Kellie Maloney is a fighter in more ways than one. As Frank Maloney, her dimunitive frame was easy to spot cheering on the fighters she managed in the boxing ring. But inside, there was a battle with her own identity.
This is the story of how, at 64, she decided to come out to friends and family as transgender and start on a path of gender affirmation surgery. She maintains she always wanted to be a woman, yet fought against it.
We follow Kellie’s story through a life in the public eye, spoken with honesty and tact. It is a moving tale of becoming who one needs to be, or always was, to be happy.
We also hear from former wife Tracey and three daughters on how this transition from a normal working-class machismo dad to a woman who seeks advice on wear to do her nails has affected them.
Tracey is understandably still angry with events, although supportive. Her input stands for many who feel their marriages were a long-standing sham when their husbands transition.
The younger daughters, one under 18 at the time, speak of their shock and initial inability to understand. Knock Out Blonde recognises the effect on children who struggle with accepting such a major change to ‘dad’.
The film’s focus is mainly to tell Kellie’s story from her own viewpoint. From buying transvestite mags and confiding in a ladyboy, to the moment of final operation (which is shown in part).
Friends and former clients in the boxing fraternity back her, although her brothers are less forgiving – one has come round, but the other is silent and absent.
The press who forced her hand to make her decision public are given a free pass, ax if their lurid headlines can ever be justified in the public interest.
They are balanced by a round of sympathetic media appearances, including a run in Celebrity Big Brother, in which gay personality and age contemporary Leslie Jordan was friendly and sympathetic.
A few clumsy vignettes dramatising events don’t add much, and in the case of boxer Darren Sutherland’s sad death, distasteful and intrusive.
It is better to hear directly from Kellie and those around her, although even then, matters are curated to step away from verbal controversies she was involved in as Frank.
We leave Kellie Maloney as she returns to the world of boxing as manager and coach in the women’s game. A survivor donning the gloves once more, unflinching.
Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story is premiering exclusively on the Icon Film Channel for 30 days from 5th August, followed by a special Q&A theatrical screening on 9th September at the Genesis cinema in Mile End, before hitting digital platforms on 7th October.