Abbye “Pudgy” Stockton

In our final Strong Women in History segment, I’d like to honor Abbye “Pudgy” Stockton - the Godmother of Modern Female Bodybuilding & Fitness.

Wikipedia - Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton (August 11, 1917 in Santa Monica, California – June 26, 2006) was a professional strongwoman and forerunner of present day female bodybuilders, who became famous through her involvement with Muscle Beach in the 1940s.

Abbye Eville was born on August 11, 1917, and moved to Santa Monica, California in 1924. She acquired the nickname "Pudgy" as a child, and the name stuck, even though she weighed approximately 115 pounds at a height of 5'2". She began dating UCLA student Les Stockton during her senior year of high school; they were married in 1941.

Stockton and her husband were frequent visitors to Muscle Beach, where they primarily worked on acrobatics and gymnastics. One of their most famous feats involved Pudgy serving as the "understander", supporting Les (180 pounds) over her head in a hand to hand stand. Pudgy quickly became a media favorite, and was included in pictorials in Life, Pic, and Laff. She was also featured in the newsreels Whatta Build and Muscle Town USA, as well as ads for Ritamine Vitamin Company and the Universal Camera Company. She estimated that she was featured on the cover of forty-two magazines by the end of the 1940s. She posed with many of the top male bodybuilders of the time, including John Grimek and Steve Reeves.

In 1944, Stockton began writing a regular column on women's training, "Barbelles", in Strength & Health magazine, then the most influential fitness magazine in the world. She also helped organize the first sanctioned weightlifting contests for women. The first of these contests with a sanction from the Amateur Athletic Union was held on February 28, 1947 at the Southwest Arena in Los Angeles. In that contest, Stockton pressed 100 pounds, snatched 105 pounds, and clean and jerked 135 pounds.

Physique contests for women were virtually non-existent in the 1940s, and Stockton held only one such title during her career - she was named "Miss Physical Culture Venus" in 1948. She was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2000.Pudgy and husband Les had a daughter. Les died on April 19, 2004 at the age 87 from melanoma. Abbye died on June 26, 2006 at the age of 88 from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.

 

Strong Women: Miss Robinson

Miss Robinson could support 1560 lbs with her shoulders.

Circus Strongwomen

Before bodybuilding & fitness, there wasn’t much demand for muscular women outside of the Circus Sideshow. Here are a few nameless women that paved the way so long ago.

Strong Women in History: Ivy Russel

Ivy Elizabeth Russel was born in 1907 in Surrey, England. In school she practiced swimming and gymnastics and was 12 when she became a member of a local gymnastic club. Ivy Russell began training with weight at age fourteen to cure her tuberculosis. She not only got well, she got exceptionally strong. Over the next twenty years, she gave numerous exhibitions in the British Isles, making best lifts of 193 pounds in the clean and jerk and 410.5 pounds in the dead lift. She worked in strength demonstrations, like lifting and maintaining several persons. Later, she opened a small gym in Croydon, England.

In 1934, Ivy began attending the “Victory Ladies Wrestling Club” for training in wrestling, and in a year she earned the female wrestling championship title. She also successfully lobbied the British Amateur Weightlifting Association to admit women as full members and to sanction contests for women.

The media became captivated by her physique, strength and athleticism. Her physical parameters were higher than most strong man. Her biceps, calf and thighs were the same or exceeded the size of the most famous heavyweight boxers of her time. Her relatively small stature and extreme muscularity were antithetical to many people’s conception of a “strongwoman” but many admired her.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Madame Anni

1848-1911. Not much recorded about Madame Anni, but damn look at those guns.

Strong Women in History: Miss Ella

Miss Ella was a strongwoman and gymnast with the Schiavoni Troupe of gymnasts.

Strong Women: Alice Collins

Alice Collins was a trapeze artist who worked in the circus in the late 1910s and the beginning of 1920s. She possessed a muscular body, especially incredibly strong arms.

From: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women: The Braselly Sisters

The Braselly Sisters were a pair of strongwomen who specialized in graceful and artistic strength stunts. They were also sisters of the even more famous female athlete, Sandwina. Here the two ladies do an adagio (acrobatic balancing) act. The photo found its way into The Police Gazette in 1909 where it was titled 'Muscles and Music.' The editors asked rhetorically, 'But don't you think the lady athletes are a stunning pair of statuesque beauties?'

From BrainPickings.org

Strong Women: Elise Serafin Luftmann

Among the earliest strongwomen is Elise Serafin Luftmann. Apparently from a German-speaking region of Bohemia, she performed all over central Europe. Luftmann was famous for her ability to lift heavy weights and to juggle cannonballs. This illustration dates c. 1830.

From BrainPickings.org

Strong Women in History: Mars Bennett

Mars Bennett was an American strongwoman and wrestler born in Texas during the 1920s. She started as a trapeze artist in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Mars then worked as a stunt double in the movies and later as a performer of strength and wrestling. She trained with the coach Lou Leonard at the Bothners' gymnasium in New York, where she practiced judo, weightlifting, wrestling and boxing. Mars became a popular wrestler in the late 40’s and 50’s and was also a good singer.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Ethel Hart

Ethel Hart was an American dancer and strongwoman. Miss Hart added more muscle everyday through her dancing performance. She could take her male dancing partner weighing over 200 lbs and throw him over her head. She also was a weightlifter and could lift 200 lbs over her head with ease. This muscular beauty believed that every woman should be fighting fit. She favored boxing and wrestling for women and said that women shouldn’t be condent to be known as the weaker sex.

