The Strongest Men on Earth

by Graeme Kent

  Ziegfeld had been right about the handsome Sandow’s appeal to the ladies, playing a trump card to enormous effect quite early on in Sandow’s run at the Trocadero nightclub. One night Ziegfeld himself appeared at the end of the strongman’s performance to make a surprise announcement. He declared that if any lady in the theatre was prepared to donate the sum of $300 to charity then she would be invited to a private interview with Sandow in the strongman’s dressing room after the show.

  It was a risky gimmick and could have gone wrong. But to the showman’s relief, two prominent society ladies, Mrs Potter Palmer and Mrs George Pullman, neither a shrinking violet, accepted the offer at once. Mrs Potter Palmer, the wife of a real estate baron, was the Chairman of the Board of Lady Managers of the Chicago Exposition, and was game for most things. The Chicago Herald wrote of her ‘Society – even Chicago society – which Mrs Potter Palmer loves, is but a vast and merry whirl and she craves more.’ Mrs Pullman, whose wealthy husband devised the improved railway sleeping car bearing his name, was equally outgoing.

  Both ladies signed their cheques and visited the Prussian in his dressing room after the final curtain, chaperoned by a covey of reporters who made frantic notes as the two visitors sat demurely listening to a lecture on the basic principles of health, delivered in Sandow’s guttural German accent. Afterwards, they were both allowed to touch the strongman’s quivering biceps.

  The attendance of these two society doyennes opened the floodgates. Soon, after each performance the strongman’s dressing room was as busy as Piccadilly Circus as eager, wealthy female fans crowded in to see the strongman. A piece of doggerel in a Californian newspaper summed up the situation in which women of all ages and backgrounds flocked to see the strongman at his afternoon performances:

  Oh dear, how the ladies did hustle to see

  The perfect man pose at his great matinee…

  The ladies from most of our Art Schools were there,

  The ‘old’ and ‘homely’, the young and the fair.

  The Chicago Exposition ran for six months and, as long as Eugen Sandow continued to perform at the Trocadero, Ziegfeld kept his one-man publicity-machine turning. He even made a point of publishing Sandow’s measurements in the public prints as often as possible:

  Weight: 199 lb Height: 5 ft 8.5 in. Waist: 29 ins Chest: 48 in.

  Neck: 18.5 in. Biceps: 18.5 in. Thigh: 26.5 in. Calves: 18 in.

  He also took every opportunity to have the strongman examined by publicity-seeking doctors, who would declare afterwards that Sandow almost certainly was the most perfectly developed man in the world.

  It was on this aspect that Flo Ziegfeld concentrated his publicity efforts. He no longer declared that his man was the strongest in the world; there were in fact by now a number of shapeless, shambling human gorillas performing in the circuits who could lift heavier poundages above their heads than Sandow could. But who cared? What the impresario was intent on putting over was the sheer shapeliness and sex appeal of the strongman. For a start he discarded the Prussian’s trademark leotards, tights and singlets and had him performing his posing exhibitions in skimpy briefs. He succeeded to such an extent that in 1893, as Sandow’s bandwagon started to roll in the USA, one newspaper declared that if the strongman’s display had been attempted in a theatre by a woman, it would have been banned by the authorities.

  Ziegfeld also made it plain that, as well as being as handsome as a Greek god, Eugen Sandow was a very strong man. When Amy Leslie, the drama critic of the Chicago Daily News, arranged to interview the Prussian in a public park, the lurking showman bribed a guard to reprimand the strongman for picking flowers. Sandow held the official in the air until Miss Leslie begged him to lower the guard to the ground. The guard pocketed his $5 and the journalist had her exclusive story.

  After three months at the Trocadero in Chicago, Flo Ziegfeld decided that the rest of the country was ready for Sandow or at least that the section that lay along the coast of California was ripe for exploitation. He put together a variety show, headed by Sandow, and headed west with it.

  It was a significant moment in American vaudeville. Flo Ziegfeld was to become the leading showman of his era and, more or less by chance, Eugen Sandow was to become the first fortunate recipient of the American’s enthusiasm and burgeoning expertise. He even had the distinction of having his name included in the title billing.

