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