A Brief History of the ‘50s & ‘60s | Two Decades That Launched Modern Bodybuilding
A Brief History of the 50's & 60's
Two Decades That Launched Modern Bodybuilding
The early pioneers of bodybuilding formed the platform for the modern scene that proliferates today. The 1950s and ‘60s were crucial decades in the history and evolution of bodybuilding. Here we take you on a brief review of those times.
THE ‘50s
The story of bodybuilding in the 1950s was one of how the sport became more structured in terms of a regular competition calendar and how the magazines fed off that continuity to showcase the stars that were winning the contests.
In 1950 the publishers of Health & Strength formed the National Association of Bodybuilders (NABBA) in Britain in order to bring some stability to bodybuilding activities. From NABBA’s early days Oscar Heidenstam, who won the Mr. Britain contest in 1937 and Mr. Europe in 1939, was the driving force. Heidenstam eventually joined Health & Strength in 1953, rose to the position of editor, became owner of the title in 1969 then sole owner in 1974, before selling it to a new proprietor in 1981. He became Secretary of NABBA in 1956, a position he held until his death on March 21, 1991 aged 80, by which time he had long been hailed as the Father of British Bodybuilding.
In its first year of existence, 1950, NABBA launched their Mr. Universe contest staged annually in London, which quickly established itself as the real world championships of bodybuilding. It couldn’t have had a more heralded inaugural winner than America’s Steve Reeves who stormed to victory over home-based Reg Park. If Reeves hadn’t existed and today a computer was instructed to come up with an image of the ideal male specimen, then beaming out of the screen could well be the 6’ 1” 210 pound physique and facial features of Steve Reeves. His proportions were beyond criticism and his looks were that of a matinee idol. Little wonder then that the 1950 Mr. Universe was his last contest and from then on in his focus was on movie-making, as he appeared in a string of Italian made sword and sandal epics from the late ‘50s through to early ‘60s. Even though 65 years have passed since his last contest, Reeves still for many, represents what the height of physical perfection should be.
The next NABBA Mr. Universe was Reg Park from Leeds, England. He was a more rugged version of Reeves and was regarded as the best bodybuilder of the ‘50s with only Bill Pearl being a main challenger. (Pearl and Park did not compete against each other until the 1971 NABBA Pro Universe, where Pearl was first to Park’s third: Sergio Oliva was second.) Park was very progressive and was the first European bodybuilder to travel extensively; he spent six months in the States prior to winning his Universe title and was featured in the Weider mags of the day. Like Reeves he too found his way to Italy and made a series of Hercules movies in the early ’60s. In 1958 he relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa and after a life devoted to bodybuilding died there on November 22, 2007 aged 79.
In 1952 the NABBA Mr. Universe was split into two sections -- amateur division and professional division -- and each year more than a 100 of the world’s best bodybuilders would assemble in London to dispute honors.
MAGAZINE WARS
In America the magazine wars between Bob Hoffman of Strength and Health and Weider of Your Physique and was heating up. The seat of their dispute emanated from the ‘40s and at its root was caused by Hoffman favoring weightlifting over bodybuilding, while Weider was of the reverse opinion. Of course what cannot be discounted is that they plainly disliked each other and they were business rivals. In his magazine Weider repeatedly took pot shots at Hoffman who then replied via his publication. In later years Weider would say he kept up the campaign deliberately as each time Hoffman criticized “Joe Weider” in Strength and Health a new flood of Health and Strength readers would rush out to buy Joe’s mag to see what all the fuss was about.
By the mid ’50s Weider’s publishing empire had grown to the point where besides publishing his bodybuilding flagship Mr. America (which replaced Your Physique in 1952) he had another dozen or so magazines which included action-adventure titles like, Animal Life, Safari, Outdoor Adventures, and Fury. Because of the size of his stable of mags Weider reportedly lost millions when his distributor American News went bust in 1957. American News was also Hoffman’s distributor but because he published fewer titles his hit wasn’t as big as his arch enemy’s. Both publishers missed issues but when Weider re-grouped he focused on bodybuilding and fitness titles. Having lost too much money from other categories he from then on stuck to what he knew best.
The ‘50s were a more innocent time for all sports, bodybuilding included. There had been rumblings that the Russian weightlifting teams of the time enjoyed some help from substances other than steak and potatoes, but drugs in sport was not really an issue as 1959 came to a close. In the sixties the climate would change, and change forever.
THE ‘60s!
