Sad to see!

Bigger than Schwarzenegger: Bodybuilding legend's life ends in Harrisburg creek



BILL PETTIS 30 YEARS LATER BIGGEST ARMS IN THE WORLD 1978-1984


By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on September 28, 2016 at 9:22 PM, updated September 29, 2016 at 4:29 PM



Update: Pettis died from drowning, coroner says.

The world marveled at the size of his gargantuan arms and chest.
At the peak of his physical prowess, Bill Pettis was known for having the biggest biceps in the world - bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's.
Pettis, like the future film star and governor, was a bodybuilding fixture on California's Venice Beach, an attraction of sorts to the 16 million people who visit the Pacific Ocean stretch.
There, thousands of miles away from his Harrisburg home, Pettis belonged to a fraternity of men obsessed with pumping iron and fame. People asked him for his autograph and snapped photos of him posing with his ripped muscles.
But if Pettis' fame and fortune star twinkled it did so only imperceptibly before its trajectory spiraled towards the abyss of failed sports narratives.
On Tuesday, Pettis' journey came full circle – ending in Harrisburg, where it had started, his days on the football team at Central Dauphin High School helping to stoke his obsession with fitness.
His body was found along Spring Creek near the Greenbelt Parking area in Swatara Township by someone taking a walk.
No foul play was involved, police said, and a few hours later, they identified the body as that of William Pettis, 69, of Venice Beach, Calif.
In the late 1970s, Pettis – who a few years earlier left Harrisburg on a Greyhound bus bound for California – had achieved a measure of fame in the bodybuilding world.
Pettis never amassed titles nor endorsement contracts, but he was well known in the bodybuilding circles for his Incredible Hulk physique.
"He was this very very gentle soul." - David Davis, sports writer
In the late 1970s, the man with the largest arms in the world – 23 1/4 inches – was featured in a small advertisement in the back of muscle magazines that said he would share his bodybuilding secrets to just $4.95.
In 1984, Pettis – his barrel chest bursting from a skimpy tank top – was photographed for a promotional campaign for the U.S. Olympics, which were held in Los Angeles that year.
As David Davis, a Los Angeles-based sports writer, noted in his 2015 expose on Pettis, the bodybuilder – who had unlike most of the other giants on Venice Beach eschewed steroids – collected a mere $1 for posing for the photo. The photo, however, became iconic.
That photo, taken by the legendary, late photographer Garry Winogrand, prompted Davis to do a story on Pettis, forever preserved in the image with his massive biceps and pecs.
But by the time Davis tracked Pettis down on Venice Beach several years ago to begin research on his story for Los Angeles Magazine, the passage of time had transformed the ripped hulk into an oddity.
Davis painted a painfully clear picture of him:
"He was standing in the middle of the boardwalk wearing a faded fluorescent Speedo that covered his butt — barely — and a pair of well-worn high-top sneakers that were unlaced. He held a battered radio to his ear and occasionally dipped his knees to the music. Around his neck were black beads and a key on a string. The muscles of his once taut, gargantuan chest ... sagged from his shoulders like a turkey's wattle."
For five decades, Pettis had managed to eke out an existence, teetering always on the edge of homelessness, living at times on the good graces of friends and other times from the money tourists on the beach gave him after he allowed them to take a picture of the aging, toothless man in the skimpy bathing suit.
Footnotes to a name
A few years ago former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to his publicist, was making an appearance at an event on Venice Beach.
Schwarzenegger's security detail had been given the heads up to be on the lookout for an older gentleman dressed only in a skimpy bathing suit who was milling about close to the cordoned-off area.



Bill Pettis & Arnold Schwarzenegger Venice Muscle Beach


No sooner did the former governor's caravan arrive that he made a beeline for Pettis and threw his arms around him, then escorted him into the secured event area.
"Bill Pettis was one of my favorite training partners," said Schwarzenegger on Wednesday, speaking through his publicist from Germany. "He had the biggest arms I've ever seen but more importantly, he had the biggest heart. I'm going to miss him."
Schwarzenegger and Pettis forged a friendship in the mid-1970s, at about the time the fitness and bodybuilding craze was capturing the attention of Americans.
Pettis left Harrisburg in 1973 with his twin brother Bobby, who later returned home.
Pettis, Davis wrote, became a regular at Gold's Gym on Venice Beach. The gym had become the place for Hollywood actors looking to bulk up and serious bodybuilders like Schwarzenegger.
"He stood out for his punishing upper-body workouts, cranking out 3,000 push-ups daily, in sets of 300," Davis wrote in his 2015 story entitled, "The Rise and Fall of Bill Pettis, the Man With "The Biggest Arms in the World."
"He did tricep curls – with the barbell positioned behind his head and then curled upward – with more than 400 pounds. His nutrition was basic: 20 eggs in the morning and 20 at night. He eventually reached about 300 pounds."
Unlike his contemporaries, Pettis made little if any money off his passion.
Still his name earned footnotes.
The photograph taken by Winogrand helped to make the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games a success, Davis said.
"Those posters were all over town," he said. "He became a face of the 1984 Olympics through that poster."
Pettis, a fixture at Gold's Gym along with other luminaries from the bodybuilding world, helped to cultivate the gym's reputation.
"He was involved with the bodybuilding scene that changed how we approach fitness," Davis said. "He's working out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and all those guys at Gold's Gym. It was a scene of "Pumping Iron," the book and documentary. It was part of Southern California culture ... the beach ... working out and getting huge. Bill was part of that."



