I believe his father was Max Baer, the heavyweight champion, whose story is partly told in “Cinderella Man”.
Uncle was Buddy Baer a prize fighter
His uncle was Buddy Baer, who played a big gladiator in “Quo Vadis” in the early 50s! He played a big muscle-bound man who was the bodyguard to a pretty red-haired Christian princess. She’d been raised by a Roman couple on the death of her parents. A young Roman Army soldier/commander.(Robert Taylor)converts to Christianity after falling in love with the girl (Deborah Kerr), and eventually befriends the secret Christian community she belongs to. The Buddy Baer character also is secretly Christian and has a positive influence on the young Roman man who’s impressed with his courage. He tries to save them both in the end from persecution by Emp. Nero. (Peter Ustinov) I don’t know if you or anyone else has seen it, so I’ll leave it at that! Both Max Baer’s father and this actor-uncle were body-builders!