Written by Peter McGough
17 September 2014

The House That Joe Weider Built

Celebrating the 50th Olympia - Who's Gonna Win?

 

 

The 50th rendition of the Mr. Olympia takes place this coming Friday and Saturday and we’ll get to who’s my pick to win in due course, but first it would be remiss not to salute the man who created the contest back in 1965, Joe Weider. At that first Olympia staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Larry Scott emerged as the winner from a three-man field and received a crown (no money) for his pains; the next year he received $1,000. The total prize money for this year’s Olympia across all classes will be $1.1 million with $275,000 going to this year’s Mr. Olympia. There was no Expo in 1965; this year over 1100 booths will be on display. Joe passed away on March 23, 2013, but I got to know him really well when I worked for him for over a decade. Joe hired me as FLEX Senior Writer in 1991 and brought me from England to live and work in Los Angeles. I eventually became Editor in Chief of FLEX, Muscle & Fitness and Muscle & Fitness Hers. From 1991 right through until Joe sold Weider Publishing in 2003 he was my boss. Even after the sale he would still come into the office several times a week and we would meet. By the time I left the company in late 2008 his visits were less frequent as his fading health took its toll. The purpose of this narrative is not to tell the story of Joe and Ben Welder’s emergence from a Montréal ghetto and their journey to establishing the IFBB and a publishing empire. That story is well documente, rather the purpose is to give anecdotal accounts of what is was like to have the unbelievable privilege of working with Joe Weider on an almost daily basis for so many years. I will always look back in amazement at the fact that Joe became my friend, mentor and a second father to me. The following tales give an insight into the personality of the Father of Bodybuilding.

ACCESSSIBLE JOE

 A major factor about Joe Weider was that he was accessible and prominent in and about the Weider building in Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. From when I first got there he would arrive in the office most days just before noon. In fact he’d call in on his way into work, which had its own dangers.

 He’d be driving himself in and call you on a hand held phone. You have to understand that Joe wasn’t the most attentive driver in the world. When he’d invite a couple of us out to lunch he’d get to his car and ask, “Where do you want to sit?” I’d reply, “In the trunk with a crash helmet on”.

 Joe didn’t drive a real fancy car – no Rolls Royce for him. He preferred an up market Lexus saloon that always carried the number plate TODOBOY. Early on in our relationship I asked him what it meant and he told me, “Betty gave it to me because she’s always telling me, ‘You have a lot to do boy’.” By 2001 Joe’s robustness was failing and he caved in to Betty’s pressure to have a driver ferry him around, and the streets of Southern California became safer places.

 Joe eschewed much of the trappings of men with his huge resources and income. His house in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, is elegant but not vast, maybe five bedrooms, and you can walk up to the front door from the street and ring the bell. Although he could afford it, an opulent 20-bedroom mansion with gated entrance in Beverley Hills was not for him. He and Betty retained about three house staff, but watching them all interact they were treated more like family than say servants. Indeed if the Weiders went to the movies the staff would go along as part of the family and share the popcorn

 I once asked him why he didn’t have a chauffeur, didn’t own a large mansion, and was so accessible to everyone in the building, unlike some business tycoons who flaunt their wealth and remain aloof to the masses. He told me, “If I did all those things and reveled in the pomp and ceremony and was less accessible, people would see a barrier between me and them. They couldn’t feel they could approach me and speak their mind. I want to know what’s going on. I want to be in the trenches with the regular guys.”

 THE OFFICE

 Joe’s office in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles was the Grand Central and the heart and soul of the bodybuilding and fitness movement. Every major figure in the industry over the past 40 years has been in that office. (Joe relocated his offices from Union City, New Jersey to Woodland Hills in 1972.) His office was in two sections. The smaller section was an inner sanctum, which housed bound copies of bodybuilding and physical culture magazines going back to the 1920s. He’d use this area for private non-business conversations. The main section of his office was like a board room which housed a table 20 feet in length and five feet deep, and could accommodate 16 chairs or so, but in fact only two chairs adjoined the table. Joe’s swivel chair was not at the head of the table; rather it was placed at the center of the side nearest the entrance door. In front of his chair was Joe’s phone, which was as powerful a tool to him as Mike Tyson’s left hook in his hey-day.

