Sport: Farewell to a Golden Trio

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No one who saw them in their halcyon days would ever forget them: Gene Tunney, the perfectly controlled ring tactician; Bobby Hull, hockey's most explosive scorer; Bobby Orr, the greatest defenseman, graceful and creative, in hockey history. Tunney died last week at 81, and Orr retired at 30, just seven days after Hull quit at 39. They were three of sport's heroic figures. Consummate athletes, they came to be respected as much for their character as for their skills.

In the rough-and-ready world of prizefighting, Gene Tunney was unique. Self-educated and fiercely proud, he remained determinedly aloof from the Damon Runyon characters of the sport's golden age. George Bernard Shaw, an avid fight fan, was more to Tunney's taste, despite the fact that the heavyweight refused an offer to appear in Shaw's boxing play, Cashel Byron's Profession. He believed that the playwright had portrayed fighters as simple and dimwitted, and Gene Tunney was neither.

A high school dropout at 16, he became a self-taught Shakespearean scholar. He was also an intelligent fighter, a master of the sweet science who won the title from Jack Dempsey on a decision in 1926. In their second fight, Tunney was ahead on points when Dempsey decked him, then lost his chance to regain the title when he was slow to go to a neutral corner. Given an extra four seconds to clear his head—the famous Gene Tunney in his prime (1926) Aloof from the Damon Runyon types. "long count"—Tunney got up and outboxed Dempsey the rest of the way to save his championship.

Tunney retired undefeated, the only modern heavyweight champion besides Rocky Marciano smart enough to quit at the top, and settled into a successful business career. He lived quietly with his wife Polly Lauder and four children in Greenwich, Conn. In 1971 the fighter's son, John, became U.S. Senator from California. As time went by, Tunney came to be friends with Dempsey. The old foes were thought of together, two men joined by their past. When Tunney's death was reported, Dempsey's wife Deanna said of her ailing husband, "He is taking it very badly. You must remember Gene was a big part of Jack's life for 60 years."

In a sense, Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr were like Tunney and Dempsey: they transformed and lifted their sport. When Hull began to play for the Chicago Black Hawks as an 18-year-old left-winger, the National Hockey League gained not only a new idol, the Golden Jet, but also a new scoring weapon, the slapshot. At his best, Hull could skate at nearly 30 m.p.h., and his shot whistled at 118 m.p.h., sometimes knocking the glove off the goaltender's hand.