Bill Grant – Bodybuilding Legends Podcast With John Hansen [S1E3]

1974 Mr. World Bill Grant talks about moving to the Mecca of Bodybuilding in the 1960’s, meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time, winning the Mr. World contest and being a part of both the book and the movie “Pumping Iron” in Episode 3 of Season 1 of the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast.

John Hansen:

All right. Welcome to episode number three, season one of the Bodybuilding Legends podcast sponsored by Old School Labs.

John Hansen:

We are going to get to our interview with Bill Grant and talk about the old days of bodybuilding and the 40th anniversary of the movie Pumping Iron. Here’s our interview with Bill Grant.

Bill Grant Early Days and Moving to LA

John Hansen:

All right. Welcome back to the Bodybuilding Legends podcast, my very special guest today is my friend Bill Grant calling in from New Jersey, and we are here to talk about the 40th anniversary of the movie Pumping Iron. Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Grant:

Oh thank you. 40 years of Pumping Iron.

John Hansen:

40 years since the movie came out.

Bill Grant:

I’m taking a big, deep breath. Ahh.

John Hansen:

Now Bill, we did an interview a couple of years ago.

Bill Grant:

Yes.

John Hansen:

Some great stories. We talked about your whole career. But remind us when you moved out to LA again, because you’re originally from New Jersey and it was always your dream to move out to California. So what year did you finally move out there?

Bill Grant:

I first went to LA. I told my parents, in all honesty, “Hey, I want to go to a college, but I want to go to LA.” So I enrolled into Los Angeles City College. That was a farce. Of course it was a ploy to get to Muscle Beach. You know?

John Hansen:

Right. Right.

Bill Grant:

It was 1965 when I went.

John Hansen:

Wow. 1965.

Bill Grant:

I was an old man at 18. The memories are good, but I can’t believe I’m talking about 1965.

John Hansen:

I remember when we did our interview before, you were talking about the prices that you paid for your apartment that you rented. It was crazy.

Bill Grant:

You know what? I could not believe it. I wish it was that way today. But Los Angeles was probably the cheapest place in the country to live in. I was going to school a little. Mostly, I got to tell you the truth, I was going to Muscle Beach. I was trying to work out. I mean, I just love California. That was my lifelong dream, to go to Muscle Beach.

John Hansen:

You were already a bodybuilder at the time, right?

Bill Grant:

Oh yeah, I was.

John Hansen:

Winning shows in New Jersey.

Bill Grant:

Yeah. I mean, it was great. Joe Weider was there. I went to meet him in Union City, but when I saw the pictures of Dave Draper from Secaucus and the palm trees, Santa Monica Beach, Muscle Beach, the guys working out on the beach. A young kid gets really impressionable. In a place that you want to be and you’re seeing it and seeing it day in and day out. John, that’s all I could think about. I had to go to California. People were absolutely out of my … Are you out of your crazy? What is wrong with you? I saved up. Oh I thought I had a lot of money. $500. My dad said, “What the hell are you going to do with that?” I says, “Well, that’s the money I’m going to have.” He says, “How long do you think that money is going to last you?”

Bill Grant:

My father was always in my corner. He knew what I wanted to do. He was a professional fighter. He knew I had a real big passion on bodybuilding. He always stuck up for me when people laughed at me. My sisters and her friends, they just really laughed at me. They’d see me in the bedroom lifting weights, and I’m looking in the mirror and I’m posing, and they says, “What are you looking at?” I says, “Oh you don’t see it, but I do.” They says, “You damn right we don’t see anything.”

John Hansen:

So Bill, you went out there in ’65. That was pretty early. Was Gold’s Gym going on back then?

Bill Grant:

Yeah, I think it just started. That’s 1965, 1966, around there. Yeah. I went down there. But other things really happened when I was there. My life was just starting. And when you’re young, you’re young, you always thought you knew everything. But at any rate, in 1966, I met a girl and that was history. That’s where the three kids came from. She was from Sweden. In 1966. Oh, we had an apartment there. $69. $69 and 85 cents.

John Hansen:

Oh my god. That’s crazy.

Bill Grant:

Furnished. And it was right on Venice Boulevard. It was right near the overpass of the Santa Monica freeway. So I mean, I wasn’t far from there.

John Hansen:

Did you meet Arnold when he first came to the United States?

