The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw (review)

The enigmatic Bernard Shaw is known for many roles, most of them related either to literature or to politics: a great playwright, an outstanding critic, a failed novelist, a leading member of the Fabian Society, an outspoken socialist, even, for six years, a vestryman. What is not so well known is his passionate interest in boxing and his great friendship with heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. To bring some needed clarity to one of the most puzzling figures in the history of modern drama, as well as to pay tribute to his father, Jay R. Tunney has written a fascinating book on the friendship that developed between Shaw and Tunney in the late 1920s, just after Tunney retired as heavyweight champion of the world, and that continued until the end of Shaw’s life in 1950.

Gene Tunney grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York City, the eldest son of Irish immigrants, and, while his talents as a boxer were able to lift him out of poverty, his love of books and learning was what raised him out of his class. Approximately the first half of the book recounts Tunney’s miraculous journey to the title of heavyweight champion after his defeat of Jack Dempsey in 1926. Tunney defeated Dempsey again in a 1927 rematch – famously known as “the long count” fight – and shortly thereafter met Shaw. While Tunney was ridiculed by sportswriters and boxing fans for what they considered his intellectual pretentions (he was actually booed when he received the Belt in Madison Square Garden, an incident that disgusted Jack Dempsey), he was a fascinating enigma to the literati, who were amazed by and sometimes sceptical of his interest in “high” culture. Able to quote effortlessly from the works of Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, and Shaw, Tunney delivered a lecture on Shakespeare at Yale in 1927 and counted Thornton Wilder among his friends.

Shaw had been interested in boxing since his early days in London when his friend “Paquito” Beatty invited him into the ring of the London Athletic Club. The two would engage in friendly sparring matches, and in 1883, the future playwright actually fought an amateur match. So we should not be surprised to learn that Shaw wished to meet the erudite pugilist. In 1928, Shaw made repeated attempts to schedule a meeting with the retired champ, which finally proved successful when the two met at Shaw’s posh new residence at Whitehall Court later in the year. The account of this first meeting makes for compelling reading, as Jay Tunney captures the setting brilliantly and has a dramatist’s gift for sparkling dialogue. The luncheon was attended by a veritable “who’s who” of the rich and famous, including H.G. Wells; Max Beerbohm; the Irish painter Sir John Lavery and his renowned socialite wife, Hazel; Maurice Baring, author and member of the family that owned the international banking firm Baring Brothers; and others.

Tunney’s book reads in many ways like a novel, with the climax of the narrative action suspended over the seven chapters that cover the month that Shaw and Tunney spent on the island of Brioni in the north Adriatic Sea. Tunney’s wife suddenly became very ill – indeed, on the brink of dying – when an incident saved her life and was seen by Shaw (and others) as a miracle. Shaw’s religious views have always been difficult to comprehend because of the many seemingly contradictory statements that are sprinkled through his writing. In his presentation of the events on Brioni and of Shaw’s later relationship with the Benedictine Abbess Sister Laurentia Margaret McLachlan, Tunney suggests that Shaw did believe in God and that the “miracle” on Brioni was perhaps a key element in solidifying a very unorthodox and sometimes wavering faith. Shavians may disagree over the significance of the event, and Tunney takes liberties inventing the dialogue between his father and Shaw in the old church, but he has...