PIE ANOTHER DAY
DANIEL CRAIG HAS BEEN GETTING IN SHAPE FOR THE NEW 007 MOVIE, BUT WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET AN ACTION STAR’S PHYSIQUE? MARION McMULLEN LOOKS BACK AT SOME LEADING MEN’S FITNESS ROUTINES
IT’S NOT unusual to find yourself in the gym when you are a singing star like Sir Tom Jones. The Welsh legend was regularly working out with weights and stepping into the boxing ring in the 1980s.
The 79-year-old coach on ITV’s The Voice still puts on the boxing gloves and said last year: “It’s a good cardiovascular workout. It keeps me on my toes.”
Former James Bond star Sir Sean Connery went several rounds for 1957 BBC drama Requiem For A Heavyweight, playing Mountain McClintock. In real life he’s more a golfer than a fighter and used to play every day.
He was also involved in bodybuilding in his youth and won the Mr Scotland contest, going on to come third in the 1953 Mr Universe contest. When he was 23 he had to choose between acting or a career as a professional footballer... acting won.
When it comes to muscles, Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger was the king of pumping iron. The Austrian bodybuilder was 21 when he emigrated to America and started his rise to action hero and governor of California. The Guinness Book Of World Records once called him “the most perfectly developed man in the world” and he won the Mr Olympia bodybuilding title seven times.
He once said: “I was interested in proportion and perfection. When I was 15 I took off my clothes and looked in the mirror. When I stared at myself naked, I realised that to be perfectly proportioned I would need 20 inch arms to match the rest of me.”
Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno’s bodybuilding background also came in useful when ripping off shirts for his transformation into the greenskinned Hulk in the 1980s TV series. He started weight-training as a teenager and began working out using a broomstick attached to buckets filled with cement.
Hollywood star Burt Lancaster was involved in gymnastics as a child and ran away at 16 to join the circus as an acrobat. He performed almost all of his own stunts as circus star Mike Ribble in the 1956 movie hit Trapeze.
Spartacus star Kirk Douglas was a keen athlete and wrestled competitively at university. The Story Of Three Loves in 1953 saw him play a trapeze artist, but he once said of his movie roles: “I was not a tough guy. I
just acted like one.”
Cowboy film star John Wayne went to university on an American football scholarship before finding acting success and was awarded a gold medal in the 1970s from the National Football Foundation for his early sporting achievements. He later gave his name to the John Wayne Tennis Club in California and once declared: “Goddamn, I’m the stuff men are made of.”
Daniel Craig has reportedly been preparing for his next James Bond film with 12-hour daily workout sessions and a strict diet plan.
The 51-year-old had to undergo minor ankle surgery in May after being injured while filming the 25th Bond film in Jamaica, but was well enough to meet Prince Charles last month when he paid a visit to the UK film set at Pinewood Studios.
Sir Roger Moore, who starred as 007 in seven movies in the 1970s and early 1980s, including Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun, once admitted: “I was probably a little bit overweight as a child, being passionate about baked beans on toast and Cadbury’s milk chocolate.”
He said he was encouraged to work out in a gym when he went to Hollywood, explaining “the idea was that I should look like Daniel Craig, though they hadn’t even met him at that point”.
The late British actor, who was knighted in 2003 for services to charity, was never convinced James Bond needed bulging biceps and killer abs for his secret missions.
“I’d occasionally do some exercises at home but I never cared for gyms,” he said. “I wonder if Ian Fleming ever saw the character as quite such an Adonis.”