R.I.P Bill Pettis - Before and After


Pettis may not have gotten the titles or endorsements, but he was hounded for photographs. Davis asked him if he resented not having made money off the Olympic poster.
Pettis replied back: "Like I told them, 'You made me famous, but you didn't make me rich.' But you know, more money, more problems."
Schwarzenegger had on occasion given him money and clothes as well as a job on the film Last Action Hero, Davis noted in his story.
Davis noted that Joe Gold had become a guardian of sorts to Pettis. He let him work out free of charge and even let him sleep in the gym or a car in the parking lot.
His undoing, in fact, began in 2004, when Gold passed away.
"He lost his solid base, his stability," Davis said.
Pettis was born on Dec. 23, 1946. and raised in Oberlin, in Swatara Township. He and Bobby were the youngest of seven children. Their father, Collier, came from South Carolina and worked in the Bethlehem Steel mill. Their mother, Ora, had a job at the Department of Motor Vehicles. At Central Dauphin, both Pettis brothers stood out on the football field.
"He was very dedicated, tough, strong and was dedicated to lifting weights," said Ron DeMelfi, who has since retired form coaching and lives in Bloomsburg. "He was always ready to lift weights. He was a tough football player."
Pettis played defense – middle guard. "He was quite tough and quite fast," said DeMelfi, who coached at CD from 1960 to 1963 before leaving to join the staff at George Washington University. Bobby played linebacker. He was a bit smaller than his brother, the coach remembered Wednesday.
DeMelfi recalled that the two brothers rode the bus to school, and that at times the weightlifting trainer would take them home if they needed a ride.
He said he never saw his parents at a game.
According to Davis, the Pettis brothers enrolled at Maryland State College, a predominantly African American school that produced future pro football stars Emerson Boozer and Art Shell. But they dropped out during their freshman year for financial reasons, and signed on with the Cumberland Colts, the semipro team at the time in Carlisle.
A strange disconnect
Pettis had become a fixture on Venice Beach, an odd attraction with tourists who snapped his photo and uploaded videos of him unto YouTube.
Pettis went to the beach everyday, hopping at times on several buses to get there, always dressed in his skimpy suit and strings of beads, and carrying close to an ear his radio, a peculiar throwback model to the days of boom boxes.
"It was where he felt most comfortable," Davis said. "I think that's why he was attracted to going there. He was viewed by lot of people there unfortunately as a freak – in the guise of 'we are trying to keep this place clean.' He wasn't the best advertisement for fitness and muscle. He had let himself go."
Pettis, Davis said, had a speech impediment – most likely due to the fact that he had lost all his front teeth.
"It was very hard to understand him at times," Davis said.
But he was always on top of the news, he said.
"Whatever it was ... whether he was watching TV news or reading newspapers that he got out of trash, we started talking politics, sports, the news of the day," Davis said. "There was this disconnect between the image ... a bizarre guy to look at and people sort of put him down a little bit."
Pettis was not homeless in the strict sense of the word, according to Davis. He had a place to stay, which Davis said seemed like a boarding house.
"My impression was that it was like a halfway house of sorts for people who don't have the wherewithal to support themselves," he said.
Bill's twin brother, Bobby, during the time of Davis' interviews had returned to California and lived close by.
The body of Bill Pettis was found Tuesday morning, according to police, adding that the family had bought him a bus ticket to come to town for a family function. The story went on to say that Pettis, whom police say suffered from dementia and other health issues, arrived in Harrisburg Sunday and wandered away.
PennLive unsuccessfully attempted to contact his family Wednesday afternoon.
Venice Beach is undergoing a painful transformation, fueled by skyrocketing property values. Town officials have tried in recent years to chase away the riff raff - the homeless and mentally ill who dig in overnight waiting for daybreak.
For now, it will continue to be that peculiar place where artists, musicians, skateboarders, weightlifters and the parade of humanity converge in all its myriad shapes and forms.
But for the first time in five decades, Pettis won't part of the vibrant scene. He won't be milling about near the weightlifting cage where the hulking bodybuilders pump iron as tourists gawk.
He won't be trying to make a buck from a tourist. He won't be wearing his Speedo, his sagging muscles and flesh hanging on his frame.
But neither the stares nor smirks from tourists likely fazed him.
"He was this very very gentle soul who didn't have wherewithal, the money and maybe the landing pad," Davis said Wednesday.