Bill Grant:

No. Arnold wasn’t there yet. I was there before him, about four or five years before him. I met him in ’69. Now you have to understand, I told you Arnold was right. You can’t be afraid to fail with anything. Some of the most successful people in the world have failed not once, 10, 15 times. You can’t be afraid. And he’s right. You can’t. You’re not going to make it the first time. It doesn’t mean you’re no good and you’re not a good person and you’re stupid. It just happens. You’re not ready for it. So I met my wife there. When I told my dad I was getting married on the phone, he didn’t say anything right away. He had to digest that. “Excuse me? What did you just say?” I said, “Well, I’m going to get married.” He says, “Wait a minute. You’re sure that’s what you want to do?”

Bill Grant:

Now he wasn’t really discouraging me. He just was trying to tell me the facts. He says, “You’re only 19. You’re really not ready to be married. It’s a big responsibility, and I don’t think you’re ready for it.” This is how honest my parents were. He wasn’t angry. He was very soft spoken, just telling me the facts. He did tell me, he says, “But it’s your choice.” We stayed there for a while. We both worked at an electronic factory. The big hourly rate was really great, $1.25 an hour. I used to make transformers. I hope those people didn’t get shocked. It was a little dicey.

Bill Grant:

We lost our jobs. We had a car. It was a 1950 something green Plymouth. Hey, that sucker was good because we drove it all the way back to New Jersey. Now, you have to understand, my dad told me. I didn’t know what he was telling me this for. He says, we’re coming home, “But I don’t want you to drive the car across the country.” I said, “Why? I can drive.” But that wasn’t the reason, John. And I hope people don’t get offended by what I’m going to say now, but she was Swedish and I was a black guy. In the 1960s, you know what it was like in the country.

John Hansen:

Sure.

Bill Grant:

I was naïve. I was colorblind. A person to me, if they’re a friend, they’re a friend. I wouldn’t care what color they were. In the gym, the same one I was training, I didn’t care who they were. I hung out with everybody. Even my black friends, “Oh man, how you hanging out with those white guys?” I said, “Why you saying that, man?” I said, “They’re friends of mine. What do you mean?” I said, “They’re friends of mine. I train at the gym with them.” I go to the beach and everything with them. I said, “What’s wrong with you guys? What’s wrong with this?” I didn’t care, even if I got ridiculed. I said, “This is my life, and I can hang out with whoever I want. You don’t like it, too bad. Sorry.”

Bill Grant:

So we drove across the country, and we did have a couple of pitfalls where it could have been very dangerous. We were driving through Texas, Amarillo, Texas at the time, and it really wasn’t a good place for me and my wife to be going through. We went to a restaurant. When we both walked in the restaurant, the place got really quiet. And I said, “This is probably a problem.” So we had to leave the restaurant. Then we got to Wheeling, West Virginia out in the mountains. We got chased like crazy, and I was terrified. I said oh I’m going to get killed here, man. But that little Plymouth was good. It was good. I put the pedal to the metal, man. I was really disheartened about that. I said, “Why? What did I do to anybody? Why would anybody want to harm me and my wife? What did we do? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Bill Grant:

To this day, it’s the same thing. I just don’t understand. I just don’t understand it, man. Do you know what I mean? I’m just the guy who likes people, no matter who you are. If you’re an ass, you’re an ass. It doesn’t matter what color you are. You know what I’m saying? But my wife was pregnant at the time. I mean, I just really wasn’t ready for all of this. But she was seven years older than me, and it was rough going. When I got home, I stayed at my parents’ house. Fast forward now to when I went to Los Angeles again.

John Hansen:

Yeah.

Bill Grant:

It’s 1969. I said this is my time to go again. And I still had my family sitting in Jersey. So my friend came out, too. We stayed at the Hollywood YMCA. We had a car. We drove up to Vince’s Gym because it was close. I think that was really before Gold’s, but everybody was training there. And that’s when I met Arnold, in 1969. He had an apartment in north Hollywood. It was a beat up old one bedroom apartment furnished. 

John Hansen:

And this was at-

Bill Grant:

This was Vince’s Gym. This is when everybody was … I mean, you name it, and they were training there. Vince was a little weird. He used to call Arnold a dough boy and he said he’d never get anywhere or do anything. He was really wrong about Arnold. He was really right about mostly everybody, but he was very very wrong, most people were very very wrong, about Arnold. Here’s a guy comes from Austria, he couldn’t speak English that well, he looked like a slob. This guy’s a doofus, man. Nobody believed in him, but Joe did. You noticed it. Now you know how Arnold really got here. It was Rick Wayne that told Joe Weider to bring him.

