Coley Wallace, who died Sunday of heart failure, was one of the few boxers – some say the only one – who could claim to have beaten Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight champ who retired with a 49-0 professional record.

Wallace beat Marciano in a 1948 Golden Glove preliminary round. Marciano was an out-of-shape, unknown amateur still going by his birth name, Marchegiano. Wallace went on to claim the Golden Glove crown at Madison Square Garden.

Wallace took pride in the win, and when people asked for his autograph later in life he would give them a signed photo from the bout. In a 1997 interview, Wallace said his strategy was to stoop down to the stockier Marciano’s level and try to beat him to the punch with a quick right hand.

Marciano later claimed the fight was fixed, and at least one account of the bout suggests the crowd agreed and responded to the decision by throwing bottles and programs into the ring.

The New York Times’ account of Wallace’s victory at the Garden read, “Many in the crowd of 17,926 remarked about Wallace’s resemblance to [Joe] Louis, but there the comparison ended.”

So marked was the resemblance, in fact, that Wallace was chosen to star in the 1953 film “The Joe Louis Story.” Perhaps ironically, it was Marciano who had ended the real Joe Louis’s career in the latter’s 1951 comeback.

Wallace was born in Jacksonville, Fla., but by the time he came to the attention of the boxing public, he had moved to Harlem and was a freshman at New York University. He was “the most talked about amateur boxer since Joe Louis was simon-pure,” according to the Times.

After winning the 1948 Golden Glove, Wallace went on to win the national amateur heavyweight title in 1950, and decided to turn pro.

“He was a counter puncher, a big man,” boxing historian Bert Sugar, who recalled seeing Wallace fight, said. “He was a good fighter, with a small ‘g’, but a great man.”

Wallace compiled a 20-7 professional record. He had bouts against some of the top heavyweights of the early 1950s, including Bob Baker and a former world champ, Ezzard Charles, who “methodically chopped him down to size,” the AP recorded. Charles knocked Wallace out in the 10th and final round of their 1953 meeting in San Francisco.

“The way Charles fought tonight, he can lick any heavyweight living,” Wallace’s manager, Blinky Palerno, said. Charles would go on to lose two challenge bouts with Marciano the following year.

Wallace, meanwhile, headed downhill, a heavyweight on the ropes. Although his movie career looked good in 1953 (“Wallace portrays Louis as a goodhearted guy with a simple way who can’t turn down a touch and who eventually loses his championship and his wife,” the LA Times wrote of “The Joe Louis Story”), he was losing more often.

The Times said Wallace looked “indecisive” in a 10-round loss to Baker in 1954, and the AP reported that he was “overweight and slow” in another loss against an unheralded opponent in 1955. Finally, he packed his tent after a 10th-round K.O. in 1956 put him in the hospital.

Wallace remained a familiar figure in boxing circles, attended fights frequently, and was active in Ring 8, a society of boxing veterans. Younger fighters like Ken Norton and Muhammad Ali knew and respected him. When Mr. Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire in 1974, he flew Wallace to Africa, along with a planeload of celebrities, recalled Raymond Sussman, Wallace’s lawyer and friend who came along for the ride. When Mr. Ali requested some soul music records as a break from the ubiquitous African tunes available at his Zairian training camp, Mr. Sussman and Wallace instead showed up with James Brown in person.

Wallace did promotional work for a liquor company. He appeared in “Carib Gold” (1957), which happened to be the screen debut of Cicely Tyson. He also appeared in several smaller roles.

In 1980, he reprised his role as Joe Louis in “Raging Bull,” which, coincidentally, is being revived at the Ziegfeld.