Steve was a successful cattle rancher...who happened to do bodybuilding as a hobby and acting in films in order to travel and make a living. He wrote letters and articles about his natural status including one to Arnold (that was published) about the sport and his views and experience. His weight at age 74 was the same as it was in '47...and was pretty much the same all through his life for the most part.
He weighed himself every day and wrote it on a calendar. In pictures, he looked half the size of the guys of the 1970s and 1/4 of the size of the guys today. Maybe that's not extraordinary or impressive, but in person, standing next to him, he looked bigger than many Olympic competitors because his frame, height and overall shape and size was quite large and would have been so even if he had not trained with weights. His father Lester was a big man and extremely strong as well and of similiar build, height and weight. The older people in Glasgow, Montana still talk about how strong Lester Reeves was who was born in 1899. Steve's grandfather Sylvester was huge too and even taller than Steve. I may talk more about this and his bodybuilding, but first I will share a little about his films.
I have the premiere pics/lobby cards/press releases and newspaper reviews/write ups of all of Steve's films. Every film Steve was in was a huge budgeted, epic sized (with hundreds/thousands of extras) box office hit with red carpet premieres/limousines/huge crowds lined up to see him. His name always headlined every single film he was in and included other well known european actors such as veteran italian actor Ivo Garrani, the up and coming John Drew Barrymore and well known Jacques Sernas who appeared in his films along side him as supporting actors. The A-Listers of Europe were his supporting actors. Steve never did a b list film because he was the biggest box office movie star in the world in 1959. Roles were created for him and around him. In countries like Calcutta, India...
Hercules played 4 times a day, 365 days a year for 2 years. It was this way in Japan and Asia as well.
Hercules was a hit in the United States as well because Joseph Levine promoted it here. If you add up the gross of all subsequent films of Hercules that were ever made (and there were dozens of them)...the sum of all of them put together made less than what Steve's
Hercules grossed alone.
Whoever said Steve was no Marlon Brando was right. Marlon was a wonderful actor with his own unique style and career goals. But Steve never wanted or tried to be Marlon even though Steve trained with Stella Adler at about the same time Stella was training Marlon Brando at the Actor's studio. Stella told Steve to walk with a limp, slur his speech, have a tic and tried to get him to play various character roles. Marlon did all that very well, but Steve had no interest in it. He didn't want to become the greatest character actor in the world. He had an idea about the kind of roles he wanted to play and he didn't want to lose 20 lbs. either (which is what he was told to lose by many Hollywood directors including Cecille B. De Mille for the role of "Samson"). It was hard to lose the muscle because he basically had to quit training and starve himself and De Mille told him he wasn't losing his size fast enough because a month after he was told by De Mille to lose weight, he had only lost about 5 lbs. The reason why he enjoyed working in Europe is that he was allowed to do his thing the way he wanted to over there and they paid him more than anyone anywhere. He enjoyed working in different countries and experiencing different cultures. He learned how to speak many languages. Whether he had the greatest acting ability or not didn't matter because people thought he played the roles well enough and enjoyed watching him and he was honored with the following awards:
Top Box Office Movie Star 1959Box Office Magazine, Hollywood, CA
Premio Riccione Most Popular Foreign Actor Award 1959Riccione, Italy
Premio Alio Oro Golden Wing Award 1960(For being #1 Box office Champion in the World)
Empomeo Ciak Gold Ciak 1963Best Actor Award for Action Films
The Italian Cinema, Ischia, Italy
Ente Spettacolo Italiano e "Cinespettacolo 1964Most Popular Actor in Historic, Biblical and Mythological Film
Rome, Italy
a Steve Reeves Madrid 77 Campeonato 1977Award for Movie Legend of Spain
Madrid, Spain
Golden Halo Eagle Award 1994For contributions in Entertainment Industry and Performing Arts
Hollywood, CA
Omega Award--Lifetime Achievement 1999Hollywood, CA