John Hansen:

Oh really? Okay.

Bill Grant:

Yes. It’s him. He’s the one who saw Arnold. He found him. And he told Joe, “That’s the guy you need. You need to bring him.” And Joe, he took his advice, and Arnold got there. Arnold is great. I used to hang out in his apartment. He’d make me smoothies and stuff. I really got close to him. I mean really. We were friends constantly. Arnold came here with a dream. But Arnold had a plan, and I tell people that. He had a plan, a plan that we didn’t have. Arnold knew what he wanted to do and where he was going to go. And he knew bodybuilding would be the stepping stone. That’s just the way it is. Arnold’s a bright guy. He’s not a dope. He was never stupid. He just looked that way because he couldn’t speak English and stuff. He knew what he was doing.

John Hansen:

Now when did you guys move over to Gold’s Gym?

Bill Grant:

I even think it was in ’69, too. Everybody started going. When Vince took away the squat rack, Arnold said, “We have to get out of here now. This is ridiculous now. How do you get legs?” Vince always thought that squats would give you a big ass. I didn’t know it. I didn’t get a big ass. Arnold didn’t get a big one. I mean, some of his methods were a little not that great. But most of the stuff, Vince was a guru. The guy was really good. You saw what Mohamed Makkawy looked like one year when Vince worked on him. Vince had this attitude of you don’t like it, get the hell out. That’s it. He wanted just a few good men to train. That was it. He had all the stars and everything. He just was weird.

Studio 54

John Hansen:

When did you guys first meet Charles Gaines and George Butler from Pumping Iron? Was that in ’73, right? Is that when they came out?

Bill Grant:

Yes. Arnold saw them first. They came to him. But somebody asked him … Jerry Ragni. He did … Remember Hair, the stage play Hair? They wanted Arnold to be in that, but Arnold said, “Oh no, I’m not doing this. Taking my fucking clothes off on the stage. Are they crazy?” But I met these guys. This guy, Jerry Ragni, was a little off the hook. I met him as well. I can’t remember what show it was. It might have been 1973. I came to the show and he took a couple of us guys to, what was it?

John Hansen:

Studio 54?

Bill Grant:

Yeah. Right, right, right. He took me there one night. It was after a show. It didn’t matter what you wore. They were famous for not even letting the famous people in, like Frank Sinatra. They told him he couldn’t get in yet. So we get in real good. I got the sweats on and stuff. I go in with Ragni. We’re walking around. What’s her name, Sophia Loren was there. A lot of big stars. So this is what he told me. He says, “Bill, it’s Johnny Carson up on the riser, man, with his manager.” He says, “Listen, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go over there and jump on that stage and I want you to pose with Johnny Carson.” I said, “Man, you must be out of your cotton picking mind, man.” He says, “No, man. You’ll get a lot-” I says, “You’re crazy.” He says, “Just do it, man.” I says, “Okay, give me a couple more glasses of wine.”

John Hansen:

And this was at the Studio 54?

Bill Grant:

This is Studio 54.

John Hansen:

And what year was this, Bill?

Bill Grant:

I think 1973. That’s when I was third in the Mr. World. So I’m getting a buzz from drinking the wine.

John Hansen:

Was this right after the contest?

Bill Grant:

Yeah, yeah. It was right after the contest. So I’m a little buzzed. I ripped off my jacket, man, and I jumped up on the stage and started posing. Johnny Carson got up and took his shirt and he started posing. The crowd was going crazy. And it was in The Inquirer, man.

John Hansen:

Oh really?

Bill Grant:

Yeah. Mr. America Poses Up With Johnny Carson at Studio 54.

John Hansen:

Oh really? Wow.

Bill Grant:

People at work, I used to work for United, just, “Bill, man, you were in The Inquirer.” “What are you talking about?” “Something about Johnny Carson, man.” So he was right. He was right. The public was ripe. It was ripe for bodybuilding in the ’70s. It really was. Because everything else was evolving and changing. And bodybuilding was big time.

John Hansen:

Did you meet Butler at that contest? Because… right?

Bill Grant:

I think I did. For the book itself. They took pictures and all this stuff. Me, I say you know what? If Arnold’s doing it, I better jump right in. He knows something I don’t know. I followed him, because I really knew Arnold was smart. Because I talked to him. And I said whatever he’s doing, I’m going to do it. And I said if these guys don’t want to go with him, I’m going. And it was right. It was the right thing to do. I didn’t squawk about anything.

