The Great White Hope (film) over their marriage and Duryea's death by suicide in 1912. Set between 1910 and 1915, the story follows Jack Jefferson, patterned after real-life boxer, Jack Johnson, going on a hot streak of victories in the boxing ring as he defeats every white boxer around. Soon the press and racists announce the search for a "great white hope", a boxer who will defeat Jefferson for the heavyweight title. Meanwhile, Jefferson prepares for a few more matches, but he lets his guard down by courting the beautiful, and very white, Eleanor Bachman, and when everyone, including Jack's black "wife", discover this, the
Great White tour. The "medical reasons" turned out to be Jack Russell's addictions to alcohol and cocaine. This was the end of this version of Great White, as Jack Russell entered rehabilitation and did not perform again until 2007. Russell used the year of 2006 to get sober and get a facelift that was detailed on ExtraTV. Russell later referred to this incarnation of Great White as "Fake White", saying "It still sounded like Great White, but not – almost like we were doing a cover of ourselves." Talk of a reunion of Great White began in a 2004 interview, where Jack