In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

212 ARRAYS
versally believed [to be] a has-been" (Ritter and Rucker, 135)-until the
Sultan of Swat gears up for what will become his best season with the
Yankees so far. Anticipating outrageous financial claims from his wife's
lawyers and facing a federal tax bill of more than $1.1 million, Chaplin
temporarily suspends work on his film The Circus on Sunday, December
5 (Robinson, 371). Three days before his title fight against Gene Tunney,
Dempsey is served "with a summons which commands him to appear
[in court] to defend the suit for an accounting brought by ex-judge James
Mercer Davis of Camden on behalf of Jack Kearns, deposed manager of
the champion." Dempsey's immediate reaction in a press interview exemplifies
how stars manage to make the best of such challenges by
transforming them into evidence of their courage and strength: "These
lawsuits, injunctions, restraining orders, and attachments are annoying
when they come at you from all sides, but if the people back of all this
expect that they can cause me to worry myself out of the title, they will
wake up to find themselves badly mistaken" (New York Times, September
21).
On an individual level, it is the need for public love and support which
often helps champions and leading actors to become even greater stars.
Attending a boxing match less than a month after his humiliating defeat
at Tunney's hands, Dempsey receives an impressive ovation from the
crowd, "an uproar of several minutes, with feet-stamping and paper
being showered from the second balcony, while for Gene there were
mingled cheers and boos" (Heimer, 60). [see Boxing, Action = Impotence
(Tragedy)] Suzanne Lenglen, who almost single-handedly attracts so
many spectators to women's tennis that she can embark on a professional
career, has long been perceived as aloof and arrogant. Only a downturn
in her career as an athlete will warm the public's feelings for her. Unhappy
over the playing schedule that she is assigned at the Wimbledon
meet in June, Lenglen declines to appear at the Royal Family's reception
for outstanding players. She is so vehemently attacked by the British
press that she will never again compete in this key tournament (Anneesmemoire,
161). Had the incident not occurred, however, an intellectual
like Heinrich Mann would probably not have deigned to see Suzanne
Lenglen as a model for moral behavior: "In the world in which we suffer,
she is an example of human unwavering-and thereby is beautiful"
(Heinrich Mann, 304).
An almost boundless power over millions of fans and an equally