John Hansen:

So what did you think about the book Pumping Iron when it came out?

Bill Grant:

The book was great, because I had pictures in it.

John Hansen:

Yeah, yeah. You were in there.

Bill Grant:

Yeah, it was really good. It captured the public’s eye. That is when I got my second girlfriend. I was already now dispersed from my first wife. She saw me in the magazine, and she was kind of an artist, and she saw my abs and she just had to meet me. Wow. In the ’70s, it was wild. It was free love all over the place. The disco was mad. The rents now at this point were still cheap, man. It was unbelievable. Joe Weider actually paid my rent every month. I worked for United Airlines at the same time, for 10 years, in flight operations. So I had a pretty good job. I got this apartment right on the beach just about. It was a studio apartment, it wasn’t furnished. But it had wall to wall carpeting, it had a fireplace, dishwasher, the whole thing. Now remember, I could see clearly right to the sea, to the ocean. It was $180 a month.

John Hansen:

Wow. You said Joe Weider was paying your rent, Bill?

Bill Grant:

Yeah. He gave me $200 a month. This is what he did with us. The only thing he’d do is write an article every month with Rick Wayne. You go up, you talk, $200. I thought okay, that was cool. Paid my rent. And I had a job as well, and I was getting paid well there, too, at the airport. So it was good for me. At that time, you remember Manny Perry, right?

John Hansen:

Yes.

Bill Grant:

He came out from Massachusetts. He was with his friends. They were living in their truck. We got friends. We were training together at the gym. And I said, “Listen, Manny, I can help you guys out, but only one other guy can come stay with me in the house. I don’t have any more room.” So I had Manny come up. But I didn’t discard these guys. I said, “You can put the car, your truck, underneath the building. I’ll give you the key to my apartment so you guys can come up and eat, take showers, and wash your … We have a laundry room. You can wash your clothes, the whole nine yards.”

Bill Grant:

That’s just the kind of guy I was. And I was like that since I was 15. My mother used to always tell me, “You befriend anybody you see.” I say, “That’s just the way I am, Mom. That’s just the way it is.” And I didn’t mind helping them.

Mr. World Contest and Qualifying to Mr. Olympia

John Hansen:

In ’74, Bill, you had a good year, right? Because that’s the year you won the Mr. World contest and that was that same night they held the Mr. American and the Mr. Olympia also.

Bill Grant:

Mr. Olympia, the America. It was a clean sweep of Gold’s Gym, and I’ll attach something else to that, too. Serge Nubret would come out every year. So this year he was out there. And you’ve probably seen the pictures of me and him posing with Mike Katz next to me doing a most muscular. And he had that look on his face. But he came in here. It’s like when you’re an athlete, you don’t go to the opponent’s house and start talking smack to a man. I mean, he came in and he says, “Oh, man. Me and my guys are going to wipe you out.” I said, “Man, do. You better cut that crap out. They ain’t beating me with nothing.” And I says, “Come over here. Come over here. I want to show you something.”

Bill Grant:

So I ripped off my shirt. Mike Katz was on one side and Serge was on the other side. If you look at the picture, look at his face when he saw me. This is like five weeks before the show. You could see like, “Oh man.” I said, “Your guys ain’t got a chance. I’m going to blow them out. How dare you come to my house and tell me your guys are going to wipe me out? Okay, we’re going to see about that.” And of course you know what happened at the show. I won best chest, best back, best arms, best abs, most muscular, I was second in best legs, and I won at the same time. I says, “How about that, Serge? What happened to your guys?” They’d gotten zilch, man. He didn’t say anything. He walked away. Hey, he put a fire under my ass, man.

John Hansen:

Who did you beat in that contest?

Bill Grant:

Ed Corney. And you know, Ed Corney was 44 years old at that time. Can you imagine?

John Hansen:

Wow, that’s amazing.

Bill Grant:

Wait a minute. That was 1974. He was already 44 years old. I beat all the French guys. And everybody else was there. There was quite a few guys. I can’t remember who all, but they were good. And I wiped them all. I think that was a best for all of us, even Arnold. Look at those pictures from 1974. I think we all peaked in 1974. Not like we got worse, but that was the pinochle of what we were at, and it was great. I couldn’t believe in, man. It was a clean sweep. Gold’s Gym win the America, Olympia, and the World. Wow, everybody now wanted to go to Gold’s Gym.

