Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (German IPA: [ˌaɐnɔlt aloʏs ˈʃvaɐtsənɛɡɐ]; born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, businessman, and politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of the state of California.

Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon, his most famous film was The Terminator. He was nicknamed the "Austrian Oak" and the "Styrian Oak" in his bodybuilding days, "Arnold Strong" and "Arnie" during his acting career, and more recently the "Governator" (a portmanteau of Governor and the Terminator, one of his film roles).[1]
As a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, 2003, to serve the remainder of Davis's term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in California's 2006 gubernatorial election, to serve a full term as governor, defeating Democrat Phil Angelides, who was California State Treasurer at the time. Schwarzenegger was sworn in for a second term on January 5, 2007.[2] In May 2004 and 2007, he was named as one of the Time 100 people who help shape the world.[3][4] Schwarzenegger is married to Maria Shriver and has four children.

Schwarzenegger is considered among the most important figures in the history of bodybuilding, and his legacy is commemorated in the Arnold Classic annual bodybuilding competition. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent face in the bodybuilding sport long after his retirement, in part because of his ownership of gyms and fitness magazines. He has presided over numerous contests and awards shows.

For many years, he wrote a monthly column for the bodybuilding magazines Muscle & Fitness and Flex. Shortly after being elected Governor, he was appointed executive editor of both magazines, in a largely symbolic capacity. The magazines agreed to donate $250,000 a year to the Governor's various physical fitness initiatives. The magazine MuscleMag International has a monthly two-page article on him, and refers to him as "The King."

One of the first competitions he won was the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965.[5] He won Mr. Europe the following year, at age 19.[5][13] He would go on to compete in and win many bodybuilding contests, as well as some powerlifting contests, including five Mr. Universe (4 – NABBA [England], 1 – IFBB [USA]) wins, and seven Mr. Olympia wins, a record which would stand until Lee Haney won his eighth consecutive Mr. Olympia title in 1991.

Strongman

In 1967, Schwarzenegger competed in and won the Munich stone-lifting contest, in which a stone weighing 508 German pounds (254 kg/560 lbs.) is lifted between the legs while standing on two foot rests. Schwarzenegger has said the following on his size: "During the peak of my career, my calves were 20 inches, thighs 28.5 inches, waist 34 inches, chest 57 inches, and 22-inch arms."
In a full squat (buttocks close to ground) Schwarzenegger had a personal record of 181 kg/400lbs, for twelve repetitions.

Mr. Olympia

Schwarzenegger's goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, which meant becoming Mr. Olympia.[5][13] His first attempt was in 1969, when he lost to three-time champion Sergio Oliva. However, Schwarzenegger came back in 1970 and won the competition, making him the youngest ever Mr. Olympia at the age of 23, a record he holds to this day.[13]
He continued his winning streak in the 1971 – 1974 competitions.[13] In 1975, Schwarzenegger was once again in top form, and won the title for the sixth consecutive time,[13] beating Franco Columbu. After the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, Schwarzenegger announced his retirement from professional bodybuilding.[13]

Months before the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, filmmakers George Butler and Robert Fiore persuaded Schwarzenegger to compete, in order to film his training in the bodybuilding documentary called Pumping Iron. Schwarzenegger had only three months to prepare for the competition, after losing significant weight to appear in the film Stay Hungry with Jeff Bridges. Lou Ferrigno proved not to be a threat, and a lighter-than-usual Schwarzenegger convincingly won the 1975 Mr. Olympia.

Schwarzenegger came out of retirement, however, to compete in the 1980 Mr. Olympia.[5] Schwarzenegger was training for his role in Conan, and he got into such good shape because of the running, horseback riding, and sword training, that he decided he wanted to win the Mr. Olympia contest one last time. He kept this plan a secret, in the event that a training accident would prevent his entry and cause him to lose face. Schwarzenegger had been hired to provide color commentary for network television, when he announced at the eleventh hour that while he was there: "Why not compete?" Schwarzenegger ended up winning the event with only seven weeks of preparation. After being declared Mr. Olympia for a seventh time, Schwarzenegger officially retired from competition.

Steroid use

Schwarzenegger has admitted to using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids while they were legal, writing in 1967 that "steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up." He has called the drugs "tissue building."[29]
In 1999, Schwarzenegger sued Dr. Willi Heepe, a German doctor who publicly predicted an early death for the bodybuilder, based on a link between steroid use and later heart problems.

