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| Enrique Torres by S. Montgomery |
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, yet some
seem to be worth much more than that, not only in terms of words, but in terms
of emotions stirred and memories reawakened. They have the power to capture a
moment, a place in time, whether those moments are a part of history at large,
or in our own personal histories. They can bring back not just the sights, but
the sounds, the scents, and the atmosphere of the event they capture. The have
the power to remind us, and they have the power to move us.
Great photography
is an art, and the ability to take a great picture is a skill which not all
possess, just as not all can skillfully wield an artist's brush. While I wish I
could capture through a camera's lens what great photographers are able to, I
don't have that gift, yet it is not jealousy I feel for their talents, but
admiration. Their work need not be displayed in a museum to be appreciated, for
it's not the venue or medium in which they appear that make them art. It's
their ability to stir the imagination and inspire us that does.
In the world of
professional wrestling there have been photographers whose work has stood out,
work which has proven to be timeless, work which in a mere moment brings
flooding back to our minds all the reasons why we became fans of pro wrestling,
and why for some of us, we have remained fans for many years.
Their have been
many great wrestling photographers over the years, with Tony Lanza, Theo Ehret,
George Napolitano, Bill Apter, Gene Gordon, Dan Westbrook, Koichi Yoshizawa,
Mike Lano, Viktor Berry and Jim Fitzpatrick being some of the individuals whose
work graced the wrestling magazines and wrestling arena programs during
professional wrestling’s territory days.
And the first time I laid eyes on the work of photographer Shirlie Montgomery,
it was as if I had discovered the time machine I had always longed for since I
was a child. For Montgomery San Jose ,
California
Girl Photographer
“Can’t” was very likely a word that
Shirlie Montgomery never learned the meaning of during her 94 years on planet
earth. Born in 1918 in San
Jose , California , located 45 miles
from San Francisco , she would eventually travel
to various parts of the world, but for her, the center of her world would
always be San Jose
She was an only
child and although it might be accurate to call her a “Daddy’s Girl”, she was
anything but sheltered as she gladly trudged along with him on hunting and
fishing trips and to sporting events such as boxing and wrestling. She would never fit within the confines of
what a girl “was supposed to be like and enjoy” and nothing she took interest
in or captured her imagination was considered to be off-limits. Her longtime friend Kirk McCelland hit the
nail on the head when he described her as “fiercely independent.”
Growing up during
the great depression and World War II, Shirlie would witness the transformation
of San Jose from an agricultural town to being
an integral part of the “Silicone Valley ” and an urbanized metropolitan city which is
the third largest in the state of California
and the tenth largest in the United
States
A few years after
graduating from San Jose High School in 1934, a series of jobs led her to
becoming the photographer at the De Anza
Hotel in downtown San Jose
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| The Sharpe Bros. Mob Szabo - Photo by S. Montgomery |
It was also
wonderful for the subjects which she shot as well as the many fans who would
view those wonderful photos over the years, which were featured not only in
newspapers like the San Jose Mercury News
and the San Francisco Examiner,
but in national wrestling magazines which eagerly and proudly displayed her
photos. Some of the wrestling luminaries
she photographed in either posed shots, candid shots, or action shots included
Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Gorgeous George, Lou Thesz, Enrique Torres, Lord James
Blears, Ben and Mike Sharpe, Leo Nomellini, and Ray “The Crippler” Stevens.
“It was a
wonderful way to make a name for yourself because it was such an unusual thing
for a woman to do,” said Montgomery
Obviously the
lady knew what she liked. Getting the
close-up action-type shots which she was partially renowned for weren’t without
their hazards however, as she recounted in a 1953 article she wrote for the San
Francisco Examiner.
“Most of the pictures are taken at a distance of ten to fifteen
feet. I usually sit in the corner of the steps, right up against the ring. The
occasionally leads to complications, as in a tag match when the outside partner
is standing about six inches in front of me. In leaning over to “tag”, one of
those big feet usually whistles back right alongside my ear.
A wrestling photographer has to
learn to dodge flying feet and bodies while still sitting down, because the
ringside customers frown on any attempt to stand up and block their view.
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| Lord Blears joins Shirlie at Ringside |
“The next biggest problem is the
spectators. They take sides and they threw things, so that you not only have to
watch the inside of the ring, but the outside as well.”