 There was only one other chair on that side and it was right next to Joe’s, facing his chair. He’d call you up and you’d sit right next to him, he’d swivel round and you’d be facing each other with your feet nearly touching. I’m sure this was another Joeism in that it was his way of saying there are no barriers between us. Not for him the big boss syndrome of sitting on one side of an intimidating desk on a raised chair with the summoned minion sitting on the other side on a lower chair, denoting who was the higher authority. As I write this I realize that very rarely in all those nearly two decades of being in Joe’s office was anyone else present. He much preferred one-to-one interaction. Joe very seldom called big meetings and when he did it would take place in the official boardroom elsewhere in the building.

 Joe’s table was strewn with magazines of all genres and correspondence. But the table was dominated by the sight of at least 30 yellow post-it notes with messages like, “Arnold called”; “Ben confirmed 3.00pm Friday”; “Julian Schmidt has finished the split routine article”; “New York Times requesting interview”; “Ronnie Coleman shoot is tomorrow”; “New formula for Protein X available Friday”. The table represented a microcosm of Joe’s world: the bodybuilding world. It’s said that if you stand in Times Square long enough, you’ll see everybody you’ve ever known. If you hung around Joe’s office long enough you’d meet every major and minor figure in the sport. A first visit to Joe’s office was like finding the Holy Grail. It was a rite of passage, a sign you had arrived, a Valhalla wherein sat a God. It was the center of Joe’s universe, the place where he was happiest, where he did business and changed the sport. Joe last visited the office in 2011. Presently it still remains as he left it, minus the post-its. It may now seem an empty place but it still retains his spirit.

 FIGHTING WITH JOE

 There is no wish to paint Joe as Francis of Assisi in this feature; I’ve seen him do some things, which I considered mean. But Joe felt no need to explain his actions in such cases, as once he’d made his mind up on an issue or person it was a done deal. No doubt he had his reasons and felt no need to enlighten others. We had numerous arguments that grew into full-blown bust ups and one stands out, particularly the ending.

 In June of 1995 I was still Senior Writer for FLEX and I found myself in Joe’s office discussing an issue in another department that had nothing to do with me. Joe took one side on the matter, I took the opposite view. The discussion grew into a full-blown shouting match with the “F” word being used liberally by both of us. Eventually Joe and I had exhausted our opinions and expletives so I made my way to the door to leave. Joe barked at me, “Siddown!” I thought Uh oh, he’s going to fire me – wonder what the weather’s like back in England? I sat down and Joe leaning across to me asked, “Do you think Kevin Levrone can win the Olympia?” As far as he was concerned the argument was history and I guess he didn’t want me exiting with negative thoughts.

 COVER BATTLES

 The subject we had most battles on were the covers, which was the only part of the magazine Joe asked to see before it was shipped to the printers. The third FLEX cover I did was of Lee Priest for the April 1998 issue and Joe hated it --not Lee, just the shot. (Funny how even when he’s innocent Lee Priest is the catalyst for trouble.) We both went into the photo library and looked through the Lee Priest file. Joe picked out a dumbbell curl shot saying, “That’s the one we should use.”

 I commented, “But his forearm is blotting out his biceps – it won’t work.”

 Joe exploded, “Jesus Christ, I’ve been picking covers for 50 f***ing years, don’t tell me about covers!”

 I thought, he has a point. Long story short we did run with the cover I chose. In all my time of showing Joe covers not one was changed. He’d often say, “I don’t like it, but it’s your choice. I made you Editor in Chief.” So much for Joe the dictator.

