`Fattened' local wrestler shows he has thin skin
Showman offended by sports editor's observation and demands a retraction
You would think that professional wrestlers would have a thick skin. But it isn't always so.
In the May 3, 1929 Vancouver Sun, sports editor Andy Lytle referred to local wrestler Jack Strong as “fattened.” And Strong was so ticked off that he phoned Lytle and demanded a retraction.
“In a deep bass voice trembling with emotion, or something, Mr. Strong is demanding that this reporter apologize for having referred to him, in cold print, as Jack Mclaughlin's `fattened playmate,'” Lytle wrote in his Sport Rays column May 7.
“Admittedly I am no expert on what constitutes `fatness' in the modern wrestler. Yet there is a lingering suspicion in my mind that most of them are that way.
“Strangler Lewis is most decidedly well-fed; Stanley Zbyszko is no bean pole; Jatrinda Gobar weighed nearly a quarter of a ton and Leo L'heureaux, the Lion, you know, once ate 28 ears of corn dipped in melted butter and called for some solid food to appease his hunger.”
Nonetheless, Strong told Lytle: “`You can say what you like about my wrestling, but if I am fat it is none of your business. You should apologize, or I will take you to court.'”
Lytle bleeped out what else Strong said he would do to him. For support, Lytle asked fellow wrestler George Kotsonaros if he had wronged Strong. Kotsonaros laughed and said: “I would say he's fat ... look at the rolls on his tummy.”
Strong may have been upset because outside the ring he ran a “physical culture school” at 761 Kingsway.
“Fundamental Training in Wrestling and Boxing,” said a card for his school. “Body Beautifying, Reducing and Massage.”
Strong 's card turned up in an old scrapbook that Macleod's Books had a decade back. The scrapbook appeared to have belonged to Strong himself, and featured posters and newspaper clippings from Strong's career as a wrestler and vaudeville performer.
Yes, that's right, when Strong wasn't in wrestling tights he was performing feats of strength and acrobatics, the latter with a female partner. There was an amazing photo by Chinatown photographer Yucho Chow of Strong performing with a woman up on a pole that Strong is holding up with his face.
According to his death certificate in 1969, Strong was born in Berne, Switzerland on Oct. 10, 1892. The first clippings in the scrapbook were from Australia, where Strong advertised himself as “The Superman of the Wonder Show, with the Strength of 10 Men.”
How did he prove it? A poster says by “twisting and breaking a horseshoe, driving a four inch nail through a one inch plank with (his) bare fists, twisting horseshoe nails with his fingers and bending half inch iron with his teeth.”
His death certificate said he lived in Canada 45 years, which means he immigrated here about 1924. In Canada he was billed as the Middleweight Champion of Australia (he weighed 160 pounds) and The Mighty Atom, which suggests he wasn't that tall.
An undated poster said he also performed a “straight jacket escape, dancing magic and clean entertainment.” He's holding a female vaudeville performer up in another Yucho Chow photo, and also adopts a wrestling pose, clad in one of those old-school, one-piece strongman outfits with a single strap slung over his shoulder, like Tarzan or Hercules.
The woman may be vaudeville performer Pat Labelle, who was billed as a “female Houdini.” She may have been Strong's girlfriend — he signed a photo to her “to my darling Pat, Johnny.” But she was killed in a car crash in 1930, when she was only 23.
Labelle and her sister were part of Jack Strong's Wonder Novelty Show, which seems to have toured B.C. and Alberta in the mid- to late 1920s. In one poster the show was headlined by The Great Omar, “The Man of Many Mysteries” and “India's Greatest Crystal Gazer.”
The Wonder Show also included Escapo the escape artist, Baby Ulele the Hula dancer, Professor Wright and his Lady Troupe of Jiu Jitsu Experts, Wally Pullman the banjo wizard, and Jack and Jill, “novelty dancers.”
Alas, Strong 's multi-faceted career didn't seem to have made him rich — after his wrestling career was over, he worked in a shipyard, and taught physical fitness at the Western Sports Centre on Hastings Street. He died in Vancouver on June 20, 1969, at age 76.