Eugen Sandow

Sandow was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad), on 2 April 1867. His father was German, and his mother was of Russian descent.{{cite book |last1=Baader |first1=Benjamin Maria |last2=Gillerman |first2=Sharon |last3=Lerner |first3=Paul |year=2012 |title=Jewish Masculinities |publisher=Indiana University Press |jstor=j.ctt16gz5c0 |isbn=9780253002136 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gz5c0}} The family members, originally Jewish, were Lutherans and wanted him to become a Lutheran minister.{{cite book |last=Chapman |first=David L. |title=Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79QappH54EYC&pg=PA5 |access-date=27 January 2019 |series=Sport and society |year=1994 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-02033-9 |page=6 |oclc=538245261}} "Adam hints at the quarrel by reporting that Sandow's parents at first wanted their son to become a Lutheran minister, but later relented when it became obvious that he had no inclinations in that field."{{rp|6}}{{cite web |title=Full text of "Sandow on physical training : a study in the perfect type of the human form" |year=1894 |url=https://archive.org/stream/sandowgetsphysicl00sanduoft/sandowgetsphysicl00sanduoft_djvu.txt}}{{cite book |last1=Sandow |first1=Eugen |last2=Adam |first2=G. Mercer |author-link2=Graeme Mercer Adam |date=1 January 1894 |title=Sandow on physical training: a study in the perfect type of the human form|publisher=New York : J. S. Tait|via=Internet Archive |url=https://archive.org/details/sandowgetsphysicl00sanduoft}} He left Prussia in 1885 to avoid military service and traveled throughout Europe, becoming a circus athlete and adopting Eugen Sandow as his stage name, adapting and Germanizing his Russian mother's maiden name, Sandov.

In Brussels, he visited the gym of a fellow strongman, Ludwig Durlacher, better known under his stage name "Professor Attila".{{cite web |title=Louis Attila |publisher=Legendary Strength |url=http://legendarystrength.com/louis-attila/ |access-date=8 August 2014|date=29 October 2013 }} Durlacher recognized Sandow's potential, mentored him, and in 1889 encouraged him to travel to London and enter a strongmen competition. Sandow handily beat the reigning champion and won instant fame and recognition for his strength. This launched him on his career as an athletic superstar. Soon he was receiving requests from all over Britain for performances. For the next four years, Sandow refined his technique and crafted it into popular entertainment with posing and incredible feats of strength.

File:Sandow (1894).webm

Florenz Ziegfeld wanted to display Sandow at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago,{{cite news |title=Eugen Sandow |work=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/522165/Eugen-Sandow |access-date=19 February 2009}} but Ziegfeld knew that Maurice Grau had Sandow under a contract. Grau wanted a weekly salary of {{USD|1000|1893|fmt=c}}. Ziegfeld could not guarantee that much but agreed to pay 10 percent of the gross receipts.{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |date=23 July 1933 |title=Florenz Ziegfeld Dies in Hollywood After Long Illness |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0321.html |access-date=19 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015051202/https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0321.html|archive-date=15 October 2009}}

Ziegfeld found that the audience was more fascinated by Sandow's bulging muscles than by the amount of weight he was lifting, so Ziegfeld had Sandow move in poses which he dubbed "muscle display performances". These displays were added to his feats of strength with barbells. He added chain-around-the-chest breaking and other colorful displays to Sandow's routine, and Sandow quickly became Ziegfeld's first star.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

File:The Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles, Sandow lifting the human dumbell, 1894.jpg in one of his first productionsKenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/ziegbio.htm "Florenz Ziegfeld:A Biography"] Musicals101, (Copyright 2002–2004), accessed 13 January 2011.{{cite book |last=Hayter-Menzies |first=Grant |date=26 January 2016 |title=Mrs. Ziegfeld: The Public and Private Lives of Billie Burke |publisher=McFarland |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fm4I5DClrb4C&q=florenz&pg=PA65|isbn=978-0-7864-5308-5 }}]]

In 1894, he was featured in the series of three short actuality films, Sandow, by the Edison Studios.{{cite web |title=Souvenir Strip of the Edison Kinetoscope (Sandow, the Modern Hercules) |publisher=Film Threat |url=http://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/the-bootleg-files-souvenir-strip-of-the-edison-kinetoscope-sandow-the-modern-hercules/ |access-date=20 April 2008|date=11 April 2008 }} The film includes only part of his act and features him flexing his muscles rather than any feats of physical strength.

