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Charles Atlas Ad Changed Man's Life

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 12, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - Tom Manfre was 5-foot-7 and weighed 105 pounds.

Within six months of reading Charles Atlas' iconic bodybuilding advertisement on the back of a comic book, the Brooklyn, N.Y., native had added 17 pounds of rippling muscle to his frame.

That was in 1947.

The famous ad - in which a 100-pound weakling gets sand kicked in his face by a bully, then knocks the bully out after bulking up Atlas-style - had forever changed Manfre's life.

"I'm old as dirt," said the 85-year-old, who lives in the Oakstead community in Land O' Lakes. "But I still work out like a champion."

He has the build to prove it.

Although he now stands a shade under 5-foot-7, he still has the hulking shoulders, chiseled arms and barrel chest of a powerful athlete. As he has for six decades, Manfre credited Atlas for developing his interest in bodybuilding.

"There was no weight training with the Atlas method. It was muscle against muscle," he said. "It was resistance exercises, like Pilates. I've been doing it 60 years and all of a sudden I see it on TV as Pilates."
Manfre is a former Mr. World (1953), Mr. New York State (1954) Mr. Florida (1957), and the proud owner of a Charles Atlas Championship Trophy.

Geoff Fox

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