 CELEBRATION – JOE STYLE

 Joe Weider really was a workaholic. He loved being in the office so much he didn’t like taking vacations, even though he could afford to go anywhere in the world. His wife Betty on the other hand wanted to travel and not only for herself: She figured by the ‘90s he had built his empire, done enough 24/7 time, that he didn’t need to be a permanent fixture in the office, and he deserved some recreational relaxation after decades of a nose to the grindstone life. So she would always be urging Joe to go on vacation but he always tried to wriggle out of it.

 In 1996 their 35th wedding anniversary was looming up and Betty approached Joe with the idea that to celebrate they would take a vacation and have, “Four days in San Francisco, four days in Las Vegas and four days in New York.” Considering the itinerary, Joe rubbed his chin and drawled, “Hmm, put me down for the four days in San Francisco.”

 Well, that’s what he told me anyway.

 MASTER BLASTING

 I saw Joe being hard and mean. I also saw him being brilliant in business. In late 1998 Joe had arranged to meet with a new PR company who’d made a pitch to come in to present a plan outlining how they could re-brand the company and energize its image and profit. Joe had all his editors in the boardroom and the company had three representatives present. They had state-of-the art graphs mounted on an easel and began to rip into Weider Publishing telling Joe how it should be run. Each time an editor intervened to try and say, “You can’t walk into this building and talk to Joe Weider like that”, Joe would raise his hand and quietly say, “Let them continue.” Their last board showed the finances required to launch their program and the estimated return on investment. When they had finished Joe went to the board and like a surgeon with a scalpel quietly took the figures apart, pointed out glaring mistakes, and just blew the whole thing out the water. The guys had no response. It was a thing of beauty.  

 JOE AND THE ATHLETES

 Joe’s face would light up when a bodybuilder visited him, and they didn’t have to be top rank, if a lowly amateur or even non-competing bodybuilder were in the building Joe would take the time to see them.

 With the competing guys when he met them for the first time he would ask them to hit a few poses and they innocently would doff their tops not knowing what they were in for. Joe would work them hard telling them how to add modifications to a pose to improve it. “Twist your wrist inwards -- it gives more peak to the biceps”; “Flex your lats in that double biceps pose”. The instructions would go on until the bodybuilder was covered in sweat, but they’d come out better bodybuilders. Tom Prince told me after his induction into the Joe Weider posing academy, “I learnt more about posing in that five minutes than I did in the previous five years.”

JOE AND DORIAN

In the summer of 1995, Met-Rx offered then three-time Mr. Olympia and Weider athlete Dorian Yates a contract worth $250,000 a year, which was enormous in those days. Yates’ felt it was an offer too good to refuse. Joe was unprepared to match it or increase what Yates’ contract was at the time. Joe had been advised by others in the building that Flex Wheeler – recovered from his 1994 car accident -- would topple Yates at September’s Mr. Olympia. I went in to see Joe and told him, “Flex will not win this year and Dorian will be Mr. Olympia until he retires. The only thing that will stop him will be injury.” (Which is what transpired: I just wish I had that same acumen when it comes to the Las Vegas gaming tables.) I made that prediction to Joe not because of my friendship with Dorian but because I truly believed it. Joe duly re-signed Yates on an increased contract.

 JOE IN COURT

 Joe had big legal problems with several athletes. One who filed a lawsuit against Joe was 1984 Mr. Olympia Samir Bannout over his image being used in an ad. It went before a judge in 1987 and at one point the plaintiff and the defendant were asked to leave the court while the judge ruled on some point for the jury. So it was that Joe and Samir found themselves the sole occupants of an anteroom. An uneasy conversation sprang up and transitioned into the following.

 Joe: “You look in good shape, Samir?”

 Samir: “Yeah, I been training pretty hard.”

 Joe: “So any chance of … er, seeing what you look like?”

 Samir: (After a pause),”Okay!”

 So Samir whipped off his top and hit a few poses for the man he was suing. The fact that Joe would ask and Samir oblige tells you all you need to know about both guys. The case was settled but the details remain private.

