The bodybuilder who was Mapplethorpe’s muse

Lisa Lyon was a pioneer in two disparate worlds: fine art and bodybuilding. In 1979, the former dancer became the first winner of the Women’s World Pro Bodybuilding Championship, with her carved physique and her ability—at just 5 foot 3—to deadlift 265 pounds. A star in the nascent world of female bodybuilding, Lyon was the inspiration for the Marvel Comics assassin Elektra and became muse to the art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. He took dozens of photos of Lyon that were compiled in a 1983 exhibition and a book, Lady: Lisa Lyon. Alternately whimsical and dramatic, his shots depicted Lyon in guises including flamenco dancer, huntress, bride, mermaid, and snake handler. A self-described performance artist who also posed for Helmut Newton and Marcus Leatherdale, Lyon aspired to model a body image that was neither masculine nor feminine but like “a sleek, feline animal.” The ultimate compliment, she said in 1981, would be “if someone saw me and asked, ‘What planet did SHE come from?’”

Born in Los Angeles to an oral surgeon and a homemaker, Lyon described her childhood as “dark,” said The Washington Post. She suffered from recurring nightmares and compulsions, and at 16 was diagnosed as manic. She studied ballet and jazz dance before majoring in anthropology at UCLA, where she competed in the Japanese martial art kendo. Taking up weightlifting to build upper-body strength, she was soon pumping iron six days a week at the bodybuilder’s mecca, Gold’s Gym, in Santa Monica. After winning the world title, “she became a minor celebrity,” said The New York Times. She posed for Playboy in 1980; soon after, she met Mapplethorpe at a Manhattan party. “Taken with her look—leather jacket, rubber pants”—he “invited her to his loft” and the two began to collaborate.

Lyons never entered another competition, though she promoted women’s bodybuilding “through appearances in magazines and talk shows,” said The Sun (U.K.). She married three times, authored an instructional book, Lisa Lyon’s Body Magic, in 1981, and “had a brief acting career” in B movies. Bodybuilding, she said, had transformed her, by giving her a sense of her own power. “I had swallowed the ’50s image of a woman being frail and delicate,” she said. “I created my own image in the ’70s. It is an image of strength and survival.”