According to USA laws, once aliens are convicted of a felony in USA you cannot get visas to visit there. That was the way it was years ago. In spite of that law, Paul Graham, who spent a couple of years in jail in America after being arrested in Honolulu in early 1969 for exporting stolen cars to Australia, still managed to attend Arnold's wedding and visited America on more than one occasion back in those days.
There were people in Australia who wanted to remove Paul from his president's position in the Australian IFBB. They apparently alerted the authorities when Paul was going to the USA but Paul got in, anyway. I mean, why let a silly law prevent you from being at your mate's wedding? Paul has held his position with the IFBB but merely changed the organization when challenged. Talk about corruption in the IFBB. It appears that both Paul and Ben have had life appointments.
I have posted my story at Ironage of Arnold living with Paul, Bob Bruce, and Ken Moran way back in 1968-69 in Los Angeles. Ken had to vacate the USA because he told us he had an accident while driving on the wrong side of the road. Somehow he miraculously managed to obtain a near new red Shelby Mustang which was the envy of everyone in Vancouver, BC, who saw it. Ken was from New Zealand and he boasted of living with Arnold but few believed him.
I was visiting Honolulu on my way home from a holiday in Sydney in January/February, 1969. My ex's relatives gave us a clipping showing a cartoon of an Australian muscleman holding up a vehicle. The story said that Lord Paul, Mr Australia had been arrested by the FBI for dealing in stolen vehicles and international commerce or something like that. In other words, Paul was nabbed for stealing cars in LA and sending them back to Australia to sell. American cars were worth a fortune in Australia even though they had to be converted to right hand drive. Paul never won the Mr Australia title but was 2nd I think. He won two trophies in a Southern Mr Universe promoted by his mate Bob Bruce in Surfers Paradise. Paul won best chest and best arms but lost to Frank Columbera. It always amused me to hear the wrestling announcer claim that Lord Paul had won the Mr Universe title twice. Talk about misinformation and an exaggeration. He would get wrestlers to jump from a high ladder onto his abdomen and be unhurt. Later in a match any mug could floor Paul with a single 'punch' to the gut! That was show business.
I saw Arnold and Dave Draper there at Mits Gym. I never put the Moran association together until later when it all fit. It appears that Paul took the rap for the others and anyone else involved owed Paul big time. Am I saying that Moran and the others in that house helped Paul with his enterprise? I have no idea. What does anyone else think? It is one thing to know but another to have evidence. I do know that Ken took that expensive Shelby Mustang back to New Zealand and I haven't heard from Ken since. Good luck to him. Did Arnold owe Paul? Who knows? However, it is not known if Arnold took his prize money home after the 80 Olympia. Paul told me that he lost a lot of money promoting that contest. The IFBB fee was about $20,000, plus judges and officials had to be brought to Australia and accommodated. Then you have the competitors. It is very expensive to fly to Sydney from elsewhere. Whether Paul saved some money re Arnold's generosity only those two know. I don't like speculating on matters of fact that I cannot establish. The suspicions have persisted.
I was at the Coogee Gym in Sydney in 1972 when a big Paul Graham arrived in his blue, 'visiting' uniform. Shortly after he arrived he obtained a small gym and a vehicle from Billy Moore, a local gym owner who eventually owned then sold City Gym in downtown Sydney. I heard that Billy used to import fancy American cars and sell them for a profit. Am I suggesting that Billy and Paul were business partners? Hell, no, I have no idea at all about any of that. It appears that Paul has mates everywhere and has done very well for himself. He spent time in jail but came out a bigger bodybuilder and seemed to have a good business sense. He was elected as Australian IFBB President in a meeting in Melbourne in 1972 supervised by Frank Burwash. Paul has never looked back since. He owns a couple of expensive houses in Sydney last time I heard and has a gym in Coogee. The original Coogee Gym was closed by Barry Hart decades ago. Robert Nailon acquired the equipment and moved the gym to Randwick. Robert sold that gym long ago, too. Both gyms were rather small. However, the beach side gym was a great place to go to train. After your workout you could go for a walk along the beach to check the shape or go for a swim and or a run. Those were the good old days in Sydney.
Have a look at those scores from the 80 Olympia. What made the contest a mess was that many of the judges did not separate the men during the rounds. Look at how many competitors received a score of 20 in each round. If a judge gave more than one 20 in a round he wasn't doing his job. Oh, that was easy enough to do because when the guys came out and looked great you could award them 20. However, the next guy might have looked better but you couldn't give him more. Oscar State did nothing about this and so all the judges who gave duplicate 20 scores were virtually eliminating themselves from the judging process. Both Brendan Ryan and Peter McCarthy separated them in each round. If you replace Brendan's scores with Peter's then Arnold would have been ahead after the three rounds. Arnold won the posedown 5 to 2 so some judges had changed their minds at the finals the next day. Brendan had Dickerson third after Zane so that helped Arnold a lot. I haven't got Peter's scores with me but I worked out that Arnold would have lost by a point had Peter judged instead of Brendan. What is obvious is the contest was very close.
Someone said Arnold had the biggest upper body there. Yes, his chest was huge as were his arms. However, the biggest guy, muscle for muscle was Danny Padilla and he wasn't compared even once in the prejudging. When I looked at the photos from the judging he clearly had the best overall physique there. A pity he was so short because he was completely overlooked that year and perhaps cheated the next year as well.
I bought a gym at West Ryde in 1971 and we expanded several times and now are located at Meadowbank in a 20,000 square foot facility. I met Bill Howard in 1980 and he had some photos of his World Class Gym Equipment. I foolishly began an equipment business after retiring as a high school teacher. Those designs seemed solid and easy to make. I designed my own equipment but Bill gave me a start. I have gone way beyond what I made in those days beginning in 1981. I curse the day I decided to open a factory and make equipment instead of buying what we needed. I think the cost of gym equipment was exorbitant because it had to be imported and duty and taxes paid. These extra fees made the equipment cost about twice what Americans paid for it. You don't save anything if you have to design, test, and modify equipment. I built equipment for a few gyms in Australia but stopped making equipment for other gyms in 1985. Since then I build things only for my own gym. I also occasionally modify equipment made by others if things break down or improvements are needed.
Here is a Nautilus machine I altered to make it cable drive instead of dirty chains that stretched and occasionally broke. This was a huge project that took quite a while to complete. Machine works and feels much better now and should be maintenance free. Some muscle head snapped the three 3/8 bolts on the cam! I replaced those with 1/2 inch bolts. Plus, I put some heavier plates on the machine at the bottom of the weight stack which is now about 340 pounds.
