Making the American Body by Jonathan Black

Author:Jonathan Black [Black, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4962-0950-4
Publisher: Nebraska
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

STAR POWER

Arnold was not the first male actor to exploit a bared physique. The pulp stars of the fifties and sixties had gained a measure of fame by stripping off their shirts. Victor Mature and Robert Mitchum often flaunted their chests. Burt Lancaster’s bathing-suit beach scene with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity came close to scandal status in the buttoned-up fifties. But none of them, not even Lancaster — a former circus acrobat — had the cut muscles that now seemed so sexy. It was left to Sylvester Stallone, the “Italian Stallion,” to bring that look to the big screen. The warrior workouts in Rocky had audiences cheering for the all-American fighter and left a few other actors taking nervous glances in their dressing-room mirror.

Notable among them was John Travolta, who was slated to star in the much-hyped sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Only now, instead of a laid-back disco guy, he was cast as a dance instructor. Worse, the movie, Staying Alive, was being directed by, of all people, Stallone. Travolta could sing, he could act, he could definitely dance — but he was not in Rocky shape, not even close. Months before shooting was scheduled to begin, he was in Aspen, Colorado, starring in a summer-stock play, when he met an athletic consultant at the nearby Snowmass Club. “I couldn’t have been a better pilot project,” said Travolta.

The Travolta “project” fell to Dan Isaacson, a short and fit midwesterner who managed one of the country’s first multisports clubs in Denver. Like Travolta, Isaacson flew planes, and the two men hit it off. For three months he trained Travolta — supervising daily workouts, monitoring what he ate, taking off fat, and adding muscle. When Travolta showed up on the Staying Alive set, he was a man transformed; even Stallone was impressed. Travolta was so pleased he persuaded Isaacson to move to Los Angeles, where he put up money for a twelve-hundred-square-foot studio that Isaacson packed with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment. Before you could say “personal trainer,” Travolta’s movie star pals and Hollywood bigwigs were clamoring for time.

Mickey Rourke needed to look buff as the sexy stud in 9½ Weeks. Linda Evans wanted to perk up her sex appeal in Dynasty. David Hasselhoff, star of Knight Rider, got his number, and so did David Geffen, who recruited Larry Gelbart and Irwin Winkler. Isaacson met Burt Reynolds at a party. Christopher Reeve had to trim the beef he had packed on for Superman — and flew Isaacson to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was playing summer stock; weeks of punishing hands-on training, and Reeve was a convert. He worked with comedians — Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Martin Short. Danny Sullivan, the glamorous race-car driver, hired Isaacson to help restore his battered body after a near-fatal wreck in his Porsche.

Isaacson ministered to them all, sculpting their bodies and gingerly coddling their egos. “If Mickey Rourke requests an after-midnight workout, Isaacson opens the gym,” wrote a reporter for Time. “If Danny Sullivan asks him to fly to Indianapolis, he gets on a jet.

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