We can only imagine what some wannabes had to do to stay in California and pursue their dream. I arrived in LA during the same week as Arnold. That was October 1968. I lasted a month and lived in my VW and then a couple of guys from Chicago said I could sleep on their sofa in their apartment. Chip Wilson was the bodybuilder there and we hung out together at Golds and occasionally at nights out at the Oar House and even The Swing on Hollywood Blvd. I asked Joe if he wanted someone to clean the gym in exchange for being allowed to train there. Nope, he just asked how long I would be there and never charged me at all. Being from Canada I didn't want to risk being deported if I got a job illegally so I headed back to Vancouver after a month in Venice. You could park at Venice Beach for free in a big parking lot there and eat at the cafe that served cheap meals. $200 provided everything for a whole month. Well, I had a Shell credit card for gas. Arnold had a deal with Joe Weider so he hung around and now almost owns that state. He lived with Paul Graham, Ken Moran from NZ, and Bob Bruce from Queensland in a house in LA. Paul was arrested by the FBI in Feb 1969 in Honolulu for sending stolen cars back to Australia. Ken went walkabout to Vancouver and the promoter was involved in show business.
In 1970 a Dr Michael W was in Vancouver, BC, in the summer on vacation. I had just won my title and he and I got to talking about bodybuilding. I knew who he was because he was the doctor to the muscleheads in Venice. I was more concerned about getting my skin cleared up. He told me I could probably be Mr Universe within 6 months if he supervised a steroid program of decadurabolan and I trained hard. I started asking him about the famous people in bodybuilding that he knew in LA. Well, he surprised me by claiming that Arnold and Joe and many other famous people were involved in the gay scene. I just didn't believe him. I did wonder why he would say that about Arnold who was a womanizer if there ever was one. The good doctor lost any interest in me when I invited him to my home to meet my wife, Roz. It was clear to me that he was gay. In those days we didn't use that word. I didn't see him at English Bay Beach again and he dropped out of the scene many years later. I believe he is involved in longevity medicine in recent years.
The point is that in the good old days no self-respecting bodybuilder would dare be involved in anything to do with the gay culture. That included being published in a 'gay' magazine. If anyone were identified as being 'tainted' by the gay brush he might as well forget about winning any major bodybuilding titles.
We can speculate all we like about hapless muscleheads who arrived in Los Angeles hoping to make it big in bodybuilding. Who knows how many got desperate and found shortcuts to survive there? I don't blame anyone for their choices but some of what is posted here is probably true. Of course, it is one thing to conjecture and another to actually have knowledge. In the old days all bodybuilders denied, publicly, that they took steroids. The G4P thing was just unthinkable. So, those who were involved wouldn't have admitted it and I imagine they would still deny it. We will never know for sure what happened in the past.
I have to smile when I think of the few gay bodybuilders who were around. There would be no disdain if they participated in such revenue raising means. You have to realise that homosexuality was considered a mental disorder by psychiatric textbooks not so long ago. When something is seen as abnormal the result is it becomes a taboo and goes underground. Today, except for Getbig, that sexual preference is not the sordid lifestyle it once was. I am sure many readers of Beefyheavyweight are amused by what he writes. He joins Jimmy Thompson who also posted amazing claims about what went on behind closed bedroom doors in the musclehead community.
