DOUG HEPBURN ... ONE OF HISTORIES STRONGEST MEN
Douglas (Doug) Ivan Hepburn, born September 16, 1926, in Vancouver, British, Columbia, Canada became one of histories strongest men, despite more than his share of misfortune.
Doug arrived in this world by a forceps delivery which permanently scarred his temples, and was born with a clubfoot, a fused ankle, and crossed eyes.
His father, who deserted the famly when Doug was too young to remember, was an alcoholic, as was his stepfather. He, not surprisingly, fought a lifelong battle with the desease. These unfortunate childhood circumstances possibly contributed to Hepburn's bouts with heavy psychological depression during the course of his life.
Perhaps upset by his physical and subconscious battles, Hepburn developed an unrelenting determination to reign at the highest in the Iron Game, and follow in the footsteps of famed Canadian strongmen, Louis Cyr and Horace Barre. "My childhood handicaps merely served to sharpen my perserverance, making me even more determined to accomplish my goals."
At age 17, standing five-feet, eight-inches tall, weighing 145-pounds, Hepburn dropped out of school to undergo corrective eye surgery. Fortunately he was taken under the wing of Mike Poppell, a local strength athlete, who taught him basic weight-training skills. Doug set out to become as powerful as possible. He stated "I wasn't a natural strongman. I attained my stature and physical power through hard work and common sense."
By 1948, Hepburn's bodyweight had increased to 208 pounds. He was performing 12 reps in the handstand press and five reps in the Tiger-bend and capable of pressing a barbell weighing over 200 pounds.
Doug consistantly trained with heavy poundage, although his fused ankle hampered him in the clean and the snatch. He established his first Canadian weightlifting record in 1950, with a clean-and-press of 371 1/2 pounds.
Doug broke the 15-year reign of American John Davis to win the heavyweight division at the 1953 "World Weightlifting Championships," with a 371-pound press, a 297-pound snatch, and a 364-pound clean-and-jerk.
In Stockholm, for the "World Championships," preparing for his competition against John Davis, Doug was given the services of a trainer employed by the Soviet federation. This more than angered the American team, since the Soviets would gain team points in the event Davis lost to Hepburn.
In 1954, Hepburn's hometown of Vancouver, B.C., provided him with a token weekly allowance of $150 towards his preparation for that year's "British Empire Games". Later the city council failed to deliver on the promise of a permanent job. Still, Hepburn won his weight class and set a new record of 1040 pounds for the three Olympic lifts.
Reaching his strength peak at bodyweights between 280 and 300 pounds, Doug was the first to officially push-press 400, 450, 500, and 550 pounds, with his best at 580. He squatted 760 pounds; pressed 440 off racks; dumbbell-pressed 175 pounds; pressed behind-the-neck 350 pounds; and curled a 260 pound barbell. He was the first to officially push-press 500 pounds off racks.
Extremely aware of his eating habits, Hepburn oftentimes force-fed himself to maintain his strength and bodyweight. He consumed four or five meals per day and drank up to three quarts of milk during a two-hour workout. He rarely snacked on candy, soft drinks or white flour products, and remarked, "I'd rather sacrifice sleep than food. As long as I can eat, I can get stronger."
In 1954, Hepburn embarked upon a professional wrestling career by apprenticing in the basement gym of Maple Leaf Gardens, in Toronto, Ontario, under the watchful eyes of Whipper Watson, Frank Tunney and Pat Frayley. His weight training and super strength, however, did not have their desired effect, on his new career for he eventually came to realize he was not cut out for that life. Doug wrote:
With my superior strength and lifting ability, wrestling should've been easy for me. It wasn't! While weightlifting, for the most part, is composed of well-balanced straight-line pushing and pulling movements, wrestling is more to do with off-balance twisting and rolling. The skills I was strong at and the skills my wrestling opponents were strong at, were often at odds. This left me confused enough to scream. Add to this my less than enthusiastic desire to learn, or associate with the wrestling game...it made for long days.
For nearly five years, Hepburn performed throughout Canada, at two or three wrestling events per week, grappling all comers, while entertaining crowds during intermissions by ripping license plates, crushing cans of oil, and hoisting heavy weights with his little finger. However, his frustration and fits of depression led to more unhappiness, along with his alcohol consumption, which caused wrestling promoters to release him from his contract. He managed nevertheless, to get his life back under control and began heavy training again.
Bill Pearl recalled a few of his public appearances with Hepburn during the 1960s and 1970s:
"Doug and I were in the dressing room at a theater in Oakland, California, and he asked me for an American quarter, which I gladly handed him. He placed the coin against the edge of a steel cabinet and bent it to a 45-degree angle by using thumb and forefinger, and then asked for another, I said, NO."
"Then, at a physique contest held in Vancouver, where we appeared, Hepburn, weighing around 260 poinds, finished his routine by jumping off the five-foot high stage...head first to the auditorium floor to land gracefully in a handstand position! He held his balance without a quiver. It nearly blew my mind! On another occasion we met at a Chinese restaurant/nightclub where he was acting as bouncer. I watched a drunken customer attempt to get into a fist-swinging brawl with him, but Hepburn grabbed the guy by the chest and tore a hole through the drunk's shirt and ripped a large piece of skin from the man's pectoral. The next I recall, someone was screaming, 'send for an ambulance.'"
By the 1980s Hepburn, with his beautiful tenor voice, often entertained at local Vancouver lounges. He continued to operate his basement gym in North Burnaby, B.C., which included a crude printing press, a protein suppliment mixing machine, and a small area for manufacturing a unique strerngth device. Sticking to hard-core training, at age 68, he was still able to one-arm clean-and-press a 100 pound dumbbell.
A bachelor, Doug spent his later years alone, in a $45-a-month apartment. He died of a perforated stomach ulcer on November 22, 2000, at age 74.
