By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Neil Leifer’s dream, like that of all photographers, is to take at least one picture that everyone remembers.

As a photographer for Sports Illustrated, LIFE, Newsweek, Time and many other national magazines, Leifer has shot countless memorable photos. Some of them have even reached iconic status.

One of those photographs, probably the photograph, in Leifer’s catalogue is the one he shot inside the Central Maine Youth Center, now The Colisee, on this day 40 years ago – the photo of a triumphant and defiant Ali standing over Sonny Liston moments after he knocked down the challenger in the first round of their second bout.

“It’s not my favorite photograph, but without question, it’s my signature picture, and I’m very, very proud of it,” he said.

Leifer was back in Lewiston yesterday, setting up for an exclusive photo shoot that will take place today of an empty Colisee, re-created to look as it did 40 years ago when Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston with the so-called “Phantom Punch” and retained his heavyweight boxing title.

The photo session is part of a year-long assignment Leifer is conducting for Sports Illustrated where he is re-visiting the events and places that he covered for the magazine from 1958 to 1978. The Colisee is one of only two buildings Leifer is re-visiting, along with the Houston Astrodome. The rest of what he calls his “senior citizen tour” has already brought him back to the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, the Masters, and other notable sporting events.

“I thought it would be fun to go back and really just reminisce. And I’m lucky that (Sports Illustrated) said yes,” said the 62-year-old Leifer.

A historic re-creation

Leifer has been discussing a return to Lewiston with Assistant City Administrator Phil Nadeau for nearly two years. Nadeau began corresponding when he contacted Leifer’s son about purchasing a print of the famous photo.

“Neil called back because he was so thrilled someone from Lewiston, Maine was going to buy this picture,” Nadeau said.

“I thought about what could I do about the one picture, the one moment, that everyone remembered me for, obviously the fight that took place here 40 years ago, and I thought it would really be a fun idea if I could come back and photograph this arena,” Leifer said.

“I never imagined that Phil Nadeau, who’s been just wonderful, would do what he’s done,” he added. “My hope was that he would just let me shoot the arena. Instead, he’s re-created this entire scene almost the way it looked back then.”

It wasn’t easy. Working off a bird’s-eye photo that Leifer shot 40 years ago, Nadeau tried to reproduce as many details from that night as he could. He borrowed the ring from Joe Gamache, Sr. and had it encircled with three rows of red, white and blue ropes, rather than the four rows that are tied to boxing rings today. Since there aren’t any pure white ring canvases around anymore (“Nobody has a canvas without some sort of logo on it, and they’re all blue for television,” Nadeau said), he purchased 40 yards of material from Marden’s and had it made into a canvas. He brought in a bank of two dozen 1,000 watt stage lights from a South Portland company to recreate the lighting. He even had the ringside seating set up as it was then, with two rows of press tables on each side

“The only thing I didn’t pick up on were the ropes, because the ropes were blue, not red, white and blue, and the pads in the corners,” said Nadeau, who has been working on the project for the last month. “He wants something that’s going to be special here, and I’m going to do everything I can to make that happen.”

Leifer said he was amazed by what he saw when he first walked into the arena yesterday morning, but a flood of memories didn’t come rushing back to him.

“I truly didn’t remember what this place looks like,” he said. “I sort of hoped I would, that it would bring back some memories, but I was so focused on what I was doing that it didn’t make a difference whether this was Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium or the LA Coliseum.”

From Kuala Lumpur to Lewiston

It usually didn’t make a difference to Leifer where the event was. He had a job to do, and doing it well meant he wouldn’t be able to distinguish a converted hockey rink in Lewiston from a historic arena in the heart of Manhattan.

“I was an expert on getting from the airport to the stadium and getting back to the airport after the football game on Saturday or Sunday,” he said.

In that context, Leifer said, Lewiston isn’t all that out of place when compared with the other venues that he traveled to to cover boxing

“Don’t forget where some of the other fights (that he covered) took place. I knew where Maine was. I’d never heard of Zaire. Certainly no one ever thought of a major fight in Kuala Lumpur or Manila,” he said. “The venue just meant nothing. Quite frankly, when you’re on the apron ringside, all that is in front of you is the fighter. Nothing else.”

Using some photos he’d shot four decades ago with remote cameras from the far reaches of the arena, Leifer was able to find the exact location where he was leaning on the apron when he shot his most famous picture.

He spent much of the day Tuesday working with two assistants on lighting and angles, trying to replicate what he’d done with his cameras the first time he was here. Nadeau originally hoped to have some action in the ring to coincide with Leifer’s visit, but attempts to have a fight card put together on such short notice didn’t work out. The photographer said he didn’t mind, though, because he would have still shot the arena when it was empty, too.

“This one is probably the easiest in terms of the common theme (of the Sports Illustrated project) – then and now,” he said. “I have an overhead of this place full of people with two fighters in the ring. So this is probably, from the standpoint of the literal creation, this one’s easy.”

“Easy” is a relative term, though. The man who by his own estimate has covered 17 Kentucky Derbies, 15 Masters and every NFL championship from the 1958 championship game through the first 12 Super Bowls confessed he’s had some anxiety about the Sports Illustrated project.

“I was really worried about not doing it as well as I’d like to do it and maybe embarrassing myself,” he said. “And that’s not me being modest. This is not like getting back on a bicycle.”