&t=2970s part 2
Summary -
1) Lisa Lyon. Ex dope fiend, would've been a regular fitness girl if not for her gift of self promo.
2) Treated Steve Neece like a goof.
3) Artie Zeller was a nervous nelly, but a good photog.
4) Wayne Demila - Lucky to be in NYC, and tight with Weider East Coast.
5) Stallone was a nice guy, Fixed, and tried to fix contests for Rudy Hermosa (sp?). Offered free promo. Columbu had Sly on a fish and salad diet. Tiny guy, unimpressive in person.
6) Grymko, nice guy. 6 hour marathon late night workouts. Lived with Conners early on.
7) Thought Pumping Iron would be garbage. It was a flop that didn't recoup its money for decades. Did well in the homo markets, NYC / SF. Helped Gold's grow very little. Butler was good at East Coast PR, getting it into mags, etc....
Clarence Bass did some of the paperwork during the split from the AAU,
9) Biggest growth of Gold's was caused by local LA Tv media, mid 70s.
10) Thought it should've stayed Mr America, not NPC whatever. Ben Weider forced the re-naming when trying to get into the Olympics. Sprague hates that shit.
11) Used to like to put Weider, Lurie, and MD's guys sitting next to each other to bust chops.
12) Helped install Manion as NPC face bacause he was good looking, and figured they could use him like a flunky.
13) Powerlifters were the deciding vote on Manion. They went with it because Gold's promised Zangus they sponser PL meets.
14) Manion got too powerful in the NPC after Sprague left, it's like a Manion fiefdom.
15) Had turmoil with Joe Gold over the Gold's Gym name, and Joe getting back into the gym business with World's Gym. Settled for $25,000 and World not taking gym photographs for 5 years. Figured Gold's new business would die off from lack of press.
16) Took the 77 Mr A away from Boyer Coe as promoter because Boyer ghosted Sprague.
17) York and Mike Katz tried to take over the NPC from Sprague/Manion, and almost did. Sprague fixed it by submitting fake Manion votes, allowing them to remain in charge.
18) Sprague sued Arnold for defamation when Arnold called Gold's an outhouse while promoting World Gym, and had previously planted bad stories about Gold's through Bobby Schriver (Arnold BiL / newspaper Writer).
19) Money was in am. bodybuilding promotion, not pro. Figures Arnold was scared he and Weider would x him out of some of the promoter scene, so that's why Arnold was so nasty to Gold's. Sprague salted the depositions with gay questions about Arnold, and a fake attraction for Sprague. Arnold stopped talking about Gold's after that, fearing he'd be painted as a homo.
20) Arnold and Franco were also still mad because Sprague's video editor included their bodybuilding posing in an early version of a Sprague produced gay porno.
21) Sprague hid the gay business from his wife.
22) Sprague helped design the Russian gym in Rocky 4. The equipment was from a water based line he owned a piece of, and promoted.
23) If you lived in California, and came to Gold's, you'd probably be ok later in life. If you moved there just for the gym, you'd probably grow up to be a bum, because you had no support system to fall back on.
24) Sprague feels his gay past screwed him out of his place in bodybuilding history, including amoungst his friends.