Because the doctor had never examined him personally, Schwarzenegger collected a DM20,000 ($12,000 USD) libel judgment against him in a German court. In 1999, Schwarzenegger also sued and settled with The Globe, a U.S. tabloid which had made similar predictions about the bodybuilder's future health. As late as 1996, a year before Schwarzenegger's open heart surgery to replace an aortic valve with a human homograft valve,[30] Schwarzenegger publicly defended his use of anabolic steroids during his bodybuilding career.[31]

Schwarzenegger was born with a bicuspid aortic valve, an aortic valve with only two leaflets (a normal aortic valve has three leaflets).[32] Both his father and his brother had the same condition.

Lou Ferrigno

Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn, New York to an Italian-American family, the son of Matthew, a New York City Police Department Lieutenant who, according to Lou, was also a weightlifter and was often very critical and negative towards him and mother Victoria.[2] At the age of three, Lou suffered an ear infection and permanently lost 80% of his hearing. Ferrigno started weight training at age 13, citing body builder and Hercules star Steve Reeves as one of his role models.[3]

After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1969, Ferrigno won his first major titles, IFBB Mr. America and Mr. Universe, four years later. In 1974, he came in second on his first attempt at the Mr. Olympia competition. He then came third the following year, and his attempt to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger was the subject of the 1975 documentary Pumping Iron. Following this, Ferrigno left the competition circuit for many years.

Ferrigno competed in the first World's Strongest Man contest in 1977, where he finished fourth in a field of eight competitors.[4] While competing, Ferrigno commonly went to see a physician who checked up on whether he was doing damage to his body.

During competition, the 6 ft 5 in[5] (198 cm) Ferrigno's contest weight was 285lb (130kg) in 1975, and 316lb (143kg) in 1992;[5] he was one of the tallest professional bodybuilders at that time. While he never bested Schwarzenegger in bodybuilding, Ferrigno did have one triumph over his Austrian rival: the role of the Hulk on the 1970s television series. Only because Arnold was not tall enough, the producers stated.

Lou Ferrigno in the episode "Married" of TV's The Incredible Hulk (1978) In the early 1990s, Ferrigno returned to bodybuilding, competing for the 1992 and 1993 Mr. Olympia titles. Finishing 12th and 10th, respectively, he then turned to the Masters Olympia, coming second in 1994 to Robby Robinson. After this, he retired from competition.

He made a cameo in the 2003 film Hulk as a security guard, was in one deleted scene, and voiced the Hulk. He has also done guest appearances and advertisements. He again appeared as a security guard in 2008's The Incredible Hulk as well as voicing the Hulk again. Furthermore, Ferrigno has been the favorite choice to play the voice of the Hulk in several animated adaptations as well as in the most recent film after being publicly offered at the 2008 New York Comic Con by The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier.

Ferrigno sees his loss of hearing as influential towards bodybuilding and his life: "...if I hadn't lost some of my hearing, I wouldn't be where I am now. It forced me to maximize my own potential. I had to be better than the average person to succeed."[5]

Ferrigno's personal heroes as a child were Spider-Man and the Hulk. Appropriately, he would later play the role of the Hulk himself in the Incredible Hulk television series and related TV movies. He was also a fan of the Hercules films that starred Steve Reeves. Ferrigno frequently points to Reeves as one of his primary role models and would later play Hercules just as Reeves had.

He married Susan Groff in 1978, divorcing a year later. On May 3, 1980, he married psychotherapist Carla Green, who then also began serving as his manager and later became a personal trainer. They have three children, Shanna, born 1981; Louis, Jr., born 1984; and Brent, born 1990. Shanna has a recurring role as Nurse Janice in Days of our Lives, and appears in the NBC series Windfall, as well as the telemovie Within, and in 2005 she appeared in the E! reality TV series, Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive. Louis, Jr. was a linebacker for the University of Southern California Trojans football team.[7]

After co-starring in three The Incredible Hulk made for TV movies with series' lead, Bill Bixby, he received word that his friend had died on November 21, 1993, and had attended his friend's funeral, a week later in Hawaii.

Lou Ferrigno at Comic-Con International.
Ferrigno played himself during intermittent guest appearances on the CBS television show, The King of Queens, beginning in 2000 and continuing until the program's conclusion in 2007. He and his wife Carla were depicted as the main characters' next-door neighbors. Because of his role as the title character on The Incredible Hulk, he is often the target of "Hulk jokes" by Doug and his friends.

