Eugen Sandow

Bodybuilder

• Born: April 2, 1867
• Birthplace: Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia)
• Died: October 14, 1925
• Place of death: London, England

Sport: Bodybuilding

Early Life

On the cold shores of the Baltic Ocean, Eugen Sandow was born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller on April 2, 1867, in the city of Königsberg. Although the city later changed its name to Kaliningrad and became part of the Soviet Union, in the nineteenth century it was a distant outpost of the German Empire.

Eugen was the son of a modest greengrocer. Later in life, when he had become a professional athlete, he decided to switch his identity in order to cut off all contact with his humble past. Not much is known about Eugen’s early days in Germany, but it is clear that the boy had a flair for athletics. He joined a gymnastics society and liked performing acrobatic tricks. Around 1885, Eugen left the city of his birth, became a tumbler, and joined a traveling circus that toured the cities of Europe.

The Road to Excellence

By the time he was twenty, Eugen had been traveling through Europe for several years, but he had never achieved success. When he arrived in Brussels, Belgium, he was down on his luck. However, he was seen by a well-known coach and weightlifter named Professor Louis Attila, who took Eugen under his wing and helped him become a professional strongman.

In those days, an athlete with a good physique could make a living by performing feats of strength in a type of theater called a “music hall” in Europe and “vaudeville” in the United States. These theaters staged variety shows where many different entertainers performed, from singers and actors to jugglers and trained dogs.

Eugen discovered that he had a real talent in this line of work. Under the direction of Attila, Eugen began to have some success as a professional strongman. People were eager to see the handsome young man lift heavy weights, bend iron bars, and balance heavy weights on his shoulders.

The Emerging Champion

Eugen and Attila knew, however, that the young athlete’s greatest attraction was his wonderful physique. Thanks to his acrobatic stunts and Attila’s coaching, Eugen had built his body to near perfection. His arms, shoulders, and especially his stomach muscles were hard and sinewy. He reminded audiences of the statues of Greek gods they had seen in museums, but Eugen’s body was of flesh, blood, and muscle, not lifeless stone. For the first time ever, people were willing to pay to see a bodybuilder pose in front of them.

In 1889, Eugen got his first big break, in London, England. There he defeated two famous strongmen in a contest of strength and became the hero of the hour. This victory led to more and more theatrical engagements in England. In one of these performances in 1893, Eugen was scouted by an American agent who convinced Eugen to come to New York. In the United States, Eugen was discovered by the greatest of all his managers: Florenz Ziegfeld.

Ziegfeld later became famous for glorifying beautiful women in spectacular shows, but the young manager’s first client was the German strongman. Ziegfeld whisked his new discovery off to Chicago, where a great World’s Fair had just opened. Eugen became an instant sensation when he displayed his muscles at the Trocadero Theatre near the fairgrounds. It seemed as if everyone who visited the fair came to see Eugen perform his strength show also.

After the Chicago fair closed in 1894, Eugen and Ziegfeld embarked on several tours of the United States that took them all over the country. In every city they visited, Eugen tried to convince his audiences to take up exercise and a healthy lifestyle. He tried to show that anyone could have as muscular a body as he had. Not surprisingly, lifting weights, in an attempt to become as “strong as a Sandow,” became popular.

Continuing the Story

In 1896, Eugen broke with Ziegfeld and returned to Europe. He continued to perform, but there were other interests in his life now. Two years previously he had married Blanche Brooks, an English girl, and the two of them settled down in London.

Eugen had not retired, however, for his energy constantly ran full speed ahead. The strongman was particularly busy in the early years of the twentieth century. He began a string of gyms, started a mail-order exercise business, invented and marketed new exercise equipment, and sold food supplements. A few years earlier, he had begun one of the world’s first physical culture publications, called Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture. All of these enterprises became instant successes.

In 1901, Eugen gained further fame by holding the world’s first bodybuilding contest. “The Great Competition,” as it was called, was supposed to determine the best physique in the country. On the night of the event, more than fifteen thousand fans crowded into the auditorium to see the spectacle. The judges included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, and Eugen. The German muscleman was quickly making both himself and bodybuilding popular with the public.

If Eugen had one besetting fault, it was that he wanted to do too much too quickly. He seemed obsessed with transforming all of humanity into healthier, shapelier beings. In the early 1900’s, Eugen embarked on several tours of the world in order to do just that. He visited Australia, India, South Africa, and the United States in succession, all the while trying to promote bodybuilding. He believed that he had no time to lose.

Back in England, the former muscleman concentrated on what he called “curative physical culture.” Thanks to people like Eugen, doctors at the start of the twentieth century were just beginning to understand the part that regular, systematic exercise plays in human health. Eugen had no doubts about the helpful effects of working out. In fact, he believed that many diseases could be successfully treated by his particular system of calisthenics and weightlifting.

However, the strongman did not spend all of his time exercising or coaching. He was also fond of cars—especially fast ones. Eugen was never happier than when he was careening down the road at the then-outrageous speed of forty miles per hour. Ironically, it was his love affair with motoring that caused his death. According to the story his family later told, the fifty-eight-year-old strongman took a corner too quickly and overturned his car. When he attempted to right the car by himself, he burst a blood vessel in his brain and died several weeks later.

Summary

Eugen Sandow lived life in high gear. He was convinced that his goals were good and that people needed to hear his message. Without that drive, Eugen might never have become the great popularizer of bodybuilding. He became a symbol of health and strength for the entire world.

Bibliography

Chapman, David L. Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding. Rev. ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.

Daley, Caroline. “The Strongman of Eugenics, Eugen Sandow.” Australian Historical Studies 33, no. 120 (October, 2002): 233-248.

Post, Robert C. “Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding.” Journal of American History 82, no. 1 (June, 1995): 283.

Sandow, Eugen. Body-Building: Or, Man in the Making—How to Become Healthy and Strong. London: Gale & Polden, 1904.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Sandow on Physical Training: A Study in the Perfect Type of the Human Form. New York: J. S. Tait & Sons, 1894.