Legend From Lakeside

Before he was a celebrity defendant facing robbery charges, John Montague was the talk of the L.A. club scene in the '30s

Montague was center stage at a 1937 exhibition in New York.

By Leigh Montville
Photo By AP May 9, 2008

There was nothing quite like seeing John Montague pick up Oliver Hardy with one hand and place him on the bar in the grillroom of the Lakeside GC. No strongman act in the circus was more impressive. No scene in "Sons of the Desert" or "Babes in Toyland" was funnier. This was not some cinematic trick, something out of the nearby Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, Calif. This was real.

One minute the most famous fat man in America, full name Oliver Norvell (Babe) Hardy, 303 pounds according to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, would be standing in his plus fours, his over-the-calf stockings, his two-tone shoes and his cardigan sweater of the day, chatting amiably about the perils and pleasures of 18 holes of armed combat with a small white ball. The next minute -- woops! -- the comic actor would be lifted about four feet in the air and deposited, plunk, in front of Eddie the bartender.

"Babe, what'll you have?" John Montague would ask, normal as could be.

The process was so fast and efficient that the various customers in the room, many of them famous Hollywood film celebrities of 1934, would share the same startled reaction no matter what level of insobriety they might have attained. They couldn't believe their eyes. Montague's right-handed grab of Hardy's cardigan or shirt or jacket was so casual. The lift seemed so easy.

Who else in the room could do this?

Who else in the world?

The fat man would sort of teeter precariously on the edge of the bar. His predicament -- "Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten me into" he would say to his comic partner, Stan Laurel, if this were a movie -- was compelling. If he teetered the wrong way, he would fall and land with a distressing splat that probably would make international headlines. If he didn't fall, well, the danger of falling still existed. He was an overweight tightrope walker, suddenly very nervous in the middle of the trip. He was Humpty Dumpty, watched by all the king's horses and all the king's men.

What next?

Montague would drain the uncomfortable moment for 10 seconds, 20, maybe more, then offer a hand. The fat man would return to the floor with a semicoordinated jiggle and bounce. Drinking would resume.

Voilà.

If Montague were waiting, this routine would happen almost every time Hardy came into the grillroom at Lakeside. It happened so often that Hardy started sticking his head in the door and asking "Is Montague around? Is he at the club today?" before he entered. No matter how many times it happened, it was funny. No matter how many times it happened, it was an amazement.

John Montague was an amazement. Every day.

He was a new guy, a member at Lakeside for only a year, but already was the club champion, the most outrageous golfer anyone ever had seen. He was about 30 years old, a big man, but different from Oliver Hardy's version of big. His height was 5-feet-10, normal, but he weighed as much as 220 pounds, big-boned and powerful, wide across the chest, construction-worker arms; a handshake best to be avoided, always too strong and too long. He was a well-padded isosceles triangle, but built upside down, built as if he were born to break down doors.

Handsome enough, he best resembled an Irish tenor on a world tour, with a round face topped by wavy black hair that always was well trimmed, perfect. He moved with a mixture of menace and mirth that attracts the attention of other men. The mirth mostly was in the foreground, jokes and bets on anything, good cheer, but there was never a doubt that the menace was in his back pocket. John Montague was a better man to have as a friend than an enemy. That was the feeling. He was fun and insurance at the same time.

"We were out one night and somehow or other there was an altercation with the driver of another car," Lakeside member Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer and reigning Tarzan in the movies, reported. "Seems like he thought Monty should have stopped and let him ahead of us. The guy started cussing and generally harassing us and walked up to the car and kept it up. Monty didn't say anything, he just got out of the car, walked up to the front of the guy's Lincoln, picked it up about yea high and let it drop. One of the lights fell off and Monty just walked back to the guy and said, 'What did you say?' The smart guy almost fainted as we drove off."