John Hansen:

I think that Mr. World contest, that qualified you for the Olympia the next year, right?

Bill Grant:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was fantastic, man. It was like … Let’s put it this way, John. It was my dream come true. If you can believe it, you can achieve it. Now remember, I started John, for the ones out there who are going to be listening to this probably don’t realize, I was 4’9″, 110 pounds at 14 years old. I was the smallest guy in high school. Nobody. They said, “You don’t have a chance for anything, man. Sports, nothing.” I just blew up. But you know what? That was the catalyst that made me train. That negative stuff. I just pulled it right in and just used it for energy.

John Hansen:

How old when you won the Mr. World?

Bill Grant:

Let’s see. 1974.

John Hansen:

’74.

Bill Grant:

I must have been about 25. It was a dream come true. I mean, I started bodybuilding at 14. So maybe like, let’s see, 12 years later I finally got there. I keep telling guys, even today, I say, “Hey, man. You don’t just go into the gym and the next year you’re going to win all the big titles. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to fail a couple of times.” That’s what I’m saying. Like Arnold said. You can’t be afraid to fail. You get beat. I got my asses kicked a couple of times. But you can’t say, “It’s done.” I’ve seen guys that were really good, and because they lost, they finished. They didn’t want to do it anymore. See for me, that wasn’t it. Every time I lost …

Bill Grant:

Sometimes i said, “Maybe it’s nice to lose,” because I really trained, man. I mean 1973 when I was third, Ken Waller won the world, Dennis Tinerino was second, and I was third. I was pissed. There was no hate between us. We all would go out to eat and hang out. But I said, “Oh hell no, man. No way. No way. It’s mine next year. It’s going to be mine.” Man, I trained all year. Eddie Giuliani was my training partner. Even after that and after Pumping Iron, now you have to remember, Hollywood was obsessed about bodybuilding. We all were. Matter of fact, I think I was in television shows before Arnold and any of those guys.

Bill Grant On Pumping Iron

John Hansen:

Let’s go to ’75, Bill, because that’s the summer that George Butler came to California and he started filming the movie Pumping Iron.

Bill Grant:

Right.

John Hansen:

You said that you talked to him about you guys getting paid, right, because you said you wanted to get paid what an extra in a movie would get paid, right?

Bill Grant:

Well, right. Now see, that’s where a lot of footage that I had, they cut it off. They got pissed. Listen. My mother always told me, said, “If something’s not right, you got to stand up for yourself.” That wasn’t politically correct. I was pissed. I said, “Why is Arnold getting all the money and we’re getting nothing?” It was a big thing. And all of a sudden, he gave us the money. But okay, we’re going to cut out shit from Bill Grant. They were pissed.

John Hansen:

Did you talk to George Butler?

Bill Grant:

Oh I still talk to him. Yeah, yeah.

John Hansen:

Did you talk to him then when he was filming it?

Bill Grant:

Oh yeah. I told him. I asked him. I told him, I said, “Why is Arnold getting all the money? How come we’re not getting paid?” I said, “Remember, you can’t have a movie with just a star with no extras and with no cast of characters.” I was right. I knew I was right. I mean, it wasn’t right to not give us anything. 

John Hansen:

Did they have you working out and interviews and stuff?

Bill Grant:

Yeah, they did. They did. They cut it off. They were pissed at me because they had to give money to us they wanted to keep. That’s not right. It just wasn’t right, and nobody said anything. I says, “No.” Even Arnold told me, “No, man. No. This is not right. This is not right. We should get paid just like extras in the movies.” And they gave the money, but it was at a cost for me. But nobody hated me after that. Eddie Giuliani always used to tell me, he said, “Nobody will tell you that, but Joe Weider loved you. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.” He told me that. Joe loved me, he said.

Bill Grant:

I said, “What?” He says, “Yeah. That’s why nobody will do any bad things to you because he likes you, man.” But you have to remember. I met Joe Weider when I was 15 years old. I barge into his office.

John Hansen:

Yeah. Out in New Jersey, right?

