fat, wonderful woman, who loves to cook, eat, make clothes, and be with family. She doesn't drink, smoke, meddle in other people's business, or bother anyone, and there's no one who's been better to me my whole life." Clay supported and inspired her son throughout his boxing career. At small gyms early in her son's career and later at international arenas when he became world-famous, Clay traveled with her son and was a ring-side regular at his bouts. Muhammad Ali was much closer to his mother, whom he lovingly called "Bird", than to his father. After discovering boxing, it was his mother with whom he shared his dreams of greatness. Final years Clay's husband died in 1990. Odessa Clay died of heart failure on August 20, 1994 at Hurstbourne Health Center, a nursing home in the Louisville, Kentucky area. She had been disabled by a stroke since February 1994. Her body was buried in a grave alongside her husband in Green Meadows Memorial Cemetery, in Louisville. Odessa Clay appeared as herself in the film documentaries Muhammad Ali: The Whole Story (1996) and When We Were Kings (1996). In the 1977 film The Greatest, Odessa Clay was portrayed by Dorothy Meyer, and in the 2001 film Ali she was portrayed by Candy Ann Brown. References Hauser, Thomas. Muhammad Ali and Company, pp. 18–19, Hastingshouse/Daytrips Publishing (1998) Notes External links Obituary of Odessa Grady Clay Muhammad Ali's Irish ancestry 1917 births 1995 deaths American people of Irish descent Muhammad Ali family People from Louisville, Kentucky