother's death; to cheer her up, her father took her to the local wrestling matches.

Ellison liked the matches, but it was not until she saw Women's Champion Mildred Burke wrestle that "they began to mean much more" to her.

Ellison returned to the Columbia home of her father and brothers.

She graduated from Columbia High School, and married L. Walter Carroll.

They soon became parents to a daughter.

A few months after the birth of her daughter, she divorced Carroll., leaving her daughter with a friend and setting out on a wrestling career of her own.

Ellison began her wrestling career with Mildred Burke's husband Billy Wolfe, the dominant women's promoter of the time.

She competed with many established female wrestlers, like Mae Young, Cecilia Blevins and Mildred Burke.

Wolfe was notorious for advising his wrestlers to enter into sexual relationships with either himself or competing promoters to ensure additional bookings, a practice with which Ellison refused to go along.

She, however, soon began a romance with wrestler Johnny Long.

Long later introduced Ellison to Jack Pfefer who gave her the moniker "Slave Girl Moolah".

By the early 1950s, Moolah was a valet for "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, accompanying him to the ring while providing eye candy for the male audiences and assisting Rogers against his opponents.

Ellison broke up the partnership because Rogers kept pushing her to begin a sexual relationship.

She then served as the valet for the Elephant Boy (Tony Olivas).

Olivas was Mexican, but had very dark skin, which caused controversy when Ellison, a white woman, would kiss him on the cheek during their ring entrance routine.

At one show in Oklahoma City, a man, who thought that Olivas was a black man, attempted to stab Ellison with a knife for kissing him.

Moolah later left Pfeffer's promotion and began wrestling under Boston promoters Tony Santos and Paul Bowser.

In 1955, she began working for Vince McMahon, Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling Corporation.

She won the NWA World Women's Championship in 1956 and was the most prominent holder of the title for 28 years.

She is overall an eight-time women's world champion and to this day holds the record as the longest reigning world champion in combination of all her reigns.

On September 18, 1956, Moolah defeated Judy Grable in a 13-woman battle royal to win the vacant World Women's Championship, which shares a lineage with the NWA World Women's Championship.

She was not immediately recognized by everyone as the NWA Champion because Billy Wolfe, with whom she had conflict earlier in her career, still controlled the promotion.

After the match, Vince McMahon, Sr. dubbed Ellison with a new ring name – The Fabulous Moolah.

Subsequently, June Byers came out of retirement to challenge Moolah to a match for the title.

During the match, Moolah acted as the aggressor and pinned Byers to retain the championship.

Moolah's first World Championship reign lasted over ten years.

Moolah successfully defended the belt against the top female wrestlers in the world, such as Judy Grable and Donna Christanello, while also purporting to befriend some of the biggest celebrities of the day.

In the 1980s, she joined the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) as part of the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection storyline, feuding with Cyndi Lauper and Wendi Richter, the latter of whom defeated her for the WWF Women's Championship in the main event of The Brawl to End It All in 1984.

Moolah regained the Women's Championship on two further occasions before entering semi-retirement towards the end of the decade.

She continued to make sporadic appearances for WWF/WWE until her death, often in comedic roles with longtime friend Mae Young.

She became the first woman to be inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in 1995 and is also a member of the NWA Hall of Fame and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

However, her legacy has since been damaged in the years following her death, when allegations surfaced that she had exploited female wrestlers under her tutelage both financially and sexually.

In 1999, she became the oldest champion in the history of professional wrestling, up to that point in time, when she won the Women's Championship for a final time at age 76.

During her lifetime, Moolah was lauded as a leading figure in women's professional wrestling and was considered one of the industry's greatest wrestlers.