STEVE REEVES 