![]() Well, he apparently was prepared for the rejection at the audition and so projected a somewhat cocky, dismissive attitude. He’d had enough of fruitless auditioning and was just about finished. One of the bodybuilders was an actor who came from New York to live the Hollywood dream, but he wasn’t having much success at the time.Īs he was preparing to go on another audition he told the guys in the house that if he didn’t get this one he was packing his bags and heading back to New York. It was owned by a woman who also cooked their meals for them. I never would have guessed that years later that he and I would be training together, but that’s the magic of bodybuilding.īack in the late-50’s to early-60’s there was a group of guys who trained on the beach in Santa Monica and lived in an apartment building right on the boardwalk that was called ‘Muscle House’. I had to have traps, delts and arms like Dave. I must have watched it a dozen times, and would be inspired to train each time I watched it. The film really began to put bodybuilding on the map in a public way. There was an array of bodybuilders in that film, like Chet Yorton and Reg Lewis, to name a couple. In 1967 Dave had made a movie called Don’t Make Waves, with Tony Curtis. That gig would bring Dave a lot of future film roles. He was an awesome sight, and there was no one else like him on TV. That host was none other than bodybuilding legend Dave Draper. But there was a short-lived series called The Gladiator, in which a host would introduce a different swordĪnd sandal film each week. There weren’t many bodybuilders on TV in those days as they were looked upon as freaks, and really didn’t fit any roles unless they were specific to bodybuilding or mythology. Other bodybuilders in that film were Larry Scott, Steve Merjanian, Chet Yorton, Dan Haggerty (later to play ‘Grizzly Adams’ on TV), Gene Chuey, and a few muscle girls as well. It featured Peter Lupus, who later became a regular on Mission Impossible. In 1964 Muscle Beach Party came out and brought a lot of attention to the bodybuilding scene in California. Many good bodybuilders of the ’50’s and ’60’s did films in Europe in those days, such as Reeves, Reg Park, Gordon Scott and, a few years later, David Prowse, who played Darth Vader. It was said that if you moved to Europe you could find your way into Italian ‘Sword and Sandal’ films, as they always used bodybuilders. and Company (1970), starring Joe Namath and Ann-Margret in Chrome and Hot Leather (1971), opposite Marvin Gaye and in Gentle Savage (1973) and Eye of the Tiger (1986).Years before I started training I would watch muscular guys like Steve Reeves in the movies and wonder how they got to looking the way they did, and how’d they made their way into movies. "He was a go-to-guy when casting for biker films, starring in director Jack Starrett’s Run, Angel, Run! (1969) and The Losers (1970) in Angels Die Hard (1970), from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in C.C. "Smith starred with fellow bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian (1982) and spoke fluent Russian as a general in Red Dawn (1984) - both those films were directed by John Milius - and, as a gang leader named Carrot, battled Yul Brynner with a ball and chain in The Ultimate Warrior (1975). As prolific as he was strong, he had a whopping 289 credits on IMDb, seemingly in everything from the ’60s onward. ![]() Recapping his impressive career, the Hollywood Reported detailed in a tribute: "The 6-foot-2 Smith, who was a champion discus thrower at UCLA, an arm-wrestling champion and a black belt in the martial arts, had 18-inch biceps and could do 5,100 continuous sit-ups and reverse curl 163 pounds.
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