Ferrigno once used his celebrity status to make calls for Hollywood is Calling, a company which allows people to have a celebrity call them on a special occasion, such as a birthday.[8]
In February 2006 he was sworn in as a Los Angeles County reserve sheriff's deputy.[9] In June 2006, Ferrigno attended the first Bionicon in Tampa, Florida, one of his many convention appearances.

He still trains daily and also sells his own line of fitness equipment through his company, Ferrigno Fitness.Ferrigno currently lives in Arroyo Grande, California.

Franco Columbu

Columbu was born in Ollolai, Sardinia. Starting out his athletic career as a boxer, Columbu progressed into the sport of Olympic Weightlifting, powerlifting and later bodybuilding, winning the title of Mr. Olympia in 1976 and 1981. At 5 feet and 5 inches in height (some magazines reported as short as 5'3"), Columbu is shorter than most of his bodybuilding competitors, but that did not prevent him from achieving widespread success.

Columbu competed in the 1977 World's Strongest Man competition and was actually in first place. During the Refrigerator race, with Franco ahead, suddenly he stumbled, and national television showed Franco's leg becoming grotesquely dislocated and he collapsed. That ended his participation in the World's Strongest Man contest. In the end, he finished in fifth place. He also received a reported $1 million in compensation for his injury.[1]

It took six hours of surgery to remove all the muscle and fix his leg. Doctors told him he would never walk again, but Columbu fully recovered in three years.[citation needed] After Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback victory in the 1980 Mr. Olympia, Franco followed suit and won over numerous bodybuilding stars in top shape at the 1981 Mr. Olympia.

Columbu is a long time friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he met in Munich in 1965 and competed against in several international-level bodybuilding competitions. For the Mr. Olympia competitions however, he competed in the under 200 lb (90.7 kg) category, whereas Schwarzenegger was in the over 200 lb category. The final champion was determined by a pose down between the two class winners. The IFBB has since abandoned weight classes. Arnold and Franco were inseperable during the early to mid 70's, and frequently trained together.

From the time he arrived in America in 1969, Franco Columbu was considered one of the world's strongest men. He held a number of powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting world records. He also performed a strongman act in which he routinely popped a hot water bottle by inflating it orally, lifted vehicles on stage (while someone else was changing a tire) and deadlifted over 700 lbs for repetitions.

In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Columbu has also made intermittent minor forays into acting. Appearing alongside Arnold in Pumping Iron, he has also appeared in cameo roles in Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, The Running Man and starred in his own films such as Beretta's Island. He also did TV commercials; most notably, Vitalis ("the pump").

In the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Last Action Hero, the words "A Franco Columbu film" appear on the screen at the beginning of Jack Slater IV (a film within the film) as a tribute to Columbu. In the opening scenes of Conan the Barbarian, Columbu plays a 'pictish scout', complete with mustache, wig and blue body-paint. In The Terminator, Columbu plays the infiltrating Terminator in Reese's flashback/dream in which the picture of Sarah Connor is destroyed by fire. The Columbu Terminator also features as a boss character in the Terminator 3 video game.
He holds doctorates in chiropractic and nutrition and currently sits on the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners

Larry Scott

Scott was the first bodybuilder to ever have held the IFBB Mr. Olympia title. He did so for the first two years of the competition from 1965 to 1966. Scott went to the California Air College to study electronics and is known to be a devout Mormon. He is married to Rachel Ichikawa

Before claiming the Mr. Olympia title, Scott took Mr. America in 1962, the Mr. Universe title in 1964, and had a minor role as "Riff" in the 1964 movie Muscle Beach Party. Scott is said to have possessed little apparent genetic potential when he started training with weights in 1956, his narrow shoulders having been a particular weak spot. He trained with Vince Gironda, another well-known bodybuilder of the golden age. Scott is best known for his arm development - and perhaps most for his impressive biceps which were unusually long, allowing for good development and shape. Scott attributes his football-shaped biceps to an exercise he invented, "The Scott Curl," which became standard repertoire among many bodybuilders. Nowadays Scott lives in Salt Lake City, Utah where he runs his own personal training company. He was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 1999.

