Weight Lifted
Incredible Hulk
Lou Ferrigno gave up bodybuilding contests in order to save his
marriage
By Alex Tresniowski
and John Hannah
People Weekly.
February 15, 1999. (pp 63-5)
Transcribed by
Mark Rathwell
It was the night the
Incredible Hulk turned into the Incredible Jerk. Lou Ferrigno had
just lost a 1994 bodybuilding competition and, slumped in an Atlanta
restaurant with his wife, Carla, and friends, didn't feel much like
sharing.
"He was eating insanely,"
recalls Carla. "He took all the food off of my plate. I hadn't
eaten all day and he left no food for me. I just burst out crying
and said, 'That's it, I'm done.'"
For 82 episodes in
the 70s and 80s, Ferrigno saved countless lives as TV's Incredible
Hulk, the mean-and-green manifestation of Bill Bixby's bottled
rage. But now it seemed that Ferrigno couldn't even save his own
marriage. His midlife obsession with competitive bodybuilding
-- fueled by severe speech and hearing impediments, and by living
in crony Arnold Schwarzeneger's shadow -- had turned Ferrigno
into a frighteningly self-absorbed creature.
"I've been the Hulk
my whole life," Ferrigno, 47, admits. "I was so angry that I had
this handicap, and bodybuilding released that aggression."
Not long after his
Atlanta eating binge -- but before his bad temper and eight hour
training days could cost him his wife and three children -- Ferrigno
gave up on competition for good. Since then, "he's slowly come
back to being his sweet, vulnerable self," says Carla, 49. The
new Ferrigno is focused on pumping up his acting resume: He had
a comic role in the recently released Mafia spoof The Godson
and is working on two action-series pilots. Meanwhile, Stand
Tall, a documentary about his 1992 return to bodybuilding
after a 17-year hiatus, has made the rounds at film festivals.
"Most people in the
industry see me only as the green guy who can't speak," says Ferrigno.
"I will change that."
Ferrigno has often
exceeded expectations. Born in a blue-collar section of Brooklyn
to Matthew, then a police lieutenant, and Victoria, a homemaker,
he suffered ear infections which destroyed 85% of his hearing
by the time he was three. He did poorly in school, where classmates
called him Deaf Louie.
"They were cruel,"
says Ferrigno. "It was hurtful and tough."
To protect himself
from bullies, he turned to weight lifting and was inspired to
compete after seeing Schwarzenegger win a Mr. Olympia title, the
world's top bodybuilding honor, in 1969. At 18, Ferrigno
was named Teenage Mr. America; in 1973 he had become both Mr.
America and Mr. Universe. The 1977 documentary Pumping Iron
show Ferrigno losing a Mr. Olympia title to Schwarzenegger, who
also outperformed him in Hollywood., where both decamped in the
mid-1970s. Still, snagging the Hulk part in the 1997 series [note:
the series didn't actually start on a weekly schedule until the
Spring of 1978, but we can over look this error] fulfilled a fantasy.
"As a kid I dreamed
of being a hero, a superstar," says Ferrigno who improved his
diction through speech therapy. "all my dreams came true."
Except being crowned
Mr Olympia. That goal drew him back to bodybuilding in 1992, at
age 41, after years of wooden roles in flicks like Hercules
In Chains and a series of Hulk TV movies which ended
when costar Bixby died in 1993.
"He has incredible
drive," says Carla, a psychotherapist he met in a bar in 1979
and married a year later. But in training for the 1994 Masters
Olympia, a contest for bodybuilders 40 years and older, made Ferrigno
"mean, hard and tough," she adds. "He put his dreams ahead of
his family." At one point, Carla left their ranch-style Santa
Monica home and took their children Shawna, now 17, Louie Jr.,
14, and Brent, 8, to live in the couple's San Luis Obispo ranch.
Ferrigno's furious
training didn't pay off. He finished second at the Masters, a
loss that led him to abandon his obsession. He still lifts weights
to stay in shape and also trains a handful of clients, who have
included Chuck Norris, Micky Rourke and Michael Jackson ("He wanted
to be tighter in his mid-section," says Ferrigno.) But he no longer
torments himself and those around him with his Olympia Quest.
Recently he dropped his wife off at the entrance to a restaurant
while he searched for a parking space -- a small courtesy that
knocked her for a loop.
"Now, not a day goes
by without him kissing me and saying he loves me," marvels Carla.
"He's got the bodybuilding think out of his system." Pause. "I
think"
|
