Customer Reviews

Muscle Beach: Where the best Bodies in the World started a fitness revolution

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This is one of the several books available about the history of Muscle Beach that paved the way for fitness, aerobics, weight lifting, and body building. The athletes who made it possible, especially the ladies of Muscle beach, are the real stars. Women of modern generation must be highly indebted to them for popularizing a sport that was considered freakish and outright unfeminine. These women worked in 1930s and 40s when the land was highly conservative, and Santa Monica was no different. Strong pressure from local government through legislations, and public opinions through media were always unfriendly to women of Muscle beach. Muscle beach started around 1934, although few claim the foundation were laid as early as early 1920s. In its heyday, Muscle beach was made of men, women, and children who were learning and performing athletic feats, and acrobatic stunts to delight beachgoers. Some of these performers emerged as top class athletes, stuntman, bodybuilders, gymnasts, fitness consultants, and entrepreneurs. It is a long list of names that includes; Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton, Les Stockton, Jack Lalanne, Vic and Armand Tanny, Ran Hall, Frank Jares, Steve Reeves, George Eiferman, and so on. Many of them in later years became gym owners, trainers, authors and consultants.

Women performing stunts include; Pudgy Stockton lifting a man with one hand or support him on her shoulders; Pudgy or Relna Brewer would tear a book in half, and Relna would wrestle men and toss him like a rag doll. Women were considered equals by men on the platform. In the early 1940s WWII sent many men away to the warfront, this left women to join the workforce, and fill the void left by men at Muscle beach. Pudgy Stockton was a very powerful role model for women because she was not only muscular, and athletic, but also beautiful and feminine as a woman could be. When she died on June 26, 2006 at the age of 88 due to Alzheimer's disease; Boston Globe ran in its obituary column under the title "Queen of Muscle Beach." She was also called ``the First Lady of Iron," and ``America's Barbelle," in her time.

Many Hollywood stars hung out near Muscle beach. The list includes; Jane Russell who met her husband, Bob Waterfield, and Jayne Mansfield met her husband, Mickey Hargitay, a bodybuilder. Mae West known for her interest in men with good physique invited; Chuck Krauser, George Eiferman, Mickey Hargitay and Joe Gold for her live stage revue. Chuck Krauser and Mae West remained as couples until her death in 1980.

The athletes of Muscle beach were called "wackos, fruitcakes, hippies, and bums." The fall of Muscle beach started from 1952 - 1953 when the platform was taken over by the iron sports; weight lifting and bodybuilding, and the traditional acrobatic acts of Muscle beach was on its way out. Winning a competition was the main strategy of many iron sportsmen made them less social than acrobats. A combination of events that followed in late 50s may have closed the doors on the Muscle beach of Santa Monica. The events includes; car parking problems faced by the locals due to visitors to the beach; suggestive seminude poses, and physical touching of all male bodybuilders; Joe Weider's controversial publications that were aimed at gays; and a sex case involving a group of weight lifters and underage black girls sensationalized Santa Monica beach. In later years, Muscle beach reappeared at Venice beach, just south of the Pier, but it lacks the magic of "historical" Muscle beach of Santa Monica.

The athletes of Muscle beach have endured a great deal; it was a time when doctors told patients that muscle is bad; women may lose child bearing capability, and men may become impotent. In spite of all odds, they pursued their interests, and prevailed. They did not use steroids, and many were philosophical about life. George Eiferman printed his business card bearing his mind over body philosophy; a list of ten daily exercises, and one of them was; "We are never alone. Walk with God."

The author tells the story wonderfully and I did not find anything in this book that is either bigoted or unfair to any section of the society. I recommend this book to all fans of Muscle beach.

1. Remembering Muscle Beach: Where Hard Bodies Began : Photographs and Memories
2. Muscle Beach

My dear father is now 86-years-old and his memory has grown weaker with age. I try to visit him frequently as I know his time on this earth is drawing to a close. One night, he started talking about his memories of his family home at 213 14th Street in Santa Monica. He told me that he and his twin brother Ed Fuller would go down to the Santa Monica Beach and hang out.

My father was a very handsome man in his youth and very strong. He and Ed began working out on the beach and one day, the Lifeguard down at the beach referred to them as "The Muscle Twins."

Before long, more men and women started joining their little mini-fitness craze and lifting weights on the beach. Sometimes, their antics would draw quite a crowd. My father and his brother would get very competitive and see who could lift the most weight.

As my father told this story, I grabbed a pen and started making notes. He mentioned several names, including "Pudge Stockton" and more. I scribbled away as he talked. I had my doubts. After all, my 86-year-old father was telling me that he and his brother Ed started the phenomenon known as "Muscle Beach"?

As a surprise, I ordered a couple books for my father (including this one) and when it arrived, I found the same names my father had mentioned.

My father's joy at receiving this tome was beyond words.

It did everything for him that I had hoped it could and would do, mainly bring back many joyous memories.

