JACK DEMPSEY THE PERFECT LOVER

Shannon News, 21 December 1926, Page 2

JACK DEMPSEY THE PERFECT LOVER

. ♦ ms WIFE SAYS BIS SOFTER SIDE IS WOJNJL>ERFL)Jj. Can a fighter, whose whole life has- been spent in 'the atmosphere' of the prize-ring, make , love gracefully? This question, put by a spe- , Cial representative of the “Sunday Chronicle,” to Miss Estelle Taylor, the film star, who married Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight boxer, was emphatically answered in the affirmative. “Is Jack a Romeo? Why, Romeo couldn't qualify as his sparring partner,” declared Miss Taylor,. “Just look at him. I have to open the window for him to throw out his chest. Could any girl withstand that? “What girl doesn’t want to be a lion tamer? When Jack looks mad every girl shudders and wants to marry him. - “Then he knows how to be gentle. There is something wonderful about a-sbig man affected by moonlight, “In his way, Jack is an artist. He has “learned his stuff, ’ \ and he won’t tell me where. Just think of being held by arms that can crush you like cardboard- —and then finding them as gentle as a woman’s.” Telephone Romance. MiSg Taylor met Jack Dempsey 10 years ago in a telephone booth. Jack declares that it was a case of love at first sight. When they were introduced Miss Taylor was in a ‘New York dramatic, academy, tasting the first disappointments that come to seekers after fame from the footlights, while Jack was doing gymnasium work. However, he found time to ’phone Miss Taylor every day. “I learned to love him when I learned to rely on him, to transfer my troubles to his shoulders,” she said. “One day there were rather serious troubles at the studio. I went to Jack and cried on his shoulder. “He straightened all the troubles out: He was a real friend, his advice was impersonal. He didn’t try to take my hand and say: ‘There, little girl, let’s go to a show and talk this over.’ I was then I discovered how'much I needed him. /''“Why, I should have married Jack if he' 1 had never beaten anybody in his life. I love him because he is a real man, with a big, Kind heart. I think him as a man, not as a champion. Girls want someone to do the, battling for them, someone that's arrays there when he’s needed, That’s Jack.” 4 Giving and Giving. There is no friction in Dempsey’s home life. “Marriage,” propounded Miss Taylor, “is a matter of giving and giving and giving.” Miss Taylor, who was brought up In Wilmington. Delaware, where mackerel is the order every Friday, loathes the smell of fish. Consequently, she and her husband have

agreed that instead of calling pp on certain nights and fibbing, “Dear,' I am detained at the gymnasium,” Dempsey will come out truthfully with, “I am out with the boys eating fish.” The matter of naming children was successfully compromised. Dempsey will name the girls, Mrs Dempsey will name the boys. But the number is another problem. Jack wants five, but his wife only wants two. “However,” said Miss Taylor, “we won’t count our chickens before they are hatched, because Jack’s mother thought she would i*at have any but got eleven, and wanted more. She, is sixty-six years old, and doesn’t feel forty. We’ll name them as they come.” Jack wants his children to step out and strangle the world with bare hands. He feels that in the heat of conflict, experience, suffering, the steel of character is smelted. Miss Taylor, however, believes in smoothing the road considerably. She wants her daughters to be good cooks, and athletic, to marry good men and escape the heart aches she herself found in a professional career. Whenever a deadlock of opinions is reached in the Dempsey family, the decision depends on the. toss of a coin. . , The question of the brilliant boxer’s ability at love-making was answered by: "It is his softer and finer side that is so wonderful. He remembers the little things that count towards making up a happy home.” “Jack saved my life,” added Miss Taylor. “That is usually reason enough for a girl to love a man. I was to chisten an aeroplane and then go up in it, a ‘stunt’ for Lasky’s. Jack looked me up until it was too late to go. Lasky’s were having assorted fits. The ’plane crashed, killing the occupants. Lasky’s turned their hymn of hate to a vote of thanks.”