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Still A Champion

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By GEOFF FOX, 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 native had added 17 pounds of rippling muscle to his frame.

That was in 1947.

The famous ad - where 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. "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 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 said the Atlas system helped him gain muscle and was a good precursor to a routine involving weights, which he also used before entering bodybuilding contests.

His Wife 'Hates Bodybuilders'

As her husband spoke, Loretta Manfre sat at a table nearby, her cheek resting on her fist. The couple, who raised two daughters and have several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, have been married 50 years.

Loretta Manfre, who met Tom when she worked as a bookkeeper at a furniture business, has heard all of this before.

The missus isn't one to mince words.

No, she said, it wasn't love at first sight.

"I hate bodybuilders and always did," she said in an accent that could only have originated in Brooklyn.

Her husband, a former Mr. World (1953), Mr. New York State (1954) and Mr. Florida (1957), and the proud owner of a Charles Atlas Championship Trophy, leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"They used to walk around like they owned the world," she said. "It's the truth."

"I didn't do that," Tom Manfre said.

"I'm just saying, in general," she said with a laugh. "Not specifically you."

Although Loretta Manfre might not have liked bodybuilders, she didn't mind the 1954 Corvette her husband's physique helped buy.

The Golden Gladiator

For a while, Manfre worked for Atlas, appearing in advertisements as a real-life example of how a skinny guy could be transformed into a musclebound he-man.

"Here's what I did for Thomas Manfre ... and what I can do for you!" read an advertisement that ran in hundreds of publications.

"He was a real serious guy," Manfre said of Atlas. "In fact, his office was five floors up and he would never take the elevator. I went to lunch with him one day, and the restaurant was blocks away. He walked. If he were to see me sitting stooped over like I am now, he would correct me.

"He was a very private man, but he had a manager who pushed him."

Recognition as a muscleman eventually led Manfre to show business.

He performed as one of a team of musclemen in a stage show with Mae West.

In his photo albums are pictures taken with entertainers such as Red Buttons and Tony Curtis.

In 1949, he moved to Miami, where he embarked on a career in professional wrestling. Known as The Golden Gladiator, he wrestled all over Florida for 16 years, until shoulder injuries ended his career.

One of his rivalries was against Big Billy Kodiak, who weighed 416 pounds.

"They used to put me in against him because I was the only one who could pick him up," Manfre said. "In those days, we didn't know who we were going to be in with until we got to the venue. I'd see on the poster that I was wrestling Billy again.

"One time, I was supposed to pick him up and slam him in the middle of the ring, but I got disoriented and threw him over the top rope. He took out the first 10 rows!"

After retiring from wrestling, Manfre operated a successful radiator business in Miami.

He never stopped working out.

At 85, he has taken up painting with acrylics and still exercises several times a week in his home gym.

"It's not how old you are; it's how you feel," he said. "If you can do it, do it."

On a recent weekday, Manfre posed proudly for a photographer.

He curled his fists and bent his arms at 45-degree angles.

His biceps were as big as softballs.
Manfre smiled wide.

From the kitchen, Loretta Manfre hollered a suggestion.

"Suck in your gut!"

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 948-4217 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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