In the 1960s, Emile Griffith was a boxing star, known for his speed and punching power, with a regular presence at Madison Square Garden.

But in neighborhoods near the Garden, he let his other side show, one of flashy outfits and unapologetic swagger, where he frequented his favorite gay bars and clubs.

Mr. Griffith kept his two worlds separate. “He was living a double life, two lives, night and day,” said Willson Lee Henderson, a gay rights activist who said he met Mr. Griffith in early 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, the famous gay bar in Greenwich Village, several months before a police raid touched off the Stonewall Rebellion and the modern gay rights movement.

The boxer, who died in 2013 at 75 from kidney failure and complications of dementia, was known at the Stonewall for his open shirts and gold chains. He danced “fast and slow” with other men, Mr. Henderson said.

But Mr. Griffith was also known for an infamous, deadly event that ended up haunting him — and defining his career — for the rest of his life. In a title fight at the Garden in 1962, Mr. Griffith unleashed a fatal barrage of punches in the 12th round against an opponent who had taunted him with a homophobic slur. The opponent died not long after.

The deadly fight is now the subject of “Champion,” a new Metropolitan Opera production written by the jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard. The opera, which opened this week, explores how a boxer so celebrated in the ring often had to hide his true self out of it.

“I kill a man and the world forgives me — I love a man and the world wants to kill me,” goes a line in the opera, whose libretto by Michael Cristofer depicts Mr. Griffith at different stages of his life.

Despite the risk to his boxing career, Mr. Griffith never shied away from frequenting gay clubs. That made him a source of endearment and pride for the gay community especially as police raids, pressure and harassment continued in the late 1960s, said Mr. Henderson, the founder and director of the Stonewall Rebellion Veterans Association, a group that Mr. Griffith quietly helped found and finance.

“He was a pioneer in gay rights behind the scenes but was never acknowledged for it,” Mr. Henderson said. “He was never given credit by the gay community or the sports community, so he missed out on both.”

Mr. Griffith often deflected questions about his sexuality. “Why worry about it,” Mr. Griffith told the Times in 2007. “I just get tired of talking about the same thing over and over. They’ve got to figure it out themselves.” Sometimes he gave conflicting answers or said he was bisexual.

“In the ‘60s, being gay wasn’t the most popular thing, and being gay in boxing culture was like sacrilege,” said Michael Bentt, 58, a former world heavyweight champion and an actor who was friendly with Mr. Griffith. About a decade ago, while working as Mr. Blanchard’s fitness trainer, he shared the boxer’s story with the composer.

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“I mentioned that there was this gay boxer who was an outcast in many communities and was loved in other communities,” said Mr. Bentt, who is now the boxing consultant for “Champion.”

The fight that changed everything

‘I did what I had to do’

Mr. Griffith grew up one of eight children in the U.S. Virgin Islands and emigrated to Brooklyn in his teens. He toughened up by fighting off street gang recruiters.

While working for a hat maker and designer in Manhattan’s garment district, his physique caught the eye of the owner, a former amateur boxer who promptly introduced him to the trainer Gil Clancy.

Mr. Griffith quickly won the Golden Gloves, an amateur competition, and went pro. In 1961, he won the welterweight crown from a brash Cuban fighter named Benny (Kid) Paret who then won it back six months later.

In 1962, at the weigh-in for their third fight, Mr. Paret openly taunted Mr. Griffith in a mocking lisp and called him “maricón,” a Spanish anti-gay slur that enraged Mr. Griffith.

“Emile knew what that meant and that really bothered him,” said Juan Laporte, a former featherweight champion who knew Mr. Griffith. “Paret tried to get on his bad side and he did. Emile took that very hard.”

Griffith’s trainer, Gil Clancy, restrained him and told him to save his anger for the fight.

He did. In the 12th round, Mr. Griffith trapped Mr. Paret in a corner, and began pummeling his head. The referee finally intervened and Mr. Paret slipped to the canvas unconscious.

“I’ve never before seen a fighter in that condition and I’ve never seen one since,” said the veteran sports photographer Neil Leifer, who at 19 was shooting the fight for Sports Illustrated and wound up standing directly over a battered Mr. Paret with his camera.

Ten days later, Mr. Paret died from brain hemorrhaging.

In 2005, Mr. Griffith told The Times that Mr. Paret’s taunts had “touched something inside.” He said that he was sorry Mr. Paret had died, but “He called me a name, so I did what I had to do.”

