Jerry Brainum writes for Ironman Magazine and wrote a "review" of the book Iron Brothers. Took it from graphicmuscle.
Just finished reading Joe and Ben Weider's autobiography, Iron Brothers. I wrote for Joe for over a decade, yet I learned things from this book that I never knew about Joe. The stuff written by Ben was predicable, mostly about his quest for Olympic recognition of bodybuilding. While I enjoyed the book, there are aspects of it that bothered me. For one, Joe takes credit for the entire fitness movement of the past 25 years. While Joe mentions a few people that worked for him, there is zero mention of Bill Reynolds. Reynolds not only wrote all of Joe's bodybuilding books, but was the editor-in-chief of Flex magazine for years until he died.
I think this lack of recognition for Reynolds stems from Reynold's absolute hatred of Ben Weider. This came about because Rafael Santonya, Ben's right-hand man, grossly plagiarized Reynold's books, translating them into Spanish and replacing his name as author instead of the actual author, Reynolds. Reynolds complained to Ben Weider about this gross theft, but Weider refused to do anything about it. This led to Reynold's cursing Ben at the Weider office--right in front of Joe. Reynolds hated Ben until the day that he died. I've always believed that Joe really does love bodybuilding, which he emphasizes in the book. He is less truthful, however, when he claims that money was never his primary motivation.
Anyone who has dealt with Joe on a business level knows how silly this statement is. Joe demanded 100% loyalty, but he offered none in return. For example, he was bothered by the fact that I also wrote for other magazines besides his, but when I asked him to provide the benefits he gave his in-house staff (I freelanced), such as medical, cost-of-living raises, and so on, he refused.
In fact, the only time I ever got a raise from Joe was during the advent of McMahon's WBF fiasco in 1990. Everyone did because Joe feared they would jump ship to McMahon's organization. At that time, Joe told me all the benefits he was going to provide for bodybuilders because he "loved them all." Yet, with the demise of the WBF, these promised benefits never emerged.
This,of course, isn't mentioned in the book. Later, Joe told me that his company was going public with the stock, and he promised me that he would give me enough stock to make me rich. This never transpired, either. In one of my last conversations with Joe, he told me that "I was in his will." I thought this was a nice gesture on his part, until I found out that he said the same thing to about 400 other people. Still, I have to admit that it's hard to dislike Joe.
It's as if the whole thing of oneupmanship was a game to him; he didn't set out to viciously hurt anyone. I wish him well, and am pained when I see Joe appearing feeble as during his last public appearances. Joe says he's still recovering from intense back surgery, and he will once again regain his health. I sure hope so. Trust me: it's hard to hate Joe when you know him, unlike many others in this business.When you read this book, one aspect emerges: Joe's biggest love was his magazines, and that was true.
Reuben Weaver then chimes in and says
Before Reynold's it was E.M. Orlick iin the very begining , 1940, writing articles & Editorals for Joe Weider's Your Physique. Orlick wrote or re-wrote many of the Weider courses & advertising booklets through the early 1960's when he & Weider parted ways over MONEY owed to Orlick. Twenty three years of writing, editing and the like, but not even a mention in the of Orlick in the book.
And then Jerry replies
I do recall seeing E.M Orlick's name in early editions of the Weider magazines. Again, I think it's disrespectful and wrong for Joe to mention some of his editorial staff, while overlooking and ignoring the considerable contribution of others, such as Orlick. Some other names that come to mind include Jon Twitchell, Bud Parker, Jerry Kindella, Jeff Everson, Dick Tyler, and others. If Joe chose to delete these names, he should have also not mentioned those he did, just to be fair.
Another quirk of Joe's that I didn't discuss in my original post was the way he treated photographers in comparison to writers. Joe didn't consider writing a skill; he once told me that "anyone can write a bodybuilding article," yet he felt that photographers were indispensable. He tended to give photographers anything they wanted, yet balked at even providing minimum income to writers. Not to take anything away from photographers, but to compare the two in terms of effort expended is simply ludicrous.
But Joe considered bodybuilding a visual sport, and without good photos, he felt that he couldn't sell his publications. The ironic aspect of this is that as you pointed out, nearly everything written under the Joe Weider byline was ghost-written by someone else. Armand Tanny wrote Joe's editorials, as well as Betty Weider's, for nearly 50 years.
I even wrote a few articles under the "Joe Weider" byline, though I loathed using anyone else's name on my material. In fact, when I first wrote for Joe, he asked me to list the champion bodybuilders names as the authors instead of my own, with the idea that readers would think that the bodybuilders were highly intelligent (his words).
