Bodybuilding guru Joe Weider, the man who launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's Hollywood career, has died aged 93.
"That never slowed him down, " said Parker, who worked with Weider for about 20 years.
It proved to be the first of several successful business ventures, one of them being the Weider Barbell Co.
Weider entered his first weightlifting contest at age 17, soon earning a name for himself in Canada, according to his website.
The guitarist Jim Weider will be on hand the first three nights, and the Les Paul Trio joins in on the last night.
Known for creating the Mr Olympia bodybuilding contest, Weider built a magazine empire that included publications like Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Men's Fitness.
Weider remained active "almost until the end, " even after being diagnosed 12 years ago with a heart condition, amyloidosis, said his publicist Charlotte Parker.
Joe Weider was all those things and more in his 93 years, right up until his death Saturday morning at a Los Angeles hospital.
Later, it was Weider who invited Schwarzenegger to leave Austria for the United States, financed his move and helped to propel his career in bodybuilding, acting and business.
Growing up in a tough part of the Canadian city of Montreal during the Great Depression, the once undersized Weider's life started to turn when he began lifting a makeshift barbell.
In his statement, Mr Schwarzenegger said Weider had supported him throughout his career, which has included films like The Terminator, Total Recall and True Lies, and even when he made the move into politics.
The former Mr Universe and Mr Olympia said Weider had encouraged him to come to the US and helped launch his acting career, securing his first role in a television film called Hercules Goes Bananas.
Over the next few decades, Weider went onto become attached especially to the bodybuilding world -- having helped create, in 1946, the International Federation of Bodybuilders and, in 1965, creating the inaugural Mr. Olympia contest.
By helping popularize weight training, supplement and vitamin use, and fitness equipment -- whether in a gym, a school or a home -- Weider helped change the way the world looks at fitness and health, according to Parker.
应用推荐