Still, it wasn’t enough to bring him to the A list. Early in his career, he typically only landed bit parts as a generic tough guy in movies like Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971) and What’s Up, Doc? (1972) before landing a larger role in the low-budget The Lords of Flatbush from 1974. Stallone, however, was a trailblazer as one of the first high-profile actors - as opposed to an athlete or bodybuilder - to dramatically bulk up for a role in a way that rivaled a true-blue physique competitor. Oftentimes, however, these “transformations” were more for weight loss than muscle gain, and there weren’t many bodybuilding programs to be found on their itinerary. Legendary fitness trainer, Vince Gironda, was known as the “ Trainer to the Stars” during the 1970s and 1980s for his success in helping countless actors get lean and healthy for roles. Stallone also wasn’t the first individual to employ weight training in preparing for a role. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959) full movie | LEGENDARY HEROES | FANTASY ADVENTURE movies | classic cinema () Reg Park, another leading bodybuilder of the 1950s and 1960s, likewise appeared as Hercules in a number of films in the 1960s. We also have Steve Reeves, whose Hercules movies of the 1950s and 1960s were among the first instances of a bodybuilder as the main focus of a movie. Take Annette Kellerman, a professional swimmer from the 1910s and 1920s, who many view as the first athletic woman movie star. As Chapman and Fair make clear, these muscle-bound heroes were either involved in sports in some capacity or were early bodybuilders and strength athletes beforehand. There is a distinction that is needed here, however. Likewise, physical culture historians David Chapman and John Fair recently published an entire book on the subject called Muscles in the Movies, which makes clear that both Hollywood and European cinema has long used muscular men - and, at times, women - in early action/adventure films. Eugen Sandow, the man many credit as the first modern bodybuilder, appeared in a series of short silent films by Thomas Edison in the 1890s. Sylvester Stallone was far from the first muscled-up physique on screen. In the process, he helped redefine the Hollywood action hero and still serves as the model for the genre today. Credit: and on Instagramįrom 1976, when the first Rocky movie premiered, through 1988, when the original Rambo series came to a close, Stallone was the poster child for physique transformations, thanks to some extreme dieting and a dedicated workout routine devised by a former Mr. No, if you want to pinpoint the man who truly popularized this trend, look no further than Schwarzenegger’s fellow Planet Hollywood batterymate, Sylvester Stallone. Some may credit Arnold Schwarzenegger for leading the charge in this regard, but he was already a bodybuilder when he first got into movies. It wasn’t until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the reverse began to take hold as trained actors began transforming their physiques using bodybuilding principles. ![]() While musclemen have always appeared in movies, they typically involved bodybuilders who became actors with their bulk already built. But these Hollywood physique transformations aren’t a recent phenomenon. ![]() It’s almost a prerequisite nowadays for an actor to shed fat and pack on slabs of muscle in order to become everything from superheroes to Jedi to whatever flesh-and-blood action figure Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is playing this month.
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