  The company was called ‘Sandow’s Trocadero Vaudevilles’. The tour, which was a smash hit from the start, was to occupy seven months. In that time the supporting acts changed from time to time but Ziegfeld, who travelled with the show, put the bill together as carefully as a jigsaw puzzle.

  At first Ziegfeld did not tamper with the traditional pattern of the vaudeville bill. Most of them opened with a ‘dumb’ act, perhaps dancers, to give the audience a chance to settle down. They would be followed by a reliable singing act, or something similar. Then it would be time for a ‘name’ act, someone who would be recognised, at least by reputation, by most of the spectators. Next would come a comic sketch, which led in turn to a spectacular display by a magician or a troupe of animals. After the intermission there would be another dumb act, possibly a troupe of acrobats. There would be time for another comic sketch, and then the star of the show would appear. Finally there would be another dumb act to clear the theatre before the second performance of the evening.

  All these staple ingredients were present in ‘Sandow’s Trocadero Vaudeville Follies’. Among the constantly changing supporting acts, the principal comedian was veteran Billy B. Van, who went back as far as the blackface minstrel shows and had appeared with James J. Corbett in the former heavyweight champion’s monologue performances. Nick Kaufmann introduced his cycle ball routine, playing a form of polo on two wheels with an assistant. Tom Browne was a siffleur, billed as ‘a rival to the mocking bird: the most remarkable and brilliant whistler in the world’. The versatile Browne could also imitate tunes being played on the cello and the trombone, although presumably not at the same time.

  Miss Scottie introduced her almost-human dog, a collie able to play cards and solve mathematical calculations. There were five trapeze artistes, collectively known as the Flying Jordans, ‘performing the most graceful and daring aerial acts ever witnessed’. Amann, an impersonator, travelled with the show for most of the time, depicting different characters from history. The closing dumb act was often Herr August Dewell, a Scandinavian gymnast.

  Above all there was Eugen Sandow, the Monarch of Muscle and a promoter’s publicity-conscious dream. Sandow was up for anything that would advertise his show. Tirelessly he gave interview after interview to local reporters wherever he was appearing, performed feats of strength in public to attract the crowds into the theatres, and was never afraid to trade upon the drawing power of his good looks. His blonde curly hair, upturned moustache and symmetrical build were to be featured on posters everywhere.

  And always there was Flo Ziegfeld, preparing the way for his main event, making sure that the strongman’s name was seldom out of the newspapers. One of them, the San Francisco Call of 14 April 1894, described Sandow’s triumphal entry into the journal’s city:

  Eugen Sandow, the perfect man, will arrive in the City tomorrow morning to commence his engagement at the Vienna Prater. He will be escorted to the Palace Hotel, and on Sunday will receive fifty specially invited newspaper men and physicians.

  Gathering converts to his cause all over North America, Sandow soon found many men determined to imitate his success. One man of particular annoyance was a competitor who went by the name of Sandowe. His real name was Irving Montgomery, although in some contemporary law court accounts which littered his career he appears as Montgomery Irving. He was naturally big and strong, and hailed from Birmingham in the UK, drifting into the strongman business when Sampson and his partner Cyclops visited the area with their act. The impressive-looking Irving had accepted Cyclops’s challenge from the stage for a wrestling match. To deter potential opponen
ts and gain a psychological advantage over them, it was announced before the exhibition that no champion professional grappler would take Cyclops on unless the latter agreed to omit certain lethal holds and throws from his repertoire. Actually the coin-breaker was not nearly as rugged as he appeared. When Irving materialised with his challenge, both Sampson and Cyclops were worried. They were considerably relieved when, as he was getting changed backstage for the bout, Irving intimated casually that for a trifling consideration of a £5 note he would throw the bout to Cyclops.

  As it happened, when they entered the ring Cyclops discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he could defeat the Birmingham strongman without resorting to bribery. Nevertheless, Irving’s pragmatic approach to victory and defeat had impressed Cyclops. When he and Sampson subsequently parted company he invited Irving to join him in a new professional pairing and accompany him on a tour to the United States.

