Results Oriented! Because Results Are All That Matter!: Hero figure LOU FERRIGNO

Everyone loves Louie the gentle giant of the bodybuilding world! as a boy I would watch lou in the incredible hulk series on tv and wish I had muscles like that! actually I wouldn't have minded being green either but hey I was a kid! and as anyone who has looked through this blog can deduce, The Hulk is my favorite Marvel super hero.

Early life

Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn , New York to Matt Ferrigno, an Italian American New York City Police Department Lieutenant, and his mother Victoria. As an infant, he suffered an ear infection and lost some of his hearing. Ferrigno started weight training at age 13, citing body builder and Hercules star Steve Reeves as one of his role models.

Ferrigno's personal heroes as a child were Spider Man and the Hulk. Appropriately, he would later play the role of the Hulk himself in the Incredible Hulk television series and related TV movies. He was also a fan of the Hercules films that starred Steve Reeves. Ferrigno frequently points to Reeves as one of his primary role models and would later play Hercules just as Reeves had.

Career

After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1969, Ferrigno won his first major titles, IFBB Mr . America and IFBB Mr . Universe, four years later. Early in his career he lived in Columbus and trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1974, he came in second on his first attempt at the Mr . Olympia competition. He then came third the following year, and his attempt to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger was the subject of the 1975 documentary Pumping Iron. Following this, Ferrigno left the competition circuit for many years, a period that included a stint as a defensive lineman for the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League.

Ferrigno competed in the first World's Strongest Man competition in 1977, where he finished fourth in a field of eight competitors. While competing, Ferrigno regularly went to see a physician who checked up on whether he was doing damage to his body.

Ferrigno signed up with Universal Studios in 1977, and beat out both Arnold Schwarzenegger (although both Ferrigno and Schwarzenegger himself have gone on record saying Arnold was not in the running) and Richard Kiel for the title role opposite Bill Bixby as the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk. Richard Kiel was hired for the series first, and scenes were filmed. It was quickly determined he was not muscular enough, and Ferrigno was signed. One brief shot of Kiel remains in the pilot movie. Although Ferrigno and Bixby did not share lines on camera (except for one episode, "King of the Beach"), the two were friends. Ferrigno continued playing the Hulk role until 1981, although the last two episodes were not broadcast until May 1982. Later, he and Bixby co-starred in three The Incredible Hulk TV movies. There were major talks of another movie, The Rebirth of The Incredible Hulk, but due to Bixby's illness, the project never went beyond the earliest stages of development. Ferrigno continued to keep in touch with Bixby until his death on November 21, 1993. Ferrigno attended Bixby's funeral in California

In 1983 Ferrigno appeared as John Six on the short lived medical drama Trauma Centre.

During competition, Lou Ferrigno weighed 285 lb (130 kg) in 1975, and 316 lb (143 kg) in 1992; at 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) he was one of the tallest professional bodybuilders at that time.

In the early 1990s, Ferrigno returned to bodybuilding, competing for the 1992 and 1993 Mr. Olympia titles. Finishing 12th and 10th, respectively, he then turned to the Masters Olympia, coming second in 1994 to Robby Robinson. After this, he retired from competition.