Steve Reeves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reeves
Stephen L. Reeves (January 21, 1926 – May 1, 2000) was an American bodybuilder and actor. At the peak of his career, he was the highest-paid actor in Europe In 1957, Reeves went to Italy and played the lead character in Pietro Francisci's Hercules, a relatively low-budget epic based loosely on the tales of Jason and the Argonauts, though inserting Hercules into the lead role.The film was a major box-office success, grossing $5m in the United States in 1959. Its commercial success led to a 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peplum_film_genre
photos
https://www.google.hr/search?q=steve+reeves&client=opera&hs=2tW&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=snPzVOOTEsrOaJSogYgL&ved=0CBsQsAQ&biw=1745&bih=858
Steve Reeves vs Arnold Schwarzenegger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3-xEjgHmO8
Steve Reeves talks about steroids in bodybuilding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3RhccAyrgE
Steve Reeves talks about steroids in bodybuilding.
Steve Reeves- Developing The Legs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD5EU0LrSqI
Steve Reeves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ZOPPaHfVM
A 1959 Italian sword and sandal film. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and Mario Bava (Bava had to step in to complete the film). It starred Steve Reeves as Pheidippides (Phillipides in the film). A Greek soldier leads the fight against an invading Persian army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMtNaJ61grw&list=PLQDm7Mtr_DGTCOGqrdMTMYNcrnE8LUd6k
Steve Reeves Biography
http://www.biography.com/people/steve-reeves-9542317
Bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves claimed the titles Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe by the age of 25. He starred in 18 films, including Hercules. Bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves claimed the titles Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe by the age of 25. He starred in 18 European films, including Hercules (1959), Hercules Unchained (1960) and The Last Days of Pompeii (1960). He wrote an exercise guide, Building the Classic Physique the Natural Way and continued to inspire future generations of bodybuilders until his death in May 2000.
Profile
Bodybuilder and actor, born January 21, 1926, in Glasgow, Montana. At the age of 10, Reeves moved with his mother to Oakland, California. He became interested in bodybuilding in his teens and aspired to enter world-class competitions, a goal cut short by the outbreak of World War II and a stint in the U.S. Army. His determination persisted after the war, and in 1946, he earned the title of Mr. Pacific Coast. Within the next four years he muscled his way into the world's most acclaimed titles, including Mr. America, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe. After his success in bodybuilding competitions, Reeves enjoyed a flourishing acting career that spanned 16 years and 18 films. He was known for his starring roles in such action classics as Hercules (1959), Hercules Unchained (1960), and The Last Days of Pompeii (1960). Although offered many roles in Hollywood, he preferred to work in Europe on the sort of glitzy costume dramas that highlighted his attention-grabbing physique. In 1963, he married Aline Czarzawicz and the couple retired to Southern California in 1969. He wrote an exercise guide, Building the Classic Physique the Natural Way and continued to inspire future generations of bodybuilders until his death in May 2000. Both Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger credit Reeves as an inspiration.
http://www.stevereeves.com/Biography/
Steve Reeves, 74, Whose 'Hercules' Began a Genre
By RICK LYMAN Published: May 5, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/05/us/steve-reeves-74-whose-hercules-began-a-genre.html
LOS ANGELES, May 4— Steve Reeves, the bodybuilder turned movie muscleman whose 1959 film ''Hercules'' ushered in a cycle of sword-and-sandal epics, died Monday at the Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, Calif. He was 74 and had become a rancher and fitness guru after retiring from acting three decades ago.
Mr. Reeves had received a diagnosis of lymphoma two months ago, friends said, and was being treated for the disease when he died of complications.
Mr. Reeves was born Jan. 21, 1926, in the small town of Glasgow, Mont., not far from the Canadian border. His father, Lester, died in a farming accident when Steve was a toddler. The boy moved to Oakland, Calif., with his mother when he was 10.
Mr. Reeves once recalled that his interest in maintaining his body began when his mother noticed that he was walking with stooped shoulders and forced him to wear shoulder braces to improve his posture. ''They cut into me every time I stooped, so I just had to straighten up,'' he said. ''And when I was delivering papers, I'd pedal my bike up the big hills instead of getting off and walking up like the other kids.''
Mr. Reeves turned to bodybuilding, he once said, after he was beaten in an arm-wrestling contest by a much smaller youth. He followed the youth home and saw him working out with weights in his backyard. In another version, Mr. Reeves said he became interested when a friend showed him pictures of bodybuilders.
Whatever the reason, in high school in Oakland Mr. Reeves began to work out more regularly with weights, and he eventually came to the attention of Ed Yarick, who ran a bodybuilding gym. He joined the Army after graduating from high school and served in the Philippines during World War II and in Japan afterward. Returning to the Yarick gymnasium in 1946, Mr. Reeves soon began to win bodybuilding titles, beginning with Mr. Pacific Coast in 1946 and 1947. In 1947 he was named Mr. America, and in 1950 he won the Mr. Universe title.