  In order to boost Irving’s reputation before they left the UK, in 1895 Cyclops arranged a public trial of strength between his new partner and his former one. Irving met Sampson at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Liverpool. Sampson defied Irving to duplicate a series of feats. As the younger man looked on with growing trepidation, Charles Sampson lifted a barbell from the floor to his chest, then overhead, back to his shoulders and then to the floor. He then bent a series of iron bars out of shape by smashing them against his arms. Finally the man from Alsace-Lorraine stood on a chair with his feet strapped to the seat, bent over, picked up a heavy dumbbell from the stage and lifted it overhead. Irving tried in vain to duplicate the feats but left the stage admitting failure.

  Soon after, Irving and Cyclops were on the other side of the Atlantic, with Irving adopting the professional nomenclature of Sandowe, hoping to use this alias to pick up theatrical bookings in more remote areas of the country. It did not work. Soon Irving was being referred to scornfully in newspapers as ‘the false Sandow’. The New York Dramatic Mirror of 5 March 1894 wrote: ‘Sandow has not only a rival but a fraudulent imitator in a person calling himself “Sandowe” who recently appeared at the Buckingham Theatre in Louisville.’

  Nevertheless, the spiky and notoriously litigious Eugen Sandow could not allow this passing off to proceed unchallenged. Earlier he had pursued the imposter all over Britain in order to make his imitator desist, with similar writs and injunctions. Now he was suing Irving in the USA and was to be successful. The Birmingham strongman was fined $100 and costs, and ordered to stop billing himself as Sandowe.

  As would be expected Sandow made the most of these court hearings, held on 21 April 1894:

  Arrayed in a glossy plug hat, white hands encased in Parisian gloves, and otherwise dressed to kill, he looked strangely out of place among the busy crowd of legal practitioners. Sandow took a seat, raised his hat, smoothed his glossy curls and beamed on the throng.

  As it happened, Irving did not fare too badly from the resulting publicity. So pronounced was the strongman cult in the USA that he was recruited by a producer to play the part of Ursus, the strongman, in a touring production of the sex-and-sandals play Quo Vadis, based on the novel. A contemporary newspaper account, however, was quick to remind readers of his attempt to copy Sandow and went on to say of his stilted acting performance that Irving ‘was physique conscious throughout the play, and his appearances were a series of poses’.

  Back on tour no opportunity for plugging the act was lost by the Prussian or his promoter. Reporters were even invited into Sandow’s dressing room after performances to witness the strongman taking ice-cold baths in a portable bath and then enjoying a cigar and a glass of malt whisky before going off in search of a game of billiards.

  Before the tour was over, Sandow was famous and Flo Ziegfeld had made a quarter of a million dollars. Obviously not every stunt attempted came off. On a brief visit to Chicago, Flo had the bright idea that Sandow should emulate the Biblical Samson and wrestle with a lion. Unfortunately, eager to preserve his star attraction, Ziegfeld took too many precautions. The elderly lion was heavily muzzled and over sedated, as was reported by the Brooklyn Eagle:

  San Francisco, Cal. May 23. Over three thousand people assembled at Central Park last night to witness a wrestling match between Sandow, the perfect man, and Colonel Daniel E. Boone’s tame lion Commodore. Commodore was muzzled, his paws being encased in boxing gloves, and he was so handicapped that free action was almost impossible. When Sandow entered the iron cage the lion was lying on all fours and no amount of teasing could get him to stand up or lose his temper. Sandow lifted him from the ground and swung him around and around, but it was of no avail. After ten minutes of this farce the match was given to Sandow.

  Indeed, the show and Sandow were not without criticism. Sandow was sometimes accused of being a trifle too smug and pleased with himself. One newspaper reported in 1893 that after he had supported a team of footballers on his chest, ‘the big fellow is able to spring up and make his particularly self-satisfied bow’. There were also persistent annoying whispers about the strongman’s sexuality, with Sandow suffering another minor professional setback when a report was circulated from the manager of one vaudeville hall. The manager commented on the performance of one of Sandow’s latest rivals, Al Treloar (Albert Toof Jenkins), who had once been employed to clear surplus weights from the stage after Sandow’s performances at the Chicago Exhibition. The theatre manager said that Treloar’s performances had been much more successful than those of Sandow’s because the American was obviously the manlier of the pair.

