TUNNEY’S PRAISE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 250, 19 July 1937, Page 5

TUNNEY’S PRAISE

Hollywood Personality, John Montague (Received July 19, 12'.30 a.m.) New York,. July 18. The former world heavyweight boxing champion. Gene Tunney, referring to the case in which proceedings are being taken td extradite the wellknown Hollywood personality. John Montague, to Essex county, New York, on a robbery indictment, criticised the Essex authorities for making a “martyr of Montague.”

Tunney said it would be an outrage if Montague was imprisoned for something he ma'y or may not have done seven years ago. “He is a gentleman and a prince of good fellows and would not allow anyone to pay his night club bills but himself,” Tunney said.

It was reported from Los Angeles on July 12 that cinema friends had rallied to the support of Montague, who was awaiting extradition on an indictment charging him with a 700-<lollar robbery in 1930. Bing Crosby, wlo was beaten by Montague in a game of golf, in which the latter used a baseball bat, a shovel and a rake instead of clubs, said Montague’s cinema friends were backing him 100 per cent. Oliver Hardy, at whose home Montague stayed once, had offered to furnish 10,000 dollars bail. Montague said the charge had resulted from a prank when he was just a boy, but the police intended to question him'about other robberies.

A critic once wrote of him: “Montague, undoubtedly one of the great golfers of all time two years ago. has never played in a tournament before. This has been one of the deepest puzzles to the sporting world. His game lately has not been up to the standard of a ' year or two back, but he is still playing fine golf.” All accounts of Montague's prowess came from his friends, who said he would astonish the world if he would appear in- competitions—rounds in the small sixties were said to be a common occurrence, ■with him.