Though the content of the film reflects the audience's focus on his appearance, it uses the unique capacities of the new medium. Film theorists have attributed the appeal being the striking image of a detailed image moving in synchrony, much like the example of the Lumière brothers' Repas de bébé where audiences were reportedly more impressed by the movement of trees swaying in the background than the events taking place in the foreground. In 1894, Sandow appeared in a short Kinetoscope film that became part of the Library of Congress.{{Cite web |title=Sandow |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/00694298/ |access-date=1 June 2022 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}

In April 1894, Sandow gave one of his "muscle display performances" at the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco at the "Vienna Prater" Theater.{{cite web |date=29 April 1894 |title=Sandow's Engagement |publisher=San Francisco Call |volume=75 |number=130 |url=http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940429.2.46&srpos=1&e=-------en--20-SFC-1--txt-txIN-sandow+vienna------# |access-date=14 June 2015}}

While he was on tour in the United States, Sandow made a brief return to England to marry Blanche Brooks, from Manchester. However, due to stress and ill health he returned permanently to recuperate.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

File:Strength, and how to obtain it - by Eugen Sandow Wellcome L0070610.jpg

He was soon recovered, and opened the first of his Institutes of Physical Culture, where he taught methods of exercise, dietary habits and weight training. His ideas on physical fitness were novel at the time and had a tremendous impact. The Sandow Institute was an early gymnasium open to the public for exercise.{{cite news |author= |date=16 February 2009 |title=Plaque to father of body-building |work=BBC |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7892467.stm |access-date=19 February 2009}} In 1898, he founded a monthly periodical, originally titled Physical Culture and renamed Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture that was dedicated to all aspects of physical culture. This was accompanied by a series of books published between 1897 and 1904 – the last of which coined the term "bodybuilding" in the title (spelled "body-building").Patrick Scott, 'Body-Building and Empire-Building: George Douglas Brown, The South African War, and Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture, Victorian Periodicals Review, 41:1 (2008), pp. 78–94.

He worked hard at improving exercise equipment, and had invented various devices such as rubber strands for stretching and spring-grip dumbbells to exercise the wrists. In 1900, William Bankier wrote Ideal Physical Culture in which he challenged Sandow to a contest in weightlifting, wrestling, running, and jumping. When Sandow did not accept his challenge, Bankier called him a coward, a charlatan and a liar.{{rp|171}}

In 1901, Sandow organized the world's first major bodybuilding competition in London's Royal Albert Hall. The venue was so full that people were turned away from the door. The three judges presiding over the contest were Sir Charles Lawes the sculptor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the author, and Sandow.[http://www.eugensandow.com/story2.html Eugen Sandow: Bodybuilding's Great Pioneer by David Chapman – Author of 'Sandow the Magnificent – Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100325224214/http://www.eugensandow.com/story2.html |date=25 March 2010 }}

File:"A New Sandow Pose (VIII)", Eugen Sandow Wellcome L0035270 - restoration.jpg (1902)]]

In 1902, Sandow was defeated by Katie Brumbach in a weightlifting contest in New York City. Brumbach lifted a weight of {{convert|300|lbs}} over her head, which Sandow lifted only to his chest. After this victory, Brumbach adopted the stage name "Sandwina" as a feminine derivative of Sandow.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HPtsBQAAQBAJ|title=Beneath the Big Top: A Social History of the Circus in Britain|author=Steve Ward|year=2014|pages=163–164|publisher=Pen and Sword|isbn=9781783030491}}{{cite web|url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-great-sandwina|title=The Great Sandwina, Circus Strongwoman and Restaurateur|date=26 December 2017|access-date=7 October 2018}}

In 1906, Sandow was enabled to buy the lease of 161 (formerly 61) Holland Park Avenue, due to a generous gift from an Indian businessman, Sir Dhunjibhoy Bomanji, whose health had improved dramatically after he had adopted Sandow's regime. This grand four-storey end-of-terrace house – which was named Dhunjibhoy House after his benefactor – was his home for 19 years.{{Cite web|url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/sandow-eugen-1867-1925|title=Sandow, Eugen (1867–1925)|website=English Heritage|access-date=7 June 2018}}{{Cite book|title=The perfect man : the muscular life and times of Eugen Sandow, Victorian strongman|last=Waller|first=David|year=2011|isbn=978-1-906469-25-2| publisher=Victorian Secrets Limited | location=Brighton|pages=200|oclc=774635051}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/eugen-sandow-fakir-of-physical-culture|title=Eugen Sandow: Fakir of Physical Culture|website=Opem Magazine|date=December 2011 |language=en|access-date=7 June 2018}}

He toured the world, including South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. At his own expense, from 1909, he provided training for would-be recruits to the Territorial Army, to bring them up to entrance fitness standards, and did the same for volunteers for active service in World War I.{{cite book |year=2004 |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|volume=48 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-861398-9 |pages=904–905}}Entry by Mark Pottle.

