— and Cashel Byron’s Profession must be viewed only as a product of his immature years. He would be incapable of writing such a book today.” (He did not mention that in the book’s preface Shaw said that he regarded himself as an “immature poet” when he wrote the novel.)
“I certainly would not lend myself to the filming of the book as it is written,” said Gene, reflecting comments he had heard from the movie producer. “I would insist that the scenario merely be based on the story, as is done in many film versions of famous works.” With changes, he said the fictional Cashel would be a stronger, finer character, and the story “would proceed along more rational lines.”
Once again, Gene’s literary comments were news — and not just on the sports pages. “Tunney Takes a Swing at Shaw” read the bold headline on the Sun story. As if to reinforce Gene’s gaffe, there was a story on the same page about Shaw’s plan to forfeit the money he had won earlier in the year for a Nobel Prize in Literature. (Shaw accepted the honor and gave the prize money to the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation’s trust fund.)
Gene realized belatedly that he had said too much about a book that he had himself promoted, thus jeopardizing any chance of a stage or movie deal with Shaw. As soon as he read the interview, side by side with the Shaw story, he rebuked himself for running off at the mouth, and he knew there would be some sort of reaction. He just didn’t anticipate that it would come from Shaw himself and would once again be in the newspapers.
“If the book were modernized for a film,” Shaw told the London Daily Mail, “it would upset its character a good deal. I think it would be rather amusing to bring the book up to date and make the fight in it that between Dempsey and Tunney. I haven’t time to do it now,” he said, “but I might do it sometime.” Shaw told London reporters that he also considered the book immature, but said he was not sure “whether Tunney knows what 19th-century boxers were like.” He pointed out that “Cashel would be glad to get a guinea for a fight, while Tunney might want a hundred thousand dollars.”
“If Tunney thinks he can rewrite the book, and improve it, he’d better do so,” said Shaw. “He ought to know more about it than I.”
Reading Shaw’s remarks had been embarrassing for Gene, and the headlines had been worse. “G.B. Shaw Answers Tunney’s Criticism,” said The New York Times. “He suggests that the champion rewrite novel which fighter called immature.” A United News story was headlined: “Bernard Shaw Bows to Gene.”
When Gene arrived in Youngstown, Ohio, for an appearance two days later, he did what politicians and countless other celebrities have done: he alibied. He said he did not mean to tell Shaw, whom he had never met, how to write a book, that he was misunderstood when his remarks were interpreted as a literary criticism.
“I never criticized the book’s literary merit, for I feel I am unqualified,” he said. “But I did say that the story would have to be changed somewhat for modern screen adaptation. I think Shaw one of the greatest literary minds of the day. I would not attempt to advise him now how to finish a work of literature any more than I would expect him to advise me how to box an opponent.”
“Tunney takes poke at George Bernard Shaw,” said a headline in the Modesto News Herald. “Tunney spurns movie offers,” said the Ogden Standard-Examiner. The back-and-forth had brought to the forefront Gene’s habit of speaking about books instead of boxing, and it reinforced the fight crowd’s growing perception that they had a heavyweight champion who would rather be in a library than in a prize ring.
“In the matter of Gene versus Bernard,” said The New York Times, “Mr. Tunney must have thought he was being placatory when he hastened to assure Bernard Shaw that in commenting on Cashel Byron’s Profession, the champion was speaking from the technical and not the artistic standpoint. This only makes things a little worse than before. It is not a friendly act to suggest that Bernard is unqualified to offer advice to anybody about anything. He always does. He specializes in the human race and concentrates on the Cosmos.
“For the American people, the incident offers reason for a fine glow of pride,” continued the Times. “It is something to have produced a heavyweight champion capable of putting up a good pair of fists to Bernard Shaw. Who among the enterprising publishers will seize the opportunity to expand the exchange of cable dispatches into a full-sized octavo debate between Champion Gene and the ‘Adelphi Kid?’” (Shaw lived at Adelphi Terrace in London.)
A few days later, roughly two weeks after Gene’s first newspaper comments on the book and a month and a half after Langner’s cable to the playwright, front-page stories in newspapers from London quoted Shaw as saying he was flattered to hear that Tunney was to pay him a visit to discuss the controversy. A British promoter said he would put up $25,000 for Gene to visit Shaw in London. It was the last straw.
Gene had never said he wanted to visit Shaw to discuss “the controversy.” He had no intention of rewriting anything Shaw wrote, and he had never meant to get into a dialogue with a world-famous author about a book written before he was born. Shaw, well accustomed to tabloid-style newspaper coverage and known for the severity of his responses in the press, had been courtly in his reply, surprising reporters who assumed that the playwright would take Gene to task over his comments. No backlash was forthcoming. Instead, the playwright seemed intrigued.
“Did Tunney actually say those things?” Shaw asked reporters. ”If he did, the young man must have some literary taste. I’d like to meet him.”
With the flap over the book, the talk of a movie deal died. Jesse Lasky refused to pay more money for the screen rights and said Shaw’s idea of putting Dempsey in the film was ridiculous. Gene was now so disillusioned by his own performance in The Fighting Marine that he wanted no part of the celluloid world. He vowed never to discuss Bernard Shaw in public again. Dead authors, he reasoned, were safer.
Within weeks, he was fulfilling his contractual obligations in vaudeville, first on the East Coast. The New York and Boston newspapers generally left coverage to the entertainment writers, who treated him like a curiosity brought in to drum up business. Spectators paid from five cents to 50 cents and saw a show, which typically included a reluctant Gene sparring with another boxer he was extremely careful not to hurt and a movie or another song-and-dance act.
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