Source: Strongaly

Strong Women in History: Miss Apollina

Elise Gillaine Herbigneaux (Miss Apollina), was born in Tongrine, Belgium in 1875. Growing up in a large family, Elise always participated in rugged games like hockey, tussled with boys and loaded and unloaded wagons with her own mighty arms. At fifteen, she trained to imitate the feats of the Antwerp strongman, Jean Larrey.

Apollina moved to Paris and trained at the Arasse Gymnasium in wrestling and weightlifting. She later left for Hamburg and won a wrestling championship. She emerged as the World's Champion in international competitions held in Liege, Brussels, Ghent, Charleroi and Mons where she defeated forty female wrestlers holding a title which has never been taken away. Next, Apollina toured London and the other cities showcasing her feats of strength. In her stage performances, she would engage local wrestlers to raise audience excitement and regularly wrestled men.

Apollina eventually married and adopted a three year old lost boy who later became a famous professor of strength.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Ali Braco

Madame Ali Braco or "The Woman Cannon" began working in the circus world around 1875. She was an expert in acrobatics, but Ali’s most famous stunts were demonstrating her strength with a cannon. She would place the cannon on her shoulders, then hang upside down, leaning on a trapezium with her legs and lifting a heavy cannon held by the teeth (without using hands).

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Lillian Leitzel

Beautiful strongwoman and acrobat Lillian Leitzel was born Alitza Pelikan in Breslau, Germany on January 2, 1892 in a family of circus performers. Her father was a Hungarian army officer and theater performer. Her mother was a Czech circus acrobat. She weighed just 95 Lbs and 4’9" tall. Unlike other strongwomen, this little lady was famous by her inconceivable acrobatic numbers which required literally herculean strength.

Although she had been well-educated and had prepared to pursue a career as a concert pianist, she joined her mother's aerobatic circus group, the Leamy Ladies. In 1910, she came to the United States with the circus troupe and performed with Barnum and Bailey. The group later dissolved and its member returned to Europe, but Leitzel continued to attempt to perform in the American vaudeville circuit. In South Bend, Indiana, she was seen by an agent of the Ringling Brothers who offered her a contract. When Ringling and Barnum and Bailey merged, she became a huge star and a headline performer for the circus.

Leitzel's act included one-armed plunges, momentarily dislocating the shoulder during each plunge. She would flip her body over her shoulder repeatedly, sometimes hundreds of times in a feat of endurance, encouraging the audience to count each one in unison. She was best known for her flirting rapport with the audience.

She was also famous for her demanding personality and temper. Although pursued by many wealthy suitors, she married a series of circus individuals and never had any children. Her last marriage was in 1928 with the circus trapeze performer Alfredo Codona. On February 13, 1931, she fell to the ground from her rigging while performing in Copenhagen, Denmark when the swivel that held the rope in place crystallized and snapped. She and Codona had been performing in Europe separately, and he rushed to Copenhagen. They boarded a train to return to Berlin where Codona had a commitment. However, she died on February 15, two days after the fall, aged 39.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Athleta

Athleta Van Huffelen was born in 1868, in Anvers, Belgium to a long line of athletes (and would later prove her name a fitting choice). In 1886 at only 18, Athleta started her weightlifting spectacles at the "Eden Alhambra" theater in Brussels. She would dance with three men on the shoulders or carry a heavy bar on her shoulders with four suspended men. After her initial success, Athleta traveled to England and later all over Europe and America holding exhibitions of her physical power.

Continuing in the business, Athleta and her daughters Brada, Louise and Anna performed together in spectacles demonstrating physical strength. In 1905, Athleta left the world of spectacles and lived in a country chalet (called "Village Athleta") along with her husband and family near Anvers, Belgium. The three daughters continued performing at the famous Parisian nightclub "Folies Bergere" but never reached the glory their mother had obtained.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com

Strong Women in History: Marina Lurs

Maria Loorberg (Marina Lurs) was born on April 10, 1881, in Revel (now Tallinn, Estonia), and passed away on March 30, 1922. Maria had a solid build – weighed 176lbs with a height of 5'6". In 1903 she became a student of Adolph Andrushkevich, a Russian powerlifting coach and two years later started appeared as a wrestler and powerlifter in carnivals and circuses around Estonia and other provinces of Russia.

Marina Lurs easily juggled two 70lb dumbbells, pushed up 176lbs with two arms, and snatched 106lbs by one hand. On August, 1913 Lurs established the record by planting her arms firmly on the knees and maintained 13 people on her legs. The total weight – 1940lbs, nearly a ton! The audience was dazzled by her “live carousel” act in which Marina spun a yoke with people attached.

Marina enjoyed an enormous popularity and became known as a female Kalev (a national hero of Estonia). She is still honored in Estonia as a strongwoman and a great wrestler.

Edited from: www.fscclub.com