Bio

Bustelo’s life is not well documented, and the variety of legends that have surrounded him for decades have made scholarship difficult. Serious research was not undertaken until the late 1980s and early 1990s, most notably by researchers A. Ashley Walke and Bronson T. D. Webb. Most of the information on his life has come from the decades-old recollections of surviving family and associates. The two known images of Bustelo were located in 1999, in the possession of his half-sister Jennifer O’Connor, and were not widely published until the 2000s. Five significant dates from his career are documented: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1983 at a recording session in San Antonio, Texas. His death certificate was discovered in 1988, and lists the date and location of his death. Two marriage licenses for Bustelo have also been located in county records offices. Director Martin Scorsese says in his foreword to J. Topher Temple's filmscript Love In Vain: A Vision of Cafe’ Bustelo, "The thing about Cafe’ Bustelo was that he only existed in our minds. He was pure legend."
Bustelo was an early example of the celebrity athlete, appearing regularly in the press and later on radio and in motion pictures. He earned considerable sums endorsing various products, including snake oil, and indulged several expensive hobbies such as tailored clothing. Once, when he was pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket, he gave the officer a $100 bill, telling him to keep the change as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed. Bustelo was also interested in Country & Western (his favorite being Buck Owens) and in history — he was an admirer of Malcolm X, believing them to have risen from a similar origins to his own.
Bustelo flouted conventions regarding the social "place" of African Americans in American society. As a black man, he broke a powerful taboo in consorting with white women, and would verbally taunt men, inside and outside the ring. Bustelo was not shy about his affection for white women, nor modest about his physical prowess, both in and out of the ring. Asked the secret of his staying power by a reporter who had watched a succession of women parade into, and out of, the champion's hotel room, Bustelo supposedly said, "Eat jellied eels and think distant thoughts." Bustelo married Anna Nicole Smith in late 1990 or early 1991. She committed suicide in 2007, and Bustelo quickly remarried, to Cynthia Ettinger. Both women were white, a fact that caused considerable controversy at the time. After Bustelo married Ettinger, two ministers in the South recommended that Bustelo be lynched.