A boxer with style and panache

‘He went to the nightclubs, drag clubs, gay bars and he took it all in’

Mr. Griffith’s Weehawken, N.J. apartment was decorated in a Versailles-like décor that featured Cupids painted on the wall, rococo furniture, and twin French Provincial tufted couches, according to a 1966 Sports Illustrated profile.

His circular bed had a sparkling crown headboard and leopard-print bedspreads. There were championship belts next to oil paintings, and closets full of tailor-made suits, tuxedos and sports coats.

“If I see somebody wearing the same suit I’m wearing, I take it off and never wear it again,” he told the magazine, which detailed his affinity for plaid hip huggers and suede, ankle-high boots. The article described Mr. Griffiths’ two dogs — a Doberman and a white poodle — whom he sheared himself and took with him out on the town, as representing two sides of his personality.

Throughout the 1970s, Mr. Henderson said he and Mr. Griffith frequented gay bars and clubs in midtown like Les Jardin, the Gilded Grape and Better Days.

“He went to the nightclubs, drag clubs, gay bars and he took it all in,” said James Robinson, the opera’s director.

“He would be there buying Champagne for everyone at the bar,” said Luis Rodrigo Griffith, 60, the boxer’s adopted son. “He would dress in his leather jacket with the mink fur collar and tight leather pants, snakeskin shoes, tight leather gloves and hat. He looked like a gangster.”

Mr. Griffith cut a stylish figure at the Stonewall, wearing open shirts, gold chains and tight outfits revealing his physique, Mr. Henderson said. “Couldn’t get me out of that place — I really enjoyed myself there,” Mr. Griffith told The Times in 2007.

Mr. Griffith was at the Stonewall the night of the historic raid, but he left before the arrests began, according to Mr. Henderson.

He did not participate in the demonstrations that followed, but was involved in the founding meetings of the Stonewall association, becoming an executive board member and serving as first vice-president at one point, Mr. Henderson said.

But the work was invisible. Out of concern for his boxing reputation, he stayed away from the annual Pride Parade in the Village for decades.

Ghosts in the ring, pride reclaimed

‘He had this joyous nature but he was in insurmountable pain’

After 85 victories, 24 losses and 2 draws, Mr. Griffith retired in 1977. Despite his impressive career — he won six world titles and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 — the Paret death had left Mr. Griffith hesitant in the ring, Mr. Rodrigo Griffith said. “He would see Paret’s image while he was fighting,” he said. “He didn’t want that to happen again. He was never the same fighter and the crowd would boo him for it.”

Once his professional boxing career ended, Mr. Griffith trained other fighters, including Mr. Laporte. “Every time you’d start to talk about that fight, he’d start to cry,” Mr. Laporte said. “If I was with him, I wouldn’t let anyone ask questions about that fight.”

He also worked with youth sports programs, particularly the Griffs, a baseball team named after him and based in Chelsea. “He was a civic-minded good guy who cared about the community,” said Ira N. Glauber, now a lawyer in Manhattan who played with the Griffs when he was a teenager in the 1960s. “After Benny Paret’s death he probably wanted to make amends for what he did, and bring some goodness to the world.”

In 1992, Mr. Griffith was severely beaten by a group of attackers outside a midtown bar and barely made it home to his Queens apartment

“I came in and he was laying on the floor — he couldn’t move,” Mr. Laporte said. “I called the ambulance. Turns out, his kidneys had shut down.”

The beating and his drinking hastened his decline, leaving the chiseled champ who was once the toast of the gay clubs now living in a cluttered efficiency apartment on Long Island with his trophies and championship belts in storage bags.

“He had this joyous nature but he was in insurmountable pain,” said Dan Klores, who co-directed the 2005 documentary, “Ring of Fire,” about the fatal boxing match. “As joyous as he was, there was always a tragic sadness, the Paret fight and his lifestyle, having to live that secret life.”

He did, however, finally participate in the annual Pride Parade in the Village. In 2007, he joined the procession for the first time, riding in Mr. Henderson’s blue Cadillac convertible.

“He was one of the greatest fighters,” Mr. Klores said, “and yet he wasn’t able to be himself.”

“Champion” runs through May 13 at Lincoln Center, with a simulcast in select theaters worldwide on April 29.

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