  In an effort to deflect accusations that his leading man was homosexual, Flo Ziegfeld began to emphasise the less obvious physical measurements of the Prussian. Much play was made with the design and placement of the fig leaves that Sandow wore in his photographs. Some were designed to draw attention to the size of the strongman’s penis, or even to hint at the presence of an erection. Stories of ersatz romances between Sandow and various actresses and music hall stars were planted in the newspapers. At the same time the promoter did his best to discourage rumours that the strongman was greatly admired by such well-known gay poets as Edmund Gosse and John Addington Symonds. The former, it was said, had even taken some nude photographs of Sandow with him to the 1890 funeral of Robert Browning in Westminster Abbey, in order to alleviate any possibility of boredom.

  But these were minor niggles and largely ignored by Eugen Sandow’s growing army of fans. During this hectic period, Sandow took time off to return briefly to Britain to marry Blanche Brookes, the daughter of a well-known Manchester photographer. Little is known about their lives together. Sandow was notoriously secretive about his private life and, although there were two daughters of the union, the marriage does not seem to have been a happy one. The marriage perhaps came at a convenient time to lay to rest rumours of the strongman’s real sexual prowess and it was probably no coincidence that the ever-watchful Flo Ziegfeld was the best man at the ceremony, held at Manchester Cathedral on 8 August 1894.

  When Sandow returned to the USA with his bride to fulfil a nunber of contractual appearances, Martinus Sieveking moved out of the home they had been sharing. Eventually he was to secure a minor reputation as a musician, but at first he did not find it easy to pursue a solo career. After one solo performance at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1896, the music writer for the Brooklyn Eagle complained that other critics had been too hard on the young pianist: ‘It is quite true that Sieveking is no such pianist as Paderewsli or Rosenthal. He lacks the magnetic charm of one and the sensational facility of the other, but there is no reason why he should be jumped upon so furiously.’

  Back in the USA, Sandow was still on the crest of a wave, even if the newly installed Mrs Sandow did make her husband give up his practice of providing private performances of muscular development after his shows. As the Trocadero troupe moved from city to city, Flo Ziegfeld continued to keep the publicity drums beating. Everything was grist to his particular mill. Even when an unfortunate resident of Flatbush went mad in September 18
94 and was committed for suffering from delusions that he was Eugen Sandow, Ziegfeld saw to it that the delusions were fully reported in the newspapers:

  He nearly scared the wits out of his wife a few weeks ago by piling all the parlour furniture on the piano and compelling her to take a seat on the top of the pile while he dropped on his hands and knees, crawled under the piano and attempted to balance the whole business on his chest. When he had, as he believed, accomplished the feat, he flew into an insane rage because his wife was unwise enough to tell him he had not budged the piano.

  Finally the troupe was dissolved. It had been an outstanding success, but both Ziegfeld and Sandow wanted to move on to other things. Slow horses at too many track meetings had lost Ziegfeld much of the money he had made out of Sandow, but all his life he was to bounce back from such reverses. His was now already a name to be reckoned with on the American theatrical scene. The young American, still under thirty, wanted to put on musical shows in New York. He was to succeed in this aim and become a major player along the Great White Way, with his constant ostentatious search for stars and stated aim of ‘glorifying the American girl’. The spectacular ‘Ziegfeld Follies’ became an annual event on Broadway between 1907 and 1931.

  For Sandow, there was first a little local difficulty to overcome. While he had been milking the applause from his American stage appearances, Sandow had been forced to return to New York periodically for yet another appearance in a court of law. The reasons for his visit were described in the New York Times:

  Eugene Sandow, the strongman, came to town from Boston yesterday to press his charges of assault and blackmail against Sarah E. White, known as ‘Lurline, the Water Queen’.