''I always admired guys with well-developed bodies,'' Mr. Reeves said. ''Why? Because that's my idea of a man. As a kid, I liked to go up and ask a big-muscled man if I could touch his biceps.''
Despite his interest in bodybuilding, Mr. Reeves never played organized sports as a youth. ''My mother wouldn't let me,'' he once said. ''She was afraid I'd get hurt.'' Mr. Reeves said the bodybuilding titles brought him to the attention of Hollywood filmmakers, including Cecil B. DeMille, who approached him about taking the role of Samson in the 1949 film ''Samson and Delilah.'' However, Mr. Reeves said, the director wanted him to shed some of his muscle for the role and he refused; the part went to Victor Mature. Mr. Reeves said he was also offered, and refused, roles in cowboy movies for Republic Pictures.
The sudden offers from Hollywood, though, convinced Mr. Reeves that he might have a future as an actor, with the right training, so he moved to New York and studied with various teachers, eventually taking a role in ''Stars of Strength,'' a stage show featuring bodybuilders. At age 21, Mr. Reeves was 6-foot-1, 215 pounds, with an 18-inch bicep, a 51-inch chest and a 29-inch waist.
In 1954 he had small roles in ''Athena,'' a satire of the postwar health craze, and in ''Jail Bait,'' directed by Edward Wood.
In 1957, however, Mr. Reeves was asked by the Italian producer Federico Teti to assume the lead role in ''Le Fatiche di Ercole (The Labors of Hercules),'' a shot-on-a-shoestring epic based loosely on the tales of Jason and the Argonauts, though inserting Hercules into the lead role. When Joseph E. Levine decided to release the film in the United States with a soundtrack dubbed in English, it became one of the surprise hits of 1959. It also initiated a pipeline of cheaply made Italian films dubbed into English that eventually resulted in Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns and other box-office successes.
From 1954 to 1969 Mr. Reeves appeared in 18 movies. The bulk of them were sword-and-sandal epics shot on relatively small budgets. ''Hercules'' was followed, in 1960, by ''Hercules Unchained'' and ''The Last Days of Pompeii.'' While filming ''Pompeii'' Mr. Reeves injured his shoulder when his chariot crashed. The injury, which grew steadily worse through the 1960's, eventually forced Mr. Reeves to retire from filmmaking.
Mr. Reeves was never a critical favorite. In his review of ''Hercules Unchained'' in The New York Times, Howard Thompson wrote: ''The absurdities of Mr. Reeves's derring-do odyssey are loosely tied to the ground with some vague historical footnotes. And the only thing even remotely akin to acting is Mr. Reeves's expression of fixed intelligence, aside from those grunting, superhuman onslaughts against the enemy.''
His final film was ''A Long Ride From Hell,'' a 1969 spaghetti Western that imitated the Sergio Leone epics that had made Clint Eastwood a star.
Most of his films tapped into the growing fascination with mythology and muscle-bound mayhem. Still, he was able to work with some fine directors, including Andre de Toth, with whom he made ''Morgan the Pirate'' in 1961, and Jacques Tourneur, with whom he made ''Giant of Marathon'' in 1960.
Mr. Reeves's death came the very week that ''Gladiator,'' the first sword-and-sandal epic to be produced by Hollywood in many years, was set to open.
In 1963 Mr. Reeves married Aline Czarzawicz. After he stopped making films in 1969, the couple raised horses at their ranch near Escondido, northeast of San Diego. ''I'm a rancher and a cow-puncher at heart,'' Mr. Reeves said.
His shoulder injury forced him to give up weightlifting, but he became an early enthusiast of ''power walking.'' In recent years, his Steve Reeves International Society became, through its Internet site, a leading proponent of drug-free bodybuilding. He also championed this cause with his book, ''Building the Classic Physique the Natural Way.'' His wife died from a stroke in 1989.
Mr. Reeves sometimes expressed frustration with fans who insisted on touching his muscles.
''That gets tiresome,'' he said. ''They usually think my shoulders and whole suit is padded. The hell of it is, I have to take it off to prove it. Then, I have to take my shirt off.''
And he was never quite sure, he said, how to take the glances that his physique drew early in his career. ''Worst of all is the funny look some women get in their eyes,'' Mr. Reeves said. ''I don't know quite what they're thinking.''
Steve Reeves Tribute to the ancient hero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPa-N1-dMY0
steves reeves rare vidéo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy8X1IuzKoE
Hercules movie Interview with Steve Reeves and George Helmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9lCgBi5CSg