Bill Grant:

Yeah. I came over, I said … The secretary says … I said, “I’m here to see Joe Weider.” “Do you have an appointment?” I said, “No, but I want to see Joe Weider,” and we’re having a conversation out there. And he came, “What’s going on out there?” “Oh well, Mr. Weider, this kid said he wanted to see you.” “Oh, that’s okay. Come on. Let him come into the office,” and we started talking. And that was the relationship we had, man. He never forgot me. And I think really he liked me because I had balls. Joe liked guys with balls, man. He did. I could see Arnold did the same thing to him. If you were just a pussy with him, I’m telling you, man, he wouldn’t respect you.

John Hansen:

Really?

Bill Grant:

I think he respected me because I barged in. I used to tell him what it is, man. That’s just the way I was taught. But I love Joe Weider. They can say whatever they want bad about Joe Weider. He was really a fair guy. He changed the face of bodybuilding and how it was going to be. And without Joe Weider, do you think all this would be going on right now? No, I don’t think so.

John Hansen:

No, I agree with you.

Bill Grant:

I really don’t. There would be no Arnold Schwarzenegger, there would be no Bill Grant, there would be no Robby Robinson, there would be no Frank Zane, nothing.

Mr Olympia and Mr Universe in South Africa, 1975

John Hansen:

Right. Talk about that trip to South Africa, Bill, because that was a really big event in bodybuilding. They brought the Olympia and the Universe over to Victoria, South Africa.

Bill Grant:

Right, right.

John Hansen:

Tell us a little bit about your trip going over there.

Bill Grant:

It was a pretty political thing to do, but it was good, and it was great. Me, I went. I had some real problems getting there. Not because it was me, because that was happening. I took a flight, and I went to Paris, and I went to a hotel and I wanted to refresh and go to sleep because it was hours before the next flight. I missed the flight.

John Hansen:

Really? You missed the flight to Africa?

Bill Grant:

Yeah.

John Hansen:

Oh man.

Bill Grant:

No, no, no. But I had to take another one. So I got there late after pre-judging. They had all that going on.

John Hansen:

Really?

Bill Grant:

Yeah. It was bad for me.

John Hansen:

What happened?

Bill Grant:

Well, I came there, I got there, and Reg Park himself came to the airport to pick me up. I stayed at Reg Park’s house. He was so nice to me. And when I got there, I says, “Reg, I got to go to the bathroom.” He says, “Bill, I don’t think you want to go to the bathroom here. There’s a bathroom for you. You wouldn’t like it. And I don’t like it either. But wait until you get to my house.” He had a beautiful house. He had a swimming pool. He treated me like a god really. It was so nice. They can say what they can say about him being… but the guy was great. He treated me so good, man. I can’t say better things about him and his family, how they treated me the whole time I was there. I stayed a week at their house.

Bill Grant:

They were just so great, man, and I miss Reg Park. He was just a standup guy. Sometimes you hear, like stars, how they’re asses and this and that, but it’s not really the thing. Maybe they had a confrontation with some asshole and made it look like a mess. The guy was great. He was really really good to me, man. I loved it being there. And he got really pissed off at one thing. He wanted me to be a judge at the Mr. South Africa contest, but they wouldn’t let me do it, and he was pissed. He was really angry about that. He scolded them. He said, “What the hell is wrong with you people? This guy is a champion bodybuilder. He’s a bodybuilder. Why shouldn’t he be judging?” “You know, Reg, the guy, he’s a black guy. We can’t-” Oh he was pissed. But anyway, he stood up for me. He was a standup guy. He really was. The whole family was like that.

John Hansen:

What happened in the contest in ’75?

Bill Grant:

They pre-judged me, but it didn’t really count. They did it in the hotel room. It was sad. By myself. I mean, it was sad because it was my fault.

John Hansen:

Wow.

Bill Grant:

Listen, listen. The onus is on me. I have to take the responsibility for that. I missed the flight. I can’t blame any of them guys. I want everybody to know it’s nobody else’s fault but my own. I missed the damn plane. So I have to take responsibility for that.

John Hansen:

You missed the pre-judging and then all the judges came to the room and-

Bill Grant:

Yeah, to the hotel. Yeah. And I did all the things. But you could really … I couldn’t get a good-

John Hansen:

Yeah…

Bill Grant:

Right. So they couldn’t do it. And I wasn’t mad at them either. They told me, a lot of them. They says, “If you got there earlier, the outcome could have been a little bit different. But you weren’t there. And I don’t blame you.” I maybe would have come in second or something. I don’t know. But I was ready. I was in shape that year.

John Hansen:

Franco was first and then Corney was second, right?

Bill Grant:

Yeah.

