Gene Tunney on AllMovie

The world's heavyweight boxing champion in 1926-1928, handsome, dark-haired Gene Tunney's 1926 title bout in Philadelphia, PA, against Jack Dempsey drew a record 120,757 spectators. He fought Dempsey again the following year, winning once again despite a still controversial "long count" from a referee busy keeping Dempsey to his corner. While still an active athlete, Tunney was awarded the title role in the 1926 Pathé serial The Fighting Marine, proving once again that idolized athletes don't necessarily make good actors. Tunney played Dick Farrington, a reporter protecting an heiress (Marjorie Day) from a host of greedy enemies. Tunney, whose only fiction film this was, retired at the top of his game in 1928. He was the father of John V. Tunney, a United States senator for California, who played himself in the 1972 feature film The Candidate.