In 1911, he was designated special instructor in physical culture to King George V, who had followed his teachings.{{cite book |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |volume=48 |page=904}}

File:Falk, Benjamin J. (1853-1925) - Eugen Sandow (1867-1925)- 1894-cropped.jpg, illustrating his Grecian Ideal. Sandow would often equip a fig leaf to cover his genitals to further emulate popularly available samples of Greco-Roman sculpture and its traditions of heroic nudity]]

Sandow's physique resembled those of classical Greek and Roman sculpture because he measured the statues in museums and helped to develop "The Grecian Ideal" as a formula for the "perfect physique". Sandow built his physique to the exact proportions of his Grecian Ideal, and is considered the father of modern bodybuilding, as one of the first athletes to intentionally develop his musculature to predetermined dimensions. In his books Strength and How to Obtain It[https://books.google.com/books?id=ntmmARl9X44C&pg=PA17 Strength and How to Obtain It] and Sandow's System of Physical Training, Sandow laid out specific prescriptions of weights and repetitions to achieve his ideal proportions.

File:Falk, Benjamin J. (1853-1925) - Eugen Sandow (1867-1925) - 1894 - 5.jpg

Sandow married Blanche Brooks, daughter of the well-known photographer Warwick Brooks, of Manchester, England, in 1894."Pretty Enough to Be Delilah", The Illustrated American, 13 October 1894 They had two daughters, Helen and Lorraine.{{cite book |last=Sandow |first=Eugen |author-link=Eugen Sandow |year=2005 |orig-year=1911 |title=Strength and How to Obtain It |edition=4th |publisher=Elibron Books |isbn=1-4021-5900-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ntmmARl9X44C |access-date=29 July 2012}}{{cite web |author=Цитатник Mug |date=31 January 2011 |title=Eugen Sandow, the father of bodybuilding |publisher=Live Internet Russia |url=http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/mug/post149724004/ |access-date=29 July 2012}}

{{further|Yoga as exercise}}

Sandow was acclaimed on his 1905 visit to India, when he was already a "cultural hero" in the country at a time of strong nationalistic feeling. The scholar Joseph Alter suggests that Sandow was the person who had the most influence on modern yoga as exercise, which absorbed a variety of exercise routines from physical culture in the early 20th century.{{cite book |last=Singleton |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Singleton (yoga scholar) |title=Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice |title-link=Yoga Body |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-539534-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/yogabodyoriginsm00sing/page/n99 89]}}{{cite book |last=Alter |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Alter |chapter=Historicizing Yoga |title=Yoga in Modern India : the body between science and philosophy |title-link=Yoga in Modern India |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-691-11874-1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o6anlz6i71oC&pg=PP1 |oclc=53483558 |page=28}}

File:EugenSandowgravestone.jpg. (2012)]]

Sandow died at his home in Kensington, London, on 14 October 1925 of what newspapers announced as a brain hemorrhage at age 58.{{cite news |author= |date=26 October 1925 |title=Death of Sandow |work=Time magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721389,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219124407/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721389,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 February 2012 |access-date=19 February 2009}}{{cite news |date=15 October 1925 |title=Eugen Sandow. |publisher=Hartford Courant |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/803796672.html?dids=803796672:803796672&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Oct+15%2C+1925&author=&pub=The+Hartford+Courant&desc=EUGEN+SANDOW&pqatl=google |access-date=20 April 2008 |archive-date=24 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524192118/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/803796672.html?dids=803796672:803796672&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Oct+15,+1925&author=&pub=The+Hartford+Courant&desc=EUGEN+SANDOW&pqatl=google |url-status=dead }} It was allegedly brought on after straining himself, without assistance, to lift his car out of a ditch after a road accident two or three years earlier.{{cite book |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |volume=48 |page=905}} However, without an autopsy, his death was certified as due to aortic aneurysm.

Sandow was buried in an unmarked grave in Putney Vale Cemetery at the request of his wife, Blanche. It is rumoured that he was unfaithful to his wife later in marriage, and she refused to mark his grave, however the cause of this strife is a mystery, because she refused to talk about it. In 2002, a gravestone and black marble plaque was added by Sandow admirer and author Thomas Manly.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} The gold lettered inscription reads "Eugen Sandow, 1867–1925, the Father of Bodybuilding". In 2008, the grave was purchased by Chris Davies, Sandow's great-grandson.{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nPD2__e0E& |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/S-nPD2__e0E |archive-date=13 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=The Rogue Legends Series – Chapter 1: Eugen Sandow / 8K|publisher=Rogue Fitness|access-date=14 October 2020}}{{cbignore}} Manly's items were replaced for the anniversary of Sandow's birth that year and a new monument, a 1.5 ton natural pink sandstone monolith, was put in its place. The stone, simply inscribed "SANDOW 1867–1925", is a reference to the ancient Greek funerary monuments called steles.

