The {warehouse} magazine

Muhammad Ali was perhaps the first person to achieve mainstream fame in the early days of the broadcasting age.

And unlike many of today’s stars who bask in the spotlight like they’re sun tanning – Paris Hilton and Terrell Owens come to mind – Ali was a celebrity worth celebrating. Politically astute, poetically inclined, and spiritually enlightened, Ali used his pulpit of fame to scintillating effect.

"I’m so fast,” he once quipped claimed with a nudge and a wink, “that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” But Ali’s cockiness was more of a game than shallow self-promotion.