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Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Birthday
May 15, 1887
Died
January 24, 1950
Place of Birth
Voghera, Lombardy, Italy
Also Known As
- Luigi Montagna
- Lewis Montagna
Bull Montana
0.7 Popularity
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lewis Montagna (born Luigi Montagna, May 16, 1887 – January 24, 1950), better known as Bull Montana, was an Italian-American 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 Tourneur's 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 Dempsey's 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 1925's The Lost World opposite Wallace Beery as Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger). Tempering his on-screen brutishness with humor, Montana starred in his own series of two-reel 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 Crabbe's antagonists in the 1936 series Flash Gordon. Like many mashed-face musclemen of the movies, Bull Montana is reputed to have been as gentle as a lamb in real life.
Known For
6.0
Monkey-Man (archive footage) (uncredited)
Spaceship to the Unknown
1966
7.4
Bull Montana
Big City
1937
6.4
Monkey Man
Flash Gordon
1936
4.0
Monte, an escaped convict
Never Too Late
1935
4.8
Bullfrog Kraus
Palooka from Paducah
1935
0.0
Joe
Tiger Rose
1929
5.3
Customer Requesting "Baby Face" (uncredited)
Glorifying the American Girl
1929
0.0
Convict
Loud Soup
1929
0.0
The Turk
How to Handle Women
1928
🎬
0.0
The Fight Pest
1928
Credits
Spaceship to the Unknown
as Monkey-Man (archive footage) (uncredited)
1966
6.0
Big City
as Bull Montana
1937
7.4
Flash Gordon
as Monkey Man
1936
6.4
Never Too Late
as Monte, an escaped convict
1935
4.0
Palooka from Paducah
as Bullfrog Kraus
1935
4.8
Tiger Rose
as Joe
1929
0.0
Glorifying the American Girl
as Customer Requesting "Baby Face" (uncredited)
1929
5.3
Loud Soup
as Convict
1929
0.0
How to Handle Women
as The Turk
1928
0.0
🎬
The Fight Pest
1928
0.0
Good Morning, Judge
as First Crook
1928
0.0
Limousine Love
as The Chauffer
1928
5.7
The Sting of Stings
as Bull Montana
1927
0.0
Many Scrappy Returns
as Zozo's Husband
1927
0.0
On the Front Page
as Private Secretary
1926
5.7
The Son of the Sheik
as Mountebank
1926
6.2
The Skyrocket
as Film Comedian
1926
0.0
Vanishing Millions
as The Gorilla
1926
0.0
The Uneasy Three
1925
0.0
No Father to Guide Him
as Wanted Kidnapper in Photo (uncredited)
1925
6.5
The Lost World
as Ape Man
1925
6.7
Dick Turpin
as Bully Boy
1925
5.3
Laughing at Danger
as Killer Murphy
1924
6.2
🎬
Hello, 'Frisco
as Bull Montana
1924
5.0
The Fire Patrol
as Fireman
1924
0.0
Painted People
as Ed Decker
1924
0.0
Held to Answer
as 'Red' Lizard
1923
0.0
Hollywood
as Bull Montana
1923
8.5
The Three Must-Get-Theres
as Li'l Cardinal Richie-Loo
1922
6.4
The Timber Queen
1922
0.0
Gay and Devilish
as Tony
1922
0.0
The Foolish Age
as Bubbs
1921
0.0
Crazy to Marry
as Dago Red (a crook)
1921
8.5
🎬
One Wild Week
as Red Mike
1921
0.0
Hard Luck
as Virginia's Husband
1921
6.8
Go and Get It
as The Gorilla
1920
6.0
The Adventures of Daredevil Jack
1920
0.0
What Women Love
as Jose
1920
0.0
Treasure Island
as Morgan
1920
0.0
When the Clouds Roll By
as The Nightmare
1919
6.8
Victory
as Pedro
1919
5.8
His Majesty, the American
as Undetermined Role
1919
5.8
Cowardice Court
as Flash Morton
1919
0.0
Brass Buttons
as Jake the Priest
1919
0.0
The Unpardonable Sin
as The Brute
1919
0.0
🎬
Fair Enough
as 'Happy' Flanigan
1918
0.0
Johanna Enlists
as Brakeman (uncredited)
1918
5.8
He Comes Up Smiling
as Baron Bean
1918
5.5
The Border Legion
as Red Pierce
1918
0.0
Snap Judgment
as Bull Montana
1917
0.0
Down to Earth
as Wild Man
1917
6.0
Wild and Woolly
as Bartender (Uncredited)
1917
6.3