After the Wednesday night matches at the
Civic Auditorium Shirlie could often be found at Gleen Neece’s Ringside Bar nearby on First Street
along with friends and some of the wrestlers, where many of Shirlie’s photos
would grace the walls, for the enjoyment and pleasure of the wrestlers, Glenn
Neece and his workers, and any patrons who might have been fortunate enough to
have viewed them.
Shirlie’s amazing work would eventually
lead to her being inducted into the Slammers
Wrestling Hall of Fame and her original photographs are much sought after
by collectors. Of her work as
professional wrestling’s “girl photographer”, Shirlie would say,” It gave me a
great experience, and if I may say so, I was quite good.” An understatement if there ever was one.
More Than a Thousand Words
A couple of
months before this writing, I had been spending about an hour or so on a
somewhat leisurely Sunday afternoon leafing through some old wrestling
magazines from the 70s. What had been an
hour could’ve easily become several hours as I fondly recalled the first time I
had seen the common advertisements in these magazines. How many times as a kid had I considered
sending away for “Sea Monkeys” or the correspondence course which could make me
a “Master of Kung-Fu”, or wondered if learning how to customize a van with shag
carpet might be a useful skill to have, or wondered what were “the secrets for
picking up 1000’s of Women?”
While I would
outgrow the desire to send away for such things or the wonder that a “Love
Doll” could really look so life-like, I still got a kick out of looking at the
ads and what I had clearly not outgrown was the child-like wonder I felt while
looking at the pictures in the wrestling magazines. They, along with the ads in the magazine and
the fictitious stories which accompanied the wrestling pictures, took me back
to an amazing, much simpler time. A time
when kayfabe along with the
performance of the wrestlers and the promotion and production of the live
wrestling events and television wrestling shows made possible the suspension of
disbelief. It was those things that made
professional wrestling so amazingly great during the territory days and with so
much of the videotape from such days being lost to us forever, the wrestling
magazines from that time are for many people an important way to recapture
those great times.
For they bring
back not only memories of what wrestling was like, but what life was like. They help bring back a flood of memories of
the wrestlers we watched, the angles we enjoyed, and the people we enjoyed such
spectacles with. They brought back
memories of the music we enjoyed, the clothes we wore, the other television
shows we watched, who our best friends were, what our preoccupations were, what
we dreamed, who and what we loved, who we were, and who we aspired to be. And it’s not so much a longing to live in the
past as it is to relive the things that made us smile, that perhaps provided a
bit of escapism for us at one time. And
I challenge anyone to relive in their minds something that once made us smile
and see if we don’t find ourselves smiling in the present moment. And who could ever get enough of that?
And some of the
photos which entranced me the most as I was leafing through those magazines a
couple of months back, were the ones taken by Larry Barnhizer of Modesto Modesto
was an iconic venue for many years in Northern
California California
And I began to
notice that in the early-mid 70s, whenever there was coverage provided of Northern California Northern California
Spending most of
his life growing up in Riverbank, California and Modesto, ironically enough,
Larry’s first live pro wrestling event in the Northern part of the state may
have been one being photographed by Shirlie Montgomery.
“The first live
match I saw in Northern California was in San Jose ,
at a card that featured the Sharpe Brothers, Leo Nomellini, and Bobo Brazil
His family had
moved around a bit while growing up (“We were almost like gypsies,” Larry said
with a laugh) and it was in the late 60s when he met Modesto wrestling promoter
and policeman Johnny Miller when Miller was visiting some friends who lived in
the same apartment complex in Modesto where Larry was staying.
“We got to talking and he invited me to see the matches he
was promoting at the Uptown Arena in Modesto
“I went
and I really enjoyed myself but I didn’t go too often for the first couple of
years, but Johnny and I became friends and he told me I should come to the
matches more often. And it was in around 1970 that I started going more often
and I also began sending in match results and articles from the local events to
some of the wrestling magazines back east.”
After a while Larry would buy his first
camera and took it with him to the Uptown Arena on particular Friday
night. The move didn’t escape the notice
of promoter Miller.
“I would get my first camera in 1973 and I
took it with me to the Uptown Arena with me and when Johnny saw it, he asked,
‘What are you going to do with it?’ ‘Well’, I said, ‘I thought I’d take some
pictures and send them in to the wrestling magazines and see if maybe they’ll publish
them.’
“Johnny
looked at me and said, ‘Why not? It couldn’t hurt. Do it and we’ll see what
happens.’”
