Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw vacationing together on the island of Brioni in 1929 -- Associated Press
Tonight from the later than usual time of *10:30* p.m. to 11:30 p.m. CDT on 98.7WFMT Radio Chicago and via free streaming anywhere in the world at wfmt.com my guest is author Jay R. Tunney, discussing his new book The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw (Firefly Books, Buffalo and Richmond Hill, Ontario) about the long and deep friendship between his father, the American boxer and bibliophile, and the greatest English-language playwright of the 20th century
Tunney (1897-1978) was the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world (who beat Jack Dempsey twice, in 1926 and 1927, the latter in Chicago's Soldier Field) when he retired from boxing in 1928 at age 31. Shaw (1856-1950) had a lifelong fascination with boxing and had published an early novel, Cashel Byron's Profession (1886), on an intellectual boxer who prefigured the bookish Tunney.
The two men met in the late 1920s and Tunney and his wife Polly Lauder Tunney spent a month of their honeymoon in 1929 together with Shaw and his wife Charlotte on the Adriatic island of Brioni. Among others they spent time with that month? The German composer Richard Strauss. Tunney and Shaw remained close until Shaw's death at 94 in 1950.
It's a beautifully written book on a fascinating and little-known subject.
The program will then be posted later this week at wfmt.com/criticalthinking for free podcast/download/streaming.
See you on the radio!
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