Bull Montana

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Lewis Montagna born Luigi Montagna May 16 1887 January 24 1950 better known as Bull Montana was an ItalianAmerican professional wrestler and actor Montagna was born on May 16 1887 in Voghera Italy and came to the United States as a child He became a professional wrestler under the name of Bull Montana He gravitated to films in 1917 appearing first in several of the vehicles of his close pal Douglas Fairbanks In 1919 he appeared as a gruesome villain in Maurice Tourneurs masterpiece Victory alongside Lon Chaney Numbered among his many friends was Abe The Newsboy Hollandersky boxer wrestler and movie extra who claimed Montagna offered to help him finance his 1930 autobiography In the early 1920s Montana as he was known often wrestled with his friend Jack Dempsey prior to some of Dempseys larger fights to help entertain the press and spectators Montagna was usually cast as a thug henchman or something not quite sympathetic and sometimes not quite human he was the apelike cave dweller in 1925s The Lost World opposite Wallace Beery as Arthur Conan Doyles Professor Challenger Tempering his onscreen brutishness with humor Montana starred in his own series of tworeel comedies in the early 1920s spoofing everyone from Robin Hood Rob Em Good to the Corsican Brothers The Two Twins He appeared in two Buster Keaton films including a role as a professional wrestler in the film Palooka from Paducah He continued playing movie bits into the 1940s notably as one of Buster Crabbes antagonists in the 1936 series Flash Gordon Like many mashedface musclemen of the movies Bull Montana is reputed to have been as gentle as a lamb in real life