File:EUGEN SANDOW 1867-1925 Body-Builder and Promoter of Physical Culture lived and died here.jpg

Sandow was befriended by King George V, Thomas Edison, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and classical pianist Martinus Sieveking. He was portrayed by the actor Nat Pendleton in the Academy Award-winning film The Great Ziegfeld (1936).

"Physical [sic] Strength and How to Obtain It by Eugen Sandow" appears as one of the books in the catalog of the personal bookshelves of Leopold Bloom in Chapter 17 (Ithaca, line 1397) of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses.{{cite web|url=https://www.joyceproject.com/index.php?chapter=ithaca¬es=0#.YtBSkS3Mwb0|title=The Joyce Project: James Joyce's Ulysses Online |access-date=14 July 2022}}

As recognition of his contribution to the sport of bodybuilding, a bronze statue of Sandow sculpted by Frederick Pomeroy has been presented to the winner of the Mr. Olympia contest, a major professional bodybuilding competition sponsored by the International Federation of Bodybuilders, since 1977.{{cite web|url=http://www.ifbbpro.com/news/history-of-the-sandow-statuette/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904175531/http://www.ifbbpro.com/news/history-of-the-sandow-statuette/|publisher=IFBB|archive-date=4 September 2014|title=History of the Sandow Statuette}} This statue is simply known as "The Sandow".

In 2013, Eugen Sandow was portrayed by the Canadian bodybuilder Dave Simard in the film Louis Cyr. In 2018, a biographical film was released, titled Sandow.

Sandows (London) cold brew coffee is named after him.{{cite web |url=https://www.sandows.com/faq |title=Frequently Asked Questions: Why Are You Called Sandows? |publisher=Sandows London |access-date=12 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190113062648/https://www.sandows.com/faq |archive-date=13 January 2019 |url-status=dead }}

English Heritage put a blue plaque on his house at 161 Holland Park Avenue in west London in 2009;{{cite news |title=Plaque to father of body-building |date=16 February 2009 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7892467.stm|publisher=BBC |access-date=14 October 2020}} it describes him as a "Body-Builder and Promoter of Physical Culture".

• Sandow, Eugen, [https://books.google.com/books?id=da_f0XV_RQgC&pg=PA169 "How to Preserve Health and Attain Strength,"] illustrated with photographs of the author, Cosmopolitan, vol. XVII, no. 2, June 1894, pp. 169–176.
• Sandow's System of Physical Training (1894)
• [https://archive.org/details/sandowonphysica00sandgoog/page/n11 Sandow on Physical Training] (1894)
• [https://archive.org/details/strengthandhowt00sandgoog/page/n7 Strength and how to Obtain It] (1897)
• Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture (1898–1907)
• Body-Building
• Strength and Health
• The Construction and Reconstruction of the Human Body (1907) [with a foreword by Arthur Conan Doyle]
• Life is Movement (1919)

• List of male professional bodybuilders
• List of female professional bodybuilders
• Strongman (strength athlete)

{{clear}}

{{Reflist}}

• Barford, Vanessa and Lucy Townsend, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19977415 Eugen Sandow: The man with the perfect body], BBC News Magazine, 19 October 2012
• Chapman, David, "Eugen Sandow and the Birth of Bodybuilding", Hardgainer (May 1993)
• Tate, Don, Strong As Sandow: How Eugen Sandow Became The Strongest Man On Earth, Charlesbridge Publishing, September 2017

{{Commons category|Eugen Sandow}}

• {{FadedPage|id=Sandow, Eugene|name=Eugene Sandow|author=yes}}
• [http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/ Eugen Sandow & The Golden Age of Iron Men]
• [http://evilcyber.com/fitness/the-eugen-sandow-workout-you-can-do-at-home/ His workout with video demonstrations]
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Eugen Sandow}}
• {{Librivox author |id=16644}}
• {{IMDb name|762186}}
• Eugen Sandow in several famous poses: [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5622/sandow_posed_as_the_dying_gaul 1.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5723/sandow_on_a_pedestal 2.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/003--702-1723-5829/eugen_sandow_leaning_on_a_pillar 3.]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5842/eugen_sandow_rear_view 4.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5953/eugen_sandow 5.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5513/sandow_wearing_only_a_fig_leaf 6.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5538/eugen_sandow_friederich_wilhelm_mueller 7.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5635/eugen_sandow_in_pose 8.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5525/eugen_sandow_sitting_on_a_stool 9.], [http://www.imageenvision.com/stock_photo/details/0003-0702-1723-5817/eugen_sandow_in_pose 10.]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111106011009/http://www.victorianstrongman.com/ victorianstrongman.com]

{{Physical culture}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandow, Eugen}}

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