Scott was also a popular physique model during the early to mid 1960s, working for such famous photographers as Bruce of LA and Don Whitman, of Western Photography Guild. His "posing strap" material for Pat Milo (known professionally as simply "Milo") is today considered fine art. It was Milo who introduced Scott to a wide, appreciative audience and helped him hone his posing and photographic persona: that of the "boy next door." Larry regularly appeared in all of Joe Weider's bodybuilding magazines, including Mr. America and Muscle Builder, and he also figured prominently in Demi Gods, Muscleboy, and The Young Physique.

From 1960 until his retirement from competition in 1966, Scott was bodybuilding's top superstar. Bodybuilding magazines soon began capitalizing on his image, but Larry - an IFBB athlete - wrote exclusively for Joe Weider's publications. Larry's popularity completely eclipsed all other bodybuilders of his time, including such famous personalities as Freddy Ortiz, Chuck Sipes, Dave Draper, Leo Robert, Harold Poole, and a very young Sergio Oliva. The phenomenon has since become known as "Larry fever" and reached its apex at the 1966 Mr. Olympia competition, where Larry defended his title and once again took home the crown (literally, since the prize was $1,000 and an actual crown).

Scott's retirement at the age of 28 sent shockwaves throughout the sport. But Scott had other priorities (a second marriage), and after two Olympia wins, he'd done all he could do in competitive bodybuilding.

One fan, Rod Labbe, (a freelance writer) collaborated with Scott on four major published articles; a two-part interview in Flex magazine; Ironman; MuscleMag International, and Ironman again). According to Labbe, "Larry is my childhood hero, a true American success story. It's an honor for me to work with him." Their last interview, entitled "The Golden Man," appeared in two consecutive issues of Ironman magazine in 2006. They are currently working on a new article about American International's Beach Party, released in 1963 where Scott played the role of "Rock," a Bodybuilder who was part of "Jack Fanny's (Don Rickles) exercise group

Steve Reeves

Born in Glasgow, Montana, Steve Reeves moved to California at the age of 10 with his mother Goldie, after his father Lester Dell Reeves died in a farming accident. Reeves developed an interest in bodybuilding while in high school and trained at Ed Yarick's gym in Oakland. By the time he was 17 he had developed a Herculean build, long before the rise in general interest in bodybuilding. After graduating from high school, he entered the Army during the latter part of World War II, and served in the Pacific.

Reeves was known for his "V-taper" and for the great width of his shoulders, which Armand Tanny once measured at 23 1/2" using outside calipers. Fortunate to possess a very symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing body structure, further perfected by training, Reeve's physique has been admired ever since his prime. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding states:

By [the 1940s] the distinction between lifting weights purely for strength and training with weights to shape and proportion the body had been clearly made. ... However, bodybuilding still remained an obscure sport. No champion was known to the general public--that is, until Steve Reeves came along. Reeves was the right man in the right place at the right time. He was handsome, personable, and had a magnificent physique. Survivors from the Muscle Beach era recall how crowds used to follow Reeves when he walked along the beach, and how people who knew nothing about him would simply stop and stare, awestruck.

From 1959 through 1964, Reeves went on to appear in a string of sword and sandal movies, and although he is best known for his portrayal of the Greek hero Hercules, he played the character only twice - in the 1958 film Hercules and the sequel Hercules Unchained (released in the U.S. in 1960). He played a number of other characters on screen, including Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's Glaucus of Pompeii; Goliath (also called Emiliano); Tatar hero Hadji Murad; Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome (opposite Gordon Scott as his twin brother Remus); the famous Olympian and war-time messenger of the Battle of Marathon, Pheidippides (The Giant of Marathon); pirate and self-proclaimed governor of Jamaica Captain Henry Morgan; and Karim, the Thief of Baghdad. Twice he played Aeneas of Troy and twice he played Emilio Salgari's Malaysian hero, Sandokan.

Paramount considered Reeves for the title role of their film version of the Broadway musical Li'l Abner in 1958, but the part eventually went to Peter Palmer. After the box office success of Hercules, Reeves turned down a number of parts that subsequently made the careers of other actors. He was asked to star as James Bond in Dr. No (1962), which he turned down. He also declined the role that finally went to Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars (1964).

During the filming of The Last Days of Pompeii, Reeves dislocated his shoulder when his chariot crashed into a tree. Reeves pulled the joint back into its socket by himself and chose to continue filming and performing his own stunts. Swimming in a subsequent underwater escape scene he reinjured his shoulder. The injury would be aggravated by his stunt work in each successive film, ultimately leading him to retire early.

