More great pictures.
The Marina Pacific Hotel. Catered to the BBing guys that would come in from out of state to train for a few days to a few months.
Joe Bucci used to have ads in all the muscle magazines promoting this hotel. I ran into Joe at Gold's Venice in the mid 80's, and he was a pretty cool guy-big guns (but nothing else). I do not think it is the Marina Pacific anymore though. I think it is now a Best Western Inn, or used to be. But these medium sized hotels change ownership, and names, very often these days.
The Bridget Fonda movie that was filmed in Venice Beach is "Point Of No Return", a remake of the European film (scene by scene copy really) of "La Femme Nikita".
The fact is, Venice Beach has had so many films, commercials and Music Videos shot there it is impossible to keep track of them all.
Y & T did a music video of their hit song
"Summertime Girls" at Venice Beach.
"White Men Can't Jump" -all Venice beach locations. The classic summer movie with Linda Blair
"Roller Boogie" was all shot at Venice Beach (man does Linda have a smoking body in that show-meowwww!!).
The Venice Beach boardwalk is a bit much for me, I can only take so much of the goofy people there
, but the ones I remember are;
1. Skateboard Granny
2. Chain saw juggler
3. The black guy with the flat top hair cut that had all these wild dance moves (name=Flat top?)
WHo can add to this list?
BTW-the Venice Beach "PIT" was completely redone in the early/mid 90's-who remembers when it was just a little tiny little square area with a couple of benches, a pull up bar and a plate loaded lat machine? All fenced in with cheap, waist high, cyclone fencing! The equipment was AWFUL, but back then all the BBers trained at Gold's or World and would only hit the PIT for fun.
I have to say thanks to
Ironage for the info about Gold's #1 and Gold's #2, they have some serious info on that site. I knew Ric Drasin designed the Gold's Gym "
Baldy" or "
Guido" t shirt, but I did not know he was posting on Ironage and that is where I learned he was on TV shows now!
World Gym #2,
826 Main Street Venice. I too went by there when I was in Santa Monice/Venice, and that kiddie gymnastic studio is still there. Arnold does in fact still own that building. I would like to know the story on why World Gym was kicked out of there. If anyone has the inside scoop please post. World Gym moved into that place sometime around April of 1987. I have no idea when they went over to the Marina Del Rey location, maybe 5 years after (1992?). They were not there very long though. I was in there right after World Gym moved in 1987 and I saw Big Lou! The problem with that place is (the building was made for World Gym on a build to suit) the parking problem, it was not cured. This location was 3-4 times as big as the original, but the place had about the same number of parking spots, again under the gym- 5-6 spaces.
If you had been to World Gym #2, Arnold had one of the 6 parking spaces reserved for HIM! The first spot next to the stairs had that big (bronze?) plaque laid out right in the middle of the space- RESERVED FOR ARNOLD.....LOL...I am going to have to see if that plaque is still there next time I am in the area (it was cemented into the space).
The old sign from this location was left there by Joe Gold when they moved over to MDR. The owner of the kiddie gymnast studio listed it on EBAY for 99 dollars. Took a long time to sell, but finally sold. That sign was huge-all the letters from the name were 3 feet high and about 2 feet wide. I was thinking of buying it, but then I was thinking where the hell am I going to put a sign that is 40 feet long
Would have been cool to buy it though-but no room at my home.