John Hansen:

How was the rest of your experience out there during that show?

Bill Grant:

Now, like I’m telling you, Reg Park treated me like a king, like a god. I just couldn’t believe he did this well. He called a friend up who had an Italian restaurant, and he says, “I’m bringing a friend to the restaurant, and I don’t want any wish wash going on here. Okay?” We get there, and of course we walk in and the place got quiet. Because it wasn’t allowed. And they sat us right at the window, man. And Reg, he demanded it. “This is a friend of mine. He’s a great bodybuilder. He’s eating here.” You know, listen, that’s why I said I can’t say enough about Reg Park with his hospitality to me and blacks. He didn’t like it, he told me. He said, “I don’t like what’s going on in this country. It shouldn’t be like this. But unfortunately I can’t change it by myself. If I could I would. But as far as you’re with me, you’re part of me. And this is it. Okay? So you don’t have to worry about anything because you’re with me.”

Bill Grant:

And I told everybody the story. And I’m telling everybody right now about that. So the whole world who listens to this, they can know that Reg Park is a standup guy. He stuck up for me and he stuck up for everybody else.

John Hansen:

That’s great.

Bill Grant:

So they can never come to my face and say, “Oh, Reg Park was a racist.” I’d slap them. I would. Because you don’t even know what you’re talking about. You don’t even know the guy. You weren’t even there. You never saw that guy. You don’t even know what he was like. How can you say he’s such this and that? What, you heard somebody say something or you read it in a magazine? Come on. Please. Get the facts. I’m giving you the facts at hand. I was there.

John Hansen:

At the show that night at the Olympia they let you pose, right?

Bill Grant:

Oh yes they did. Yes they did. Yes they did. That was great. And Reg wanted that to happen, too. He told me. He said, “Bill, there’s nothing I can do to help you. This was your own doing.” And I said, “I understand.” I was upset. I was crying about it, man. I’d come all the way over here and I screwed it up, man. And my mother sent me there. My mother gave me the ticket, man. And I felt really bad that I let her down and I let myself down and I let down Joe Weider because I wasn’t there when I was supposed to, and I was very upset about it about myself. Like I said, I didn’t blame anybody else but me. It was my own stupidity. So let’s get the facts straight. Let’s get it all back and get it in perspective that this is what happened at the Mr. Olympia.

John Hansen:

Of course I saw you in Pumping Iron. I saw you on stage when they had that pose down. But I never knew that you missed it. I never knew that.

Bill Grant:

Right. So now everybody knows what happened.

John Hansen:

When the movie came out, what did you think of it?

Bill Grant:

Oh Pumping Iron? Are you kidding me? It was so great, man. It was unbelievable. It was great. It was absolutely fantastic. But now I have to tell you, I just did another documentary. It’s talking about the 1977 Mr. America Parade. This is going to be great. It’s not done yet. If you go to The Raw Iron. If you go to that page, they’ve got some snippets from the thing. Yes. If you go there, The Raw Iron. I have some snippets from it.

John Hansen:

Who’s filming that?

Bill Grant:

It’s Mark Martinez. Now this guy, I knew him since he was a kid when he was coming to Gold’s Gym when it was on Second Street in Santa Monica. He’s in the television industry already. He lives up in northern California. And he got this idea he wanted to do. And this is going to be big. This is really going to be big. He’s not done yet. He’s not finished yet. I had about maybe an hour of an interview, maybe more. If you’re going to do something like that, you’ve got to have a lot a lot of footage, if you’re going to get it together. If you could see some of the stuff I said, some of it was here, but it’s great. He really is showing us up real good, man. This is great.

John Hansen:

Great.

Bill Grant:

He’s going to be back down about it at July 4th. He has to do Tony Pearson. He’s going to do Kent Kuehn because as you know, he’s going to be inducted into the Muscle Beach Hall of Fame on July 4th, and I’m going to be there. And I haven’t been there since … about six years, since I was sick. And most people saw an article in Flex about what happened to me. My near death experience. It was bad. I thought my life was over. I was down to 140-

John Hansen:

Can you tell us about that real quick?