 THE LAST HURRAH

 A serious heart operation in 2001 and a complicated back operation in 2002 took their toll on Joe Weider’s health. It was feared after the heart surgery that he would only survive three years, but he lasted another ten. What a fighter he was. But truth be told he never really recovered from the back surgery and over the years he became more and more reliant on a wheelchair. Which was pure hell for someone who had been the most active of men. Indeed my abiding memory is of him storming, almost running, along the corridors of the Weider building, a layout in his hand, with smoke coming out of his ears and a Goddamn or two coming out of his lips. Somebody was going to get ripped a new one.

 I last saw Joe over the Olympia weekend of 2011. The Thursday before the finals my wife Anne and I went for dinner with Joe and Betty at their Las Vegas apartment. I hadn’t seen him since the previous year and he had regressed alarmingly in that time and hardly recognized me. It seemed he would not be up to attending the Saturday finals. But he did although he didn’t go onstage. Seated in the backstage green room it was obvious he was very subdued and not into talking. Suddenly he asked Betty if he could be taken to the pump-up room to, “See the guys.”

 As soon as he reached the pump up area the athletes – male and female – began to mill around him and queued up to have their photos taken. Usually athletes backstage are glued to the TV monitor watching the onstage action of their rivals. But even though it was in the midst of the men’s posing round the Olympia became an afterthought, as Uncle Joe was now the biggest show in town. And then something almost magical happened. Joe brightened up and started conversing and joking with the athletes. He put his hand on Figure Olympia champ Nicole Wilkins’ shoulder and someone said, “Careful Joe.” With a twinkle in his eye The Master Blaster snapped back, “Arghh, Betty said it’s okay.”

 Marveling at his transformation Betty said, “See this is where he belongs with the bodybuilders. It’s always been his life and it always will be.”

 Never were truer words spoken.

 EPILOGUE: IT’S JOE’S WORLD

 Joe took his love of bodybuilding and made it into an industry and a lifestyle that changed the world and changed countless millions of lives over the years. Without Joe our lives would have been very different. During my time with Joe I kept letters, hundreds and hundreds of them, from readers giving praise for finding bodybuilding. They didn’t speak about how their physiques had changed; they spoke of lives that were directionless and without meaning until they entered Joe’s world. They spoke of newfound self-esteem of a new found confidence and a structured philosophy that carried through to improve their everyday lives. Joe’s world not only changed and improved physiques it changed and improved lives.

 We entered Joe’s world through our first visit to one of his magazines and stayed hooked for life. For those of my age we would visit Gold’s Gym every month and hang out with Dave Draper, Arnold, Frank Zane, Franc, Zabo, Mike Katz and the gang. We entered Joe’s world of baseball biceps, barn door lats, cannonball delts, of bombing and blitzing. It was a world of the guy on the beach with the girl on his shoulders. We all wanted to be that guy on the beach with the girl – especially the one called Betty. We entered Joe’s world and we never left it.

 Thanks for the world you gave us Joe. It is a world that will live on forever

 It was Joe’s world – we just lived in it.

 WHO’S GONNA WIN THE OLYMPIA?

 The “devil’s in the details” is a popular saying and when it comes to this years Mr. Olympia being staged this Friday and Saturday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, its maybe one that applies to the thoughts of the field of contestants trying to stop Phil Heath from taking his fourth Sandow.

 In this age of supreme condition being paramount (the paradox being that so few attain it) no one has the crazy rivulet of details that embellish the physique of the three-time champ. His singular muscularity is amazing, with muscle bellies that are so round and uniquely contoured and he has striations in places where other bodybuilders don't even have places. From head-to-toe, from front to back and from the side he is more detailed than the Queen of England’s limo. He just has so much more going on than any of the other guys. Let me make myself clear, if Phil Heath is on he cannot be beaten. It seems to me that his peers can only hope to beat him if he’s off and they are 100 per cent on. They won’t admit and good for them for having such self-belief.

 

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