REPS, I never did personally meet Chris but shortly after he won the Universe someone threw a big afternoon pool party on his behalf which was held in the same apartment complex in which we were staying.
Soon after his win a few of us from Pearl's Gym in Pasadena drove down to the gym he either owned or managed on Santa Monica Blvd to offer our congratulations, but he was not there that day.
But the gym looked damn nice for that time period.
I don't think that there were any 'secrets' about Chris' lifestyle. It was just something that was not discussed and not as important as it seems today.
As for Ken Sprague ... I did meet Ken and his wife on a few occasions when he owned Gold's in Santa Monica but the subject of his private life was never discussed. It just never seemed to be an important topic of conversation
I will say that Ken promoted the best national bodybuilding championships of all time. This was mentioned earlier and included a parade through town with bodybuilders on an elephant and other very unique stuff.
A high school 'symphony' orchestra played all the contenders' posing music and Mae West and Bert Goodrich presented the overall trophy to Dave Johns and the warm up area had the best gym equipment available at that time.
Ken even had a Mr America newspaper printed for the event.
Tim Fogerty, please correct me if I am incorrect with any of the above pertaining to that Ken Sprague sponsored national contest. Was it AAU at the time or was it NPC?
I think it was AAU because during the weigh in, Pete G. asked me to head back to his office and see if I could find his AAU (?) membership card.
And I think that was the last year that each contender had to sit through an interview.
I also had the opportunity to talk with Sprague while he was photographing various Gold Gym members for the Gold's Gym training 'book' he published.
If I am not mistaken he reserved the rights to publish Gold Gym books when he sold out and then moved up north to Seattle, Washington.
That was all a hell of a long time ago and no one that I knew discussed the types of activity that others were involved in.
I honestly had no idea about Joe Gold until just a few years back.
Back then that subject was actually not a matter of general interest as far as I can recall.
Or maybe is was just a matter of being polite ... which seems to have been abandoned in this day and age.
I think that the internet has changed a lot of us and those good old days will never be seen again.
Chivalry has been long gone ... and politeness passed away recently with the invention of the internet.
Or something like that.
