Customer Reviews

Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was never a big "rasslin'" fan myself but my grandpa and my younger brother were. I remember staying overnight at my grandparents' house and because our bed was made in the living room my sister and I had to stay awake while Grandpa watched the Saturday night rasslin'. He took my little brother to see Gorgeous George in person in our town during the late 1950's and they talked about it for weeks. Last summer when our family was creating a memory book about the way we remembered our grandparents, now long gone, and my brother (60 years old himself) immediately said he wanted to include the story about seeing Gorgeous George. It was the only time he had seen Grandpa get riled up. I bought this book to give my brother for Christmas. I had hoped there would be more about the days, late in his career, when he wrestled in small southwest towns. I was disappointed there was nothing much about those days but I did enjoy being reminded about an era long forgotten. I guess I was paying more attention to the TV than I thought I was because I sure remembered a lot of it. It pretty well researched and easy to read. The photos are great.

Today's fans of the WWE's "entertainment" version of Professional Wrestling now have a chance to read about how the kayfabe era of the business was. For fans of that generation, mention Gorgeous George, and the stories start to unfold. Author John Capouya absolutely reveals the way it was, and shows all of us a Gorgeous George that even the most rabid fans did not know.

His account of George's career is chronicled in a way that is easy to follow, and he end's up giving us a book that is hard to put down.

As I read through his account of George's ups and downs, I felt like I was back sitting ringside again, watching the "Human Orchi" strut his stuff in the squared circle....and I could almost see him throwing those gold "Georgie Pins" to the crowd.

John also gives us an insightful personal side to George Wagner, who lived the life, and sadly boozed it all away. John's research and homework into George's background is to be commended.

Over the last decade, there have been many excellant books published on pro wrestling.....but John's book is "The Main Event". It is a must read, and one that you will read again, and again.

In the early days of TV in my life, I remember my aged aunt sitting in her mohair chair screaming in Swedish at the small, black and white image of Gorgeous George prancing across the screen. What she said, I'd not wish to repeat, but it did have some reflections on his parents and some mention of bodily functions. Otherwise, my aunt was prim and proper... we kids would sit out stunned at what we were hearing. This book does some justice to George, but doesn't quite get ot the impact on small town middle American as I recollect it.

This is a great book that is easy to read and filled in a lot of holes in the life of Gorgeous George.
The writer did a tremendous job of brushing up on his wrestling knowledge before writing this and even did a better job researching.
This covers his early years that he never talked about all the way to his death and just about everything in between.

Wrestling fans have been blessed over the last 10 years or so with some wonderful books.I'm pleased to say "Gorgeous George" enriches the genre.George was an absolute icon and one of the first stars on American television.The author deftly works in chapters as to how GG influenced James Brown ,(the singer)Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan (who knew ?) George's outrageous costumes,hair and effeminate mannerisms enraged/delighted wrestling fans all across the country.Read,laugh,learn and enjoy what wrestling was in the "kayfabe" era.Bravo.

A very good and interesting read about one of the greatest characters ever in pro wrestling.

Entertaining and illuminating sports bio about a fascinating cultural figure. You need not be a wrestling fan to enjoy this book, as the Gorgeous One's influence--as vividly described by Capouya--reached well beyond the scope of that sport.

The book might have been even stronger if Capouya had been able to get better access to Ali and Dylan for his chapters on GG's impact on their careers, but he's able to connect the dots well regardless. And the chapter on Gorgeous George's gender-bending theatrics and their influence make a richly compelling case for GG's impact on pop culture, not to mention his outspoken bravado, which flew in the face of the traditional notion of the stoic, play-by-the-roles hero.

A thoroughly enjoyable read for fans of sports, biographies and pop culture in general.

What did James Brown and Muhammad Ali have in common?

They both took much of their act from GORGEOUS GEORGE, an
entertaining biography by John Capoya . . . it tells the story
of the transformation of journeyman wrestler George Wagner
from a dark-haired clean-cut good guy to a blond braggart
who cheated whenever he got the chance . . .he also drove
crowds wild back in the early 1950s when wresting first
gained widespread popularity.

In reading it, I was also reminded of THE WRESTLER (the
recent film)--particularly this one passage:

* Wrestling was becoming family television fare, but the Romans in
the arenas still went berserk at the sight of gladiatorial blood. The
subset of wrestlers down as "blade men" gave theirs intentionally.
To get heat, a boy would conceal an eighth-of-an-inch razor blade
on a wrist or finger, fixing it there with tape. When his opponent
slammed him face-first into a turnbuckle, he'd put a hand to his
forehead, drawing the cutting tool across it and opening up a slash
that gushed crimson. When the crowd saw the blood, or "juice,"
running down his face and neck and staining the mat below, it let
out a primal roar. A star like George would never have to resort to
blading or "getting color," as it was also known. But quite a few
other did, their foreheads gradually becoming hatch-marked with tiny
whitish scars.

Though the wrestling parts of the book were interesting, I
found his story out of the ring even more fascinating . . . such as
this account of when he met Ali (then Cassius Clay) and told him:

* "You got your good looks, a great body, and you've got a good
mouth on you. Talk about how pretty you are, tell 'em how great you
are. And a lot of people will pay to see somebody shut your big
mouth. So keep on bragging, keep on sassing and always be
outrageous."

And then there was this account of his appearance on Eddie
Cantor's radio show:

* This segment ended with Cantor asking his guest star: "There is
one thing I always wanted to know. What makes you call yourself
Gorgeous?"

To which George answered: "Honesty."

I was moved by Capoya's portrayal of George toward the end
of his career--and particularly the description of the bout he lost
and was forced to have his curls shaved in the ring . . . things went
steadily downhill afterwards, and when he died at 48, he
was both broke and virtually friendless.

Adding greatly to my enjoyment of the book were the pictures
from the various stages of his career . . . they really helped me
understand his popularity and why he had been such a cultural icon

It's amazing to think about the proliferation of professional wrestling on TV in the early days of the medium. It's got such a pall hanging over it today, such a reputation for illegitimacy. But there it was, prime time, every night.

Gorgeous George rode that wave, flipping the ideal model of the American male on its head, portraying more of a snooty Renaissance era royal fop than a clean cut, pipe smoking, tie-wearing, 9 to 5 dad. America couldn't handle it, and turned out in droves to tell George what they thought about him, his Chanel No. 10 and his valets.

Muhammad Ali learned from him. Talk the talk, make the crowds turn out to see you get beat, then walk the walk. The author puts wrestling's first gender-tweaking superstar into the context of his day, explaining how he paved the way for not only future wrestlers, but future performers in other American entertainment fields.

Most books about professional wrestling and wrestlers keep it within the squared circle. This marvelous book - written by a professional journalist rather than a sportsman - takes the story of wrestling's arguably most famous showman and places it squarely within the context of the culture he grew up in and ultimately impacted. I remember Gorgeous George vividly: he was a marvelous athlete, a genuine wrestler, and a superior showman. The greatest wrestler of the century, Lou Thesz, despised cheap gimmicks, but he highly respected George, and loved to wrestle him because they could genuinely spar and put on a good show. Other reviewers here make good points with their criticisms, but overall this is a more than splendid look into the life and times of a man who wrote his own very original story and, in the process, the stories of others as well.