The early ‘60s saw a continuation of the magazine and federation rivalries of the ‘50s. In the USA Hoffman’s Strength & Health was bonded to the AAU, while Weider’s publications, although covering AAU events was a promotional vehicle for IFBB interests. But increasingly Weider was to improve the quality of his magazines and sell the California beach boy lifestyle using such non-Californians as Dave Draper and Larry Scott. In Britain Heidenstam’s Health & Strength was heavily pro (Heidenstam’s) NABBA and had no interest in amalgamating or working with the IFBB. As Ben Weider traveled the globe establishing national IFBB affiliates at an astonishing rate, Britain remained a holdout.
Looking to expand the IFBB sphere of activities and keen to offer their stars further goals to strive for, Joe Weider came up with the concept of the Mr. Olympia contest, which he envisaged would eventually eclipse the NABBA Universe. It is said that in 1964 he was discussing the project with Larry Scott in New York over a couple of beers. What will it be called asked Scott? Weider, eying the Olympia beers before them, replied, “Mr. Olympia.” One can only be thankful they weren’t drinking Margaritas.
THE MR. OLYMPIA CONTEST IS BORN
The first Mr. Olympia contest was staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 18, 1965. Larry Scott won the contest and was awarded a crown but no check. The next year he successfully defended the title and received $1,000 but no crown. Scott commented, “I don’t miss the crown.” The Mr. Olympia steadily grew in eminence but it would have to wait until the ‘70s before overtaking the NABBA Universe as the sport’s ultimate title.
It was in the mid-‘60s that anabolic steroids and bodybuilding began to be increasingly heard in the same sentence. There was much talk of Dianabol, an oral anabolic steroid originally developed by John Ziegler and released in the States in the early 1960's by Ciba, being used by West Coast bodybuilders. Rick Wayne in his history of bodybuilding, Muscle Wars, recounts a clash that occurred at a 1966 contest between guest posers Larry Scott and Chet Yorton where the former told the audience that steroids had become a regular part of life for top bodybuilders. Yorton, annoyed at this assertion, said it was okay for Scott to speak on his own behalf but not for others like him who was a professed lifelong drug free bodybuilder. In any case the genie (or more succinctly the little blue pills) was out the bottle and the sport and the physiques began to change.
Perhaps the most laudable and significant development of the ‘60s was the ascent of black bodybuilders. Up until this decade the only black bodybuilders to win a Universe, Mr. America or Mr. Britain title had been and the USA’s Enrico Thomas (1954 Amateur NABBA Mr. Universe) and France’s Arthur Robin (1957 Pro NABBA Mr. Universe).
In the ‘60s black bodybuilders began to break through in numbers including Paul Wynter (1960 and 1966 NABBA Pro Universe), Earl Maynard (1964 NABBA Pro Universe), Wilf Sylvester (1967 NABBA Mr. Britain), Harold Poole (1964 IFBB Mr. America) and of course Sergio Oliva who ended the decade as a three-time IFBB Mr. Olympia champion. Other black champs like Serge Nubret, Al Beckles, Roy Callendar and Ricky Wayne also began to make their mark. This advent must not be interpreted as there being some form of prejudice before the ‘60s, but rather representative of an influx of black bodybuilders coming into the sport. However it has to be noted that the crowning of the first black AAU Mr. America, Chris Dickerson, did not happen until 1970 and some authorities were more than dubious about Harold Poole and Sergio Oliva not winning the 1963 and 1966, respectively, renditions of that title.
ENTER ARNOLD
A year after the inaugural Mr. Olympia in 1965 an almost unheralded 19 year old Austrian entered the 1966 NABBA Amateur Universe. The world did not then know that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the figurehead to eventually establish the Olympia and the IFBB as top dogs in the bodybuilding field and take bodybuilding into mainstream circles. In that 1966 NABBA Universe contest Schwarzenegger was bested by Chet Yorton of the Unites States but it was the teenager who was the sensation of the event as he was asked to do a posing encore: something that was unprecedented. In 1967 the Austrian Oak returned to win the Amateur Universe and then in 1968, ’69 and ’70 he took the Pro Universe titles in London. In 1968 Joe Weider took him to America and he settled in Venice, California. A year later he entered his first Mr. Olympia contest but was forced to settle for second against Sergio Oliva. As the ‘60s ended the bodybuilding community waited to see how far Schwarzenegger could go. He was to go further than even the wildest optimist could have thought.
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