Arnold Schwarzenegger in Portsmouth : Body Building and the Fantastic Four. by Ian Baker

 

© Marvel - with apologies to Swingin' Sammy Rosen 

Growing up in Portsmouth in the nineteen-sixties there was a general feeling that it was the natural order of things that Britain would come out on top. WW2 was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and the general tenor of adult conversations led nine-year-old me to conclude that Britain had defeated Germany single-handed (twice!) and that England winning the World Cup in 1966 flowed from that general greatness. In my mind it followed that Sandie Shaw naturally won the Eurovision Song contest in the following year, 1967. In retrospect by 1968 the cracks were starting to show when Cliff Richard came in 2nd in the contest the following year, and despite the valiant efforts of Scottish songstress Lulu in securing a 4-way tie in 1969 with “Boom-Bang-A-Bang”, the writing was on the wall for British dominance in every field of human endeavour.

 

So against this background, it also seemed perfectly natural to me to grow up in an island city where famous people were celebrated with blue plaques, road names, building preservation, museums and the like. Portsmouth has many public acknowledgements of famous sons and adopted offspring….Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, H G Wells, Peter Sellers, Neil Gaiman, …Rudyard Kipling…but nowhere on that sceptred isle will you find public commemoration of its most multi-talented, versatile polymath - Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 

Arnie? I hear you say. Do tell. Where is the Comic connection in this story? Read On…

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s journey from skinny Austrian teenager to the pinnacle of his chosen fields (Bodybuilding, Movie Star, US State politics) has been well documented elsewhere. His connection to Portsmouth comes from those early days when he traveled to London to compete in the Mr Universe bodybuilding competitions. In late 1966, following Arnie’s first bid for the Mr Universe title, he met Bob Woolger who  invited him to train at his gym in Portsmouth for both the 1967 title (which he won) and again for the defense of the title the following year.

 

And so in the Spring of 1968, Arnold again took the train from Waterloo to Portsmouth & Southsea to train with Bob Woolger, with whom he developed a bond of friendship. The photo below shows Arnold promoting Bob Woolger’s annual dinner dance at the Wedgewood Rooms (a popular venue) in Albert Rd, Southsea on Thursday 25th April 1968.

© Multiple Sources. Bob Woolger and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Southsea, 25th April 1968

© Unknown. The Wedgewood Rooms in the early 1970s

 

According to recollections on FB group Memories of Bygone Portsmouth managed by JJ Marshallsay Arnold was a familiar figure around Southsea as he walked along Albert Rd between Bob Woolger’s gym facilities in Clive Rd, Fratton and in Clarendon Circle, Southsea, no doubt strolling past many newsagents that stocked American comics populated with body-building supplement ads promoted by past competition winners. 

 

If he had chanced upon a copy of Fantastic Four #75 that April, he would have seen lacklustre ads from Joe Weider, the famed US body-building entrepreneur, featuring previous Mr Universes. [Aside: Advertising has to tell a story].  By the end of the following year, Arnold would be himself be the centrepiece of those same ads in American comic books.

© Marvel - Joe Weider body-building supplement Advert pre-Schwarzenegger

I have no great memories of buying comics in that period, as the Silver Age transitioned to Bronze, although a quick look at the "Newsstand' on Mike's Amazing World of Comics shows some gems I came to read in later years. My preoccupation at that time was looking forward to my birthday in July and hoping for an Action Man plus an Action Man Deep Sea Diver suit .

 

As the Summer progressed, we have no record of what Arnie did for entertainment. His local choices would have been the Odeon (later The Salon)  at the top of Festing Rd, or the King’s Theatre at the western end of Albert Rd.

 

Did Arnie go to see Sadler's Wells Opera Company, The Barber of Seville, or sample the other 3 operas at the King’s? Or perhaps opted instead for Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes at the Odeon.    

 

[Later that summer I went with my parents to see Hughie Green’s “Opportunity Knocks Winners”show at the King’s on Aug 12th, which had “musical muscleman” Tony Holland (he of the rippling muscles in time to the music) and a very limber female contortionist on the bill (a Hughie Green favourite) , all co-hosted by diminutive Monica Rose. I have found no record that Arnie was in the audience, but I have a suspicion he would have enjoyed it and people would have paid good money to see an Arnie/Tony Holland double act.]

 

Three days later, by August 15th 1968, my birthday had been and gone, and my free Action Man (UK iteration of G.I.Joe to our American readers) arrived in the mail, in response to my sending 21 stars cut from Action Man accessory packaging.

 

Arnold had other concerns on his mind ; within weeks he left Portsmouth for London, for his final preparations for the NABBA Mr Universe Contest at the Victoria Palace Theatre on Saturday 21st Sept 1968 at 1:40pm.

  

Immediately after winning Mr Universe in London a second time, that October he headed out to California on a contract offered by Joe Weider. Weider’s magazines began churning out ghostwritten articles and sensational ads, about how Weider techniques and Weider products were transforming Arnold into a sculpted demi-god set to win the 1969 Mr. Olympia title.

 

And so readers of Thor #173 (published Dec 9th 1969) were the first to see the famous photoshopped (or cut-and-paste) ad of Arnold with a girl on his bicep.  Ben Grimm (The Thing) had to wait another week until he saw the ad published December 16th 1969 in Fantastic Four #96 (cover-dated March 1970) breaking the “fourth-wall” as the real world of Arnold Schwarzenegger (unnamed but obvious) intruded into the late sixties Marvel Comic Universe.

© Marvel. Schwarzenegger Ad placement critical as a lead into the story

 

And so Arnold trod a path from comic-book reader, to appearing in comic-books as himself, to being part of a comic book story, to eventually playing a famous comic book character.

© Unknown. SALON cinema Southsea. (Showing Kingdom of the Spiders here, but close enough)

The circle was closed (I mean the metaphorical circle, not the the Cinema Circle) on 28th August 1982 when Conan the Barbarian premiered at THE SALON (previously the ODEON) further along from the Wedgewood Rooms on the corner of Albert Rd and Festing Rd, returning Arnie (in spirit if not in person) to Southsea , where his fortunes were forged close to TESCO’s over a distance of 500 yards and 14 years.

Afterword - 

So did Arnie revisit Portsmouth? Many local people claim to have seen him in Southsea in the intervening years, as he revisited the Woolgers.

 

Arnie certainly did quietly return to Portsmouth for Bob Woolger’s 80th birthday celebrations, and you can read the great man’s speech here from 1992 when  he presented Bob Woolger with a Special award from the US President's Council of Physical Fitness.

  

Note: I have not exhaustively investigated the duration of Arnie’s appearances in ads in American comics. I shall leave that to others .  But it also appeared in Daredevil #61 (Feb 1970)

Daredevil # 61 Subtitle: Trapped by the Trio of Doom!" (Jester! Cobra! Mr. Hyde!)