Rose Fuller Thornton
daughter of one of the original "Muscle Twins"
gentlebeam@hotmail.com

I find the previous reviews quite biased and agenda-ridden. This is a light-hearted look at the Venice Beach muscle culture, with some great anecdotes. The book's few comments about heterosexuality are, in my opinion, merely to demonstrate that the scene was mixed, and not exclusively the province of stereotypical Muscle Marys. If you have any interest in the history of bodybuilding or Venice Beach, this is definitely up your alley. No pun intended.

Marla Matzer Rose's highly readable book beautifully captures the 'slice of life' that was Muscle Beach in its infancy. Especially delightful are the photographs from that period, which wonderfully capture the flavor of the time. Well researched, well written. An excellent read for history and fitness buffs, or for anyone curious about the glorious days of early Los Angeles. I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

Living at the beach in Los Angeles, I have a great interest and love of the culture which continues to intrigue and influence the rest of the world. Today's current focus on health and body building largely stems from the Muscle Beach phenomenon. This book puts that lifestyle into historical context in an enlightening and entertaining fashion.

As a fan of the legend and lore of Muscle Beach since childhood, when I found this book, I was eager to read it. Finishing the book in an evening, I was sadly disappointed with the contents. The author certainly has a point of view -- right out of the 50s -- where nothing but healthy, hearty, NORMAL people were involved with Muscle Beach. Sure, there were sordid, unsavory "finge" types that tried to contaminate the wholesome goings-on, but no one actually involved with making Muscle Beach what is was at all out of the ordinary.

Most of the book was a bland, poorly constructed string of the same small group of people mentioned over and over again. If the author is correct, it seems Pudgie Stockton, one of the original weightlifting women, was the main feature at the beach and singlehandedly popularized the sport of bodybuilding. Granted, Ms. Rose had firsthand knowledge of the legendary site, but, as is evident repeatedly in the chapters, that circle of MB denizens was incredibly small. The book's flavor is more like an annual Christmas letter home than a trustworthy historical record.

I must agree with the other posters who found Ms. Rose's book bigoted and homophobic. In life, one may only perform with the tools one has obtained through life's lessons. In other words, Ms. Rose grew up in the 40s and 50s, when attitudes toward gays and other "fringe" types were highly bigoted and even dangerous. These outsiders were suspect and unsavory -- great threats to the wholesome family life of Americans. Her view of the world is, therefore, colored by the beliefs and mores of the time in which she grew up. One might've hoped that, as mentalities change and great progress is made in tolerance and acceptance, she might have learned from this, too. Evidently not. Ms. Rose took great (I would say painstaking) care not to mention homosexuals in her disparagement of the shadowy (and, evidently, very menacing) world of The Fringe. Perhaps she hoped she wouldn't ruffle any gay feathers that way, but her intent was very clear.

I've done vast amounts of research about Muscle Beach (even having had long discussions with some of the actual musclemen who were there in it's prime) for over 35 years, and to imagine Muscle Beach without a large and enmeshed gay presence is laughable. I hate to break it to Ms. Rose (and, in reality, I think she knows) that the bodybuilders on Muscle Beach had to do some escorting and/or private posing on the side to keep up their lifestyle. In fact, we may, with come certainly, say that Muscle Beach was what it was due to the patronage of certain men with money and a taste for wide shoulders, deep chests and washboard abdominals. The muscle guys knew this when they came to the Beach and were, if not eager, then all to happy to service their admirers and make some cash. The same is true today. A number of men I spoke with (even some mentioned in Ms. Rose's book) not only confirmed the fact of patron/muscleman arrangements, but admitted to participating. Some even -- shock -- enjoyed it and maintained friendships with their sponsors. I find it ludicrous and disingenuous to not just ignore a fact like this, but to try to expunge it due to personal distate. Don't have us look at the sun, Ms. Rose, and tell us it's not shining.

If the reader is interested in more factual and, yes, better written accounts of fabled Muscle Beach, they would do well to try "Remebering Muscle Beach: Where Hard Bodies Began", by Harold Zinkin and Bonnie Hearn, and "Westcoast Body Scene: the Golden Era", by Dick Tyler and Dave Draper, both available on Amazon.com.

It is amazing the extent this author went to in trying to portray the early male bodybuilding champions as "normal" heterosexuals, while excluding the "fringe" elements of homosexuals. This book should be viewed as one bigot's attempt to rewrite the facts of history to fit her own purposes and bigoted viewpoint. Don't waste your money!

Amazing that this level of garbage could be published in the modern day. Weak and uninformed. Not worth the price of a used copy.

Long diatribe explaining how heterosexul the bodybuilders of Muscle Beach were. Sure, she admits, there were a few "fringe" elements swayed by the porno-peddlars to pose semi-nude for the edification of perverts, but most of the bodybuilders were "normal" (her words)and got married! In the year 2002, must we still be subjected to such homophobic garbage? Hey, maybe the "homosexuals" were normal too?