At first, not much happened as the editors
of the wrestling magazines wanted something different than what Larry was
turning in, and they asked him for more action shots rather than wrestlers
standing near the corner.
“It was very, very hard,” remembers Larry.
“It took me about six months of shooting before they liked my pictures. Editors
wanted different types of moves, the choke hold, body slams, and flying-ariel
attacks. I would look at the various pictures and say, ‘how can I improve them
next time?”
But improve on them he did, and the
Northern California wrestling fans that saw his work in popular magazines like Wrestling Revue, Inside Wrestling, The
Wrestler, the Big Book of Wrestling, and Wrestling Monthly were soon coming up to Larry and telling him how
much they enjoyed his wrestling articles.
The 1974 issue of Wrestling Round
Up had a feature presentation of about a dozen of Larry’s pictures in what
they dubbed Larry Barnhizer’s
Scrapbook. Larry’s name was placed
on the cover of the issue which is a virtually unheard of experience for a pro
wrestling photographer.
“One year, Bill Apter ran my photo of Kurt
Von Brauner choking Moon Dog Mayne in a 1975 issue of The Wrestler and picked it as one of the 8 best photos of the
year.”
And Johnny Miller, who was sometimes
featured in some of the articles was enjoying the increased recognition as
well, beaming when fans came up to him and recognized him from the pictures and
articles Larry got published in the wrestling magazines. Larry remembers with a
laugh that one particular profile he did on Miller got the promoter so excited,
“that he had someone drive him around all over Modesto so he pick up all the
copies he could find!”
In addition to shooting photos at Modesto , he’d also capture the fast and furious action
taking place at other venues, such as Sacramento
and Stockton . But it was the Uptown Arena, the
converted 2nd floor warehouse with it’s distinctive exposed overhead
rafters and wooden beams that would be his main stomping grounds and it was the
photos that he took and the articles he wrote covering the wrestling action
there that gained him the most recognition. At times, his coverage of the
wrestling cards he shot photos at and did write-ups on might be the only ones
representing the Northern California wrestling
circuit in a given month. And without the TV publicity that larger cities like San Francisco and Sacramento
would get, the added publicity that Johnny Miller’s cards received due to
Larry’s work was a blessing.
Eventually Johnny Miller would discontinue
promoting wrestling in Modesto in 1979, and
although it was the end of an era, Larry’s career as a wrestling photographer
would continue, as he would later photograph events for promoters Red Bastien,
Antone Leone, Leo Nomellini, and Roland Alexander.
One of his most cherished photos is one he
took of Hulk Hogan and Nick Bockwinkel at the Oakland Coliseum in 1982 at an
AWA event promoted by Leo Nomellini. The
shot would be featured in an article in the September 1982 edition of the Wrestler entitled “Bedlam in the
Bay”. The picture was blown up to a two
page spread, and one would be hard pressed to remember many occasions where
that occurred in a wrestling magazine.
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| Larry Barnhizer presents Smirnoff with an Award |
“A foot caught my
camera and smashed it against my face.
It hurt and cut me up pretty good.
I was so mad.”
But in all, Larry
had no regrets about the time and effort his put in as a professional wrestling
photographer for over 30 years.
“I came along and
wrestling started to really grow in Modesto
and Stockton , and I owe a lot to Johnnie Miller,
who really encouraged me. Before, Modesto was just a forgotten town.
“It’s been an exciting and terrific saga
and I admit to still being thrilled when people like editor Reg Noble say, “Larry Barnhizer’s photos are worth more than
a thousand words!” But mostly I want
to be remembered for giving Professional wrestling in Northern
California an extra boost by the thousands of pictures I’ve
taken.” – RR
In addition to my personal
conversations with Larry Barnhizer, the following sources were used for this
article:
“San Jose native, Shirlie Montgomery dies at 94”, by Mary
Gottschalk, San Jose Mercury News,
November 11, 2012
“Photography: Subjects
Land
Shirley Montgomery Obituary by Joe Holt
“Mantecan boosts pro
wrestling with photos, articles”, The
Manteca Bulletin, by Matt Miller, January 21, 1990
“Molding His Image With a Camera”, by Ucilia Wang, August 3,
1996, Recordnet.com Photographer captures wrestling at its toughest, by John Branch, Editor, The
Riverbank News, August 15, 2001
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