Bill Grant’s Near-Death Experience

Bill Grant:

Yes. I had diverticulitis. As usual, I didn’t pay attention. It went on for three years. And it just came to a head. I’ll just go real fast. It came to a head one night, and my nephew was here in my apartment. And it’s about 12:00 in the evening, and I really got an attack in my stomach and stuff. And I says, “Oh man.” I was just really bent over. And he says, “Uncle Bill, you want me to take you to the hospital? This seems really bad.” I said, “No, it’s just a little bit worse than what it usually is. So he left and about 1:00 o’clock in the morning, I was on the floor. I was writhing on the floor. And listen, people may think I’m crazy. Something told me, “Get up and go to the hospital. You’re dying.”

Bill Grant:

Whatever was in my ear, I got up and I drove myself to the hospital. Can you imagine? I was all scrunched down and about 60 miles an hour riding down regular streets to get to the hospital. My doctor was there, and I told the doctor, I said, “Doc, doc. I feel like I’m dying.” You know what he told me? “You are dying. You need surgery right now.” He had a team of guys. He started screaming, “Come on, get ready. Get ready. This surgery’s got to go.” And the doctor had to do it. He had to cut six inches of my colon out. That’s how bad it was. I survived that. Right now I’m almost 190. I think people are going to be very very surprised when they see me now. I’m getting even bigger constantly. And they can say what they want.

John Hansen:

How old are you now?

Bill Grant:

I’m 70. When I was in Finland, I had a couple of shots of my bicep. I don’t know why my body is responding like this. It’s unbelievable. People have, and I know they can’t believe at 70 that I have this thickness in my biceps, and it’s still there at 70. I don’t have a magic bullet, and I’m not going on anything. They say, “Hey, Bill. What are you taking?” I says, “I’m not taking anything, man.” Only thing I can truly tell you, these are some things I’m taking. Mucuna, reishi, maki, and… But also now I want to tell you real now, Bill Grant is coming out back. Remember my Bill, the creatine cocktail?

John Hansen:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bill Grant:

Well, everybody out there, get ready. It’s coming back. I’m working with another company called RTN Nutrition. I trained the owner. He likes the idea. We collaborated together. Under the RTN thing it’ll be Bill Grant’s creatine cocktails again. It’s ready. I’m doing some little promotions right now. Not specifically saying what’s going on. I think it’s going to be a good idea because people who took the product, they says, “Wow, you coming back?” I said, “Yeah.” They said, “Yeah, great. It was the best drink I ever had.” So just wish me well with this, and I want everybody to know that this is going to be out there. Go to the gym, they say, “Bill, you’re growing all the time.” I say, “This is what I’m doing.”

Bill Grant:

But I did also do, I kicked up my calories and I’m training a lot heavier than I was before. So just thinking about what I did way back in the day. What did you do to get big back then? So you always go back to what works. Frank Zane used to have a journal. I didn’t have a journal, but the journal was in my head. So I said, “Bill, just do what you did before, and it’ll work.” And yes, it’s working. John, I feel so good. I feel like I’m 30 years old. I’m serious. Everybody has to understand. Age is just a number. It doesn’t mean anything. It just documents how long you’ve been on this planet. I’m still in my 20s. They can say whatever they want. You can mentally motivate yourself and build yourself up mentally.

John Hansen:

Bill, thanks again for joining us, and I’m glad you’re feeling better and glad everything’s looking up for you. And you look amazing for 70 years old, Bill.

Bill Grant:

John, thank you very much, man. All right.

John Hansen:

All right, buddy.

Bill Grant:

Take care, man. Take care. All right. Bye-bye.

John Hansen:

All right. Thanks for listening to another addition of the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast brought to you by Old School Labs. Again, go to their website at oldschoollabs.com and use the discount code LEGEND12 to get 12% off your purchase, or you can visit them at amazon.com. Old School Labs is a brand you can trust. Thanks to Bill Grant for joining us again. We always appreciate talking to him. Next week, we’re going to be joined by Mr. Roger Schwab, and Roger was one of the judges, an IFBB judge, in the ’70s, and he also worked for Iron Man magazine, and he wrote a lot of the contest reports. So Roger was really around for a lot of the great, old contests. He saw Arnold win the 1973, ’74 Mr. Olympia. He was a pretty good friend of Arnold back in those days. And of course he was around for all the late ’70s contests.

John Hansen:

He was actually at the premier of Pumping Iron in New York where Arnold and Mike Katz and Lou Ferrigno and Mike Mentzer and Robby Robinson and all those guys were at. So we’re going to have a great interview next week with Roger Schwab, one of the top judges and writers in the bodybuilding field in the ’70s. So that’s it for this week on the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast. Take care, everybody. We’ll see you guys next time.