In 1968 Reeves appeared in his final film, a spaghetti western which he also co-wrote, titled A Long Ride From Hell, fulfilling his wish to make a Western before he retired. George Pal had considered him for the title role of Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze but delays in filming had the part eventually go to Ron Ely. At the peak of his career, he was the highest-paid actor in Europe. His last screen appearance was in 2000 when he appeared as himself in the made-for-television A&E Biography: Arnold Schwarzenegger - Flex Appeal.

[edit]

Frank Zane The Legend

Zane is a three-time Mr. Olympia (1977 to 1979). His reign represented a shift of emphasis from mass to aesthetics. Zane's proportionate physique featured the thinnest waistline of all the Mr. Olympias with his wide shoulders making for a distinctive V-taper. He stood at 5'9" and had a competition weight of 180-190 pounds. Zane is one of only three people who have beaten Arnold Schwarzenegger in a bodybuilding contest and one of the very few Mr. Olympias under 200 pounds. He has written many books about bodybuilding. He received the Arnold Schwarzenegger lifetime achievement award at the 2003 Arnold Classic for his dedication and long-time support of the sport.

He was given the nickname "The Chemist" due to his Bachelor of Science degree and, as he puts it: "Back in the day I took a lot of supplements and tons of amino acids. Still do. But back then it was pretty unusual. That's how I got the nickname The Chemist."

In the 1980s, Frank owned and ran a gym in Palm Springs, Calif. He was focusing on personal training. He now lives in San Diego with his wife Christine.

In 2005, Frank Zane played the IFBB Announcer and worked as the consulting producer in the movie "See Arnold Run." As of 2006, Zane currently runs his own website, appears at seminars and book signings, and offers personal weightlifting sessions with his program called "The Zane Experience" in San Diego.

Zane received a B.S. (Bachelor of Science degree) in Education from Wilkes University in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania in 1964. Later he earned a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts degree) in psychology from Cal State LA in 1977. Finally, he was awarded a Master's degree in Experimental Psychology from Cal State SB, California in 1990.

Career Record
1961 Mr. Pennsylvania 17th,1962 Mr. Keystone 1st ,1963 Mr. Keystone 2nd ,1965 Mr. Sunshine State 1st ,1965 IFBB Mr, Universe Medium 1st ,1966 IFBB Mr. America Medium 1st ,1967 IFBB Mr. America Medium 1st ,1967 IFBB Mr. Universe Tall 3rd ,1968 IFBB Mr. America Medium 1st & Overall ,1968 Mr. Universe Short 1st & Overall ,1970 Amateur Mr. Universe Winner ,1971 NABBA Pro Mr. Universe Short 1st ,1972 Pro Mr. Universe Short 1st & Overall ,1972 Mr. Olympia 4th
1974 Mr. Olympia 2nd ,1976 Mr. Olympia 2nd ,1977 Mr. Olympia 1st ,1978 Mr. Olympia 1st ,1979 Mr. Olympia 1st ,1980 Mr. Olympia 3rd ,1982 Mr. Olympia 2nd ,1983 Mr. Olympia 4th

HOW MANY 64 YEAR OLDS DO YOU KNOW THAT LOOK LIKE THIS

HOW MAY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW THAT LOOK LIKE THIS

Eugen Sandow: Bodybuilding's Great Pioneer

Eugen Sandow: Bodybuilding's Great Pioneerby David Chapman - Author of 'Sandow the Magnificent - Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding'

Sandow was born on April 2, 1867 in the ancient German city of Konigsberg in East Prussia - today it is part of Russia. His real name was Friedrich Muller, son of a greengrocer of humble though hardly of destitute beginnings. Later the young man chose to rechristen himself "Eugen Sandow" for two reasons: first, stage performers traditionally changed their names; and second, he needed to cover his tracks since he had dodged the Prussian draft. But from this somewhat dubious start, a great man was destined to grow.

Fortunately, Sandow was blessed with a great natural physique and the brains to use it. After several angry blowups with his family, the young man left his birthplace with a circus that was passing through. He became an acrobat, honing his skills as an athlete and a performer as he traveled from place to place. He was also improving his body. The gymnastics and acrobatics were hardening and defining his muscles to a remarkable degree.

