How A Tour With The Beach Boys Helped Inspired Jimmy Hart's Flashy Persona

When it came to making a fashion statement, Jimmy Hart stood out at ringside, sporting some of the flashiest jackets and most colorful megaphones ever seen at ringside. In an interview with WrestleZone, the ebullient "Mouth of the South" recalled that while Vince McMahon gave him the idea for the megaphones, his wardrobe inspiration came from a pep talk he received during his music industry days in the 1960s.

"When I was in the rock 'n' roll business with the one-hit-wonder The Gentrys, 'Keep on Dancing,' Dick Clark one night put us into a room before we had a show," Hart recalled. "It was The Beach Boys, us, Chuck Berry was there, I think Steppenwolf — there were a lot of groups back in that era — and he said 'Look, when you go on stage, you're there to be entertainers and entertaining the public. Remember one thing — some nights you might be sick and you can't help that, but dress-wise, if you dress like the audience, one day you're going to end up in the audience,' meaning don't go out there in a t-shirt with blue jeans on. That might be OK for a while if you want to be cool or hip, but people pay big money to come see you sometimes and they want to go 'Wow! I like that jacket! I like that coat!' ... So, that's always been a big part of my career, the jackets, the megaphone and hopefully being able to talk and be entertaining."

As a result of Clark's advice, Hart started paying attention to what performers were wearing. Taking note of those sartorial observations, he used his jackets to draw attention to both himself and, more importantly, his clients, at ringside.

"I always thought I was the hood ornament on the Cadillac, they were the Cadillac and I was the hood ornament, you know?" he said.

In regard to his megaphone, Hart credited Vince McMahon with that inspiration.

"When I first left Memphis to go up to New York, I used to carry a cane down there," he said. "But when I got to New York, Mr. Fuji had the cane. I wasn't going to mess with Mr. Fuji because you know where that would've ended up, so one day I was up in Poughkeepsie, New York getting ready to do TV shows and Vince came back from Japan and goes 'Here, I wanted to give you this, this is going to be your new gimmick,' and I said 'Okay, thank you. Can I paint it?' and he said, 'Just know when to use it and when not to use it and you can do whatever you want with it,' and that was such a huge break for me because it turned out to be such a great part of my career up there. We used it in so many different matches there back in the day."