Tom Heeney Chose Brunette As His Bride

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 455, 10 September 1928, Page 14

Tom Heeney Chose Brunette As His Bride

Boxer’s Wife was a Mannequin LIKES WATCHING FIGHTS Anita Loos, the American author, was quite right. .Gentlemen do marry brunettes. Tom Heeney’s choice, at any rate, bears out what Miss Loos said in her amusing book. “Our wedding was too funny for words. We dashed off to Ladentown, the tiniest town I was ever in, about 60 or 70 miles from New York, and got married there.” Mrs. Tom Heeney, who will probably interest feminine New Zealanders more than her famous husband, still laughs when she thinks of her wedding day. “We tried to keep it quiet,” she said last evening on the Aorangi, “but the reporters got to know about it. They sat outside the house from 10.30 o’clock in the morning until six in the evening. We wouldn’t be interviewed. As a matter of fact they were a pest ” But she is quite friendly now to newspaper men.

From the top of her dark shingled head to the tip of her slender highheeled shoes, Mrs. Heeney, to the mere man, looked extremely smart. But then she should be —she was formerly a mannequin in a large and fashionable New York store. A little black turban hat, decorated with a cluster of black grapes, fitted her sleek head. A fur coat which it was whispered cost 150 guineas covered an extremely smart black frock. Her only ring, in addition to the narrow gold band, was a flashing solitaire diamond. The champion’s wife speaks with scarcely any American accent, using just a slight drawl when she uses certain words. “I was born and brought up in New York,” she confessed. “I met Tom when he first came to the States through a friend of his, Frank Kane. We met at a party, just a small affair, and I liked him very much. “My parents both died when I was quite young and I was brought up by an aunt. I went to high school in New York and took an interest in sports. “Really, I’ve led a very uninteresting life,” she remarked. “Yes, I’ve seen all Tom’s fights, and to me he’s the most marvellous fighter in all the world. The only fight at which I was awfully afraid was when he met - Tunney. I had tears in my eyes when he got knocked down, so I shut them tight. When I opened them he was still fighting. It was wonderful.” Mrs. Heeney says that Tom’s eye was injured so that he could not see. Although his face was covered with blood it looked worse than it reallv was. Her favourite pastime, she admits, is to watch boxing,, “and I think I’ll see a lot more fights yet,” she added. “What do you think of him now?” asked a Sun reporter as the waiting crowds cheered on the wharf below. Mrs. Heeney looked down from the deck into the sea of faces and waving arms.

“Oh, I’m so proud of him,” she said as she took hold of his strong arm and made for the gangway amid another burst of shouting and cheering.