Sandow's acrobatic career might have continued indefinitely had it not been for one problem: the circus he worked for went bankrupt in Brussels. However well disguised it might have seemed at the time, this stranding turned out to be great blessing. In the Belgian capital lived Louis Attila, a professional strongman and early instructor in physical culture, who immediately saw in Sandow the makings of a truly great athlete. Attila took Sandow as a pupil and proceeded to teach him the rudiments of showmanship that the young man would need in order to become a star. He also began working on the young athlete's body, "improving by art what nature had bestowed." After this brief training period, the two men went from city to city displaying their feats of strength and making a scanty living from the infrequent bookings in second-rate music halls.

By 1889 Sandow and Attila had separated, though they occasionally kept in touch by letter. Attila settled in London, and his young protege wandered about Europe, eventually ending up in Venice. While bathing in the Adriatic, Sandow was spotted by an American artist, E. Aubrey Hunt, who painted a magnificent portrait of the handsome young strongman. While Sandow was posing for this painting, he learned from Attila of a challenge which he knew Sandow could not refuse.

Performing in London at this time were two professional strongmen named Sampson and Cyclops. Neither man was particularly strong, but they had arranged an act that skillfully concealed this fact. The leader of the duo, Sampson, taunted his audience with a nightly dare--he would present the prize of 500 British Pounds to anyone who could equal the strength and lifting stunts of him and his partner. Since Attila knew that this was sheer bravado on Sampson's part, he felt that the two were ripe for the picking.

Sandow traveled to London and once again put himself under Attila's direction. A few nights later the young athlete jumped the stage after Sampson's challenge and bested the second-rate athlete at his own game. The interest and excitement that Sandow generated in this escapade was just the impetus that he needed to launch himself on a career as an athletic superstar.

After his triumph over Sampson, Sandow began receiving bookings all over Britain. Audiences were charmed by the handsome, muscular young German, and they were willing to pay good money to see him perform. For four years Sandow went from one British music hall to the next entertaining audiences with feats of lifting, strength, and posing. By the end of that time, Sandow had polished his act to a fine point. He knew what audiences wanted and how to give it to them.

In 1893 Sandow caught the eye of an American impresario who induced the popular strongman to come across the Atlantic and try his luck there. Sandow accepted the offer and began a run in New York in the summer of the same year. Accustomed as he was to large and enthusiastic crowds, his American reception was something less than he had expected. The young strongman found himself sandwiched between a couple of dreary burlesque sketches. Even the weather seemed in conspiracy against him; it was swelteringly hot and muggy. Not the kind of temperatures that would encourage people to coop themselves up in a hot theater--and very few did. So Sandow toiled on, probably anxious to return to Europe. But fate had something else in store for him.

If the strongman had thought his extraordinary luck had run out, he was assuredly mistaken. Sitting in the theater one sultry night was a man who was quick to notice that the few women in the audience suddenly sat upright as soon as they caught sight of Sandow and gazed admiringly at the beautiful young athlete. That perceptive young man was Florenz Ziegfeld, and he was destined to catapult Sandow into the realm of superstardom.

Like Attila before him, Ziegfeld took charge of Sandow and guided him in the right direction. Almost at once Sandow began to experience a change. Ziegfeld was an energetic, high-powered individual who was determined to make the young athlete a household word. One of the first things his new manager did was to get Sandow away from New York. In 1894 the World's Columbian Exhibition, a much-ballyhooed world's fair, was slated to open in Chicago. Ziegfeld decided that this is where Sandow would make his mark.The Exhibition was situated in a huge area fronting Lake Michigan, but on the periphery there were several makeshift theaters; one of these was the Trocadero. Here Sandow performed as the headliner in a mixed program of vaudevilles. The public was accustomed to ponderous and fleshy strongmen who performed lackluster tricks and questionable feats of strength. It was a great revelation therefore when Sandow (under Ziegfeld's careful preparation, of course) stood before a gasping audience on his opening night. Instead of a mountain of flesh swathed in yards of leopard skin, they saw a well-formed, muscular young man in a very skimpy costume. It did not take long for the Victorian audience to decide that they liked what they saw - especially the ladies. By the time the Exhibition closed, Sandow was an undeniable hit. He had made a name for himself and a pile of money for Ziegfeld. It seemed a shame to dissolve the lucrative partnership