In 1966, the National Amateur Body-Builders’ Association voted in their new president for a five-year term. And in September that year Jimmy Savile presided, as presidents do, over NABBA’s showcase event: the amateur Mr. Universe contest.
“A special day,” as Savile later reminisced. “It was like Indian drums — but it was the beating hearts of all the lads.”
One of those lads was a 19-year-old unknown. His sinews were like steel hawsers but his English was still ropy. Although he wouldn’t win the title until the following year, he still managed to come a close second at his first attempt (his weedy calves let him down, by all accounts) .
But second is for losers, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was inconsolable. One of the judges, Wag Bennett, felt so sorry for him that he and his wife took him in as a lodger at their home on the Romford road. Arnie lived with the Bennetts for the next five years, on and off, eating seven meals and popping three ’roids a day, and pumping any old iron in an East End gym to pave the way for the Conan gig, the Kennedy wife and the California governor’s mansion that were to come.
Sitting demurely in his pinstriped suit alongside the kaftan-clad Jimmy Savile in the front row at the Victoria Palace theatre that ultraripply and lavishly lubed-up evening in 1966 was another very strange man. Very strange and very, very rich, although in this case he’d made his pile by bringing up crude oil from beneath the sands of Kuwait instead of shaking down the dance halls that straddled the Pennines.
Enter J. Paul Getty.
Getty loved bodybuilders even more than he loved collecting classical statues of perfectly proportioned demigods with unfeasibly tiny penises. Despite making it into the 1966 Guinness Book of Records with his $1.2 billion personal fortune, he was notoriously tight with his money. He even had a payphone installed inside his UK mansion, Sutton Place, to stymie any house guests’ plans to make long-distance calls at his expense. Yet whenever NABBA pleaded poverty, which was a frequent enough occurrence back then, he never thought twice about writing out another cheque to save the day. Jimmy Savile was good at getting people to do that.
In 1967, the year Arnold Schwarzenegger won his first Mr. Universe title, but for reasons that are somewhat less straightforward to extrapolate, Getty would also finance the decidedly odd filmmaker and Hollywood tittle-tattle king Kenneth Anger, who was keen to get cracking on his new Aleister Crowley phase. The adventure lurched on for a few years with a few flaky projects that received next to no attention. It all ended rather abruptly when Jimmy Page’s wife threw Anger out and told him never to darken their gates of perception again.
What is this — some kind of joke written by David Lynch? “A peroxide-haired Yorkshire DJ, an Austrian bodybuilder, a gossiping gay occultist and the world’s richest man walk into a bar….”
No, it’s no joke. It’s just Savileana a-go-go: the gift — that’s the German word for poison, as Arnie might point out — that keeps on giving.
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(Thanks to @TheOldBatsman for setting me off down this particular rabbit hole.)
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(Thanks to @TheOldBatsman for setting me off down this particular rabbit hole.)
2 comments:
Awesome work... I was dubious, but it all checks out...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/5...rly-years.html
check this passage from the above article
'Arnold, I was just showing John the room you used to sleep in,' Dianne tells him.
'Ah, Ports-mouth,' says Schwarzenegger in his unmistakable honking voice. 'I remember that room very well.' This is followed by a richly suggestive laugh – 'Heh, heh, heh.' (In early life – as in later – Arnold was always a doggedly attentive skirt-chaser.)
'I bet you do,' says Dianne, also laughing, 'but we won't go into that now.
From this thread on Jimmy Savile;
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=400532.0
there is this:
Jimmy Savile was the president of NABBA in the 60's / early 70's. He was also the coverman on some gay magazine around the same time so i guess thats when big Oscar decided to distance himself from him. Apparently he got friendly with a lot of bodybuilders in a gay for pay or gay for contest results way during this time including Arnold.
A while back on british TV, Arnold was being interviewed for his End of Days film and the interviewer (Johnny Vaughn http://fishcakes.biz/archive/ysp_f4_...han/index6.htm) asked him if his relationship with Jimmy Saville was true. Arnold became visibly angry and claim to not know who Jimmy was even tho Jimmy had been nabba president and had handed Arnold his trophies each time he won the Universe.
Then follow this thread,
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=206869.50
and this revelation comes out...
When Arnold moved to England in the 1960's he lived with wealthy gay businessman John Dixey. He also was heavily involved with Jimmy Saville and Wag Bennet who used to enjoy watching Arnold shag his wife Dianne, sometimes with Rick Wayne joining in. In the USA his main sugardaddy was Paco Arce Gomez (not the Weiders). In the early 1970's his boyfriend and supporter was one of the Shriver family and it was he who invited Arnold to the party where he met Maria.
Further dirt showing the depth of corruption and procurement within bodybuilding here:
http://www.defamer.com.au/2011/05/an...e/#more-405001
And a bit more inside info:
Here is Jimmy on the front cover of Health and Strength as President of NABBA and again on the front cover of Gay News. It was this cover which resulted in old Oscar Heidenstam removing him as President. That is a laugh though as Oscar was as gay as the day is long at the north pole in mid summer. He and that other old flake Oscar State were at it like rabbits with not just competitors but each other as well.
Howdee,
As a yank in new york during the late 1970's i ran into alotta gays who were fans of Arnie. Pumping iron was a hawt flick for them. HERE'S a taste of decadent New R York during this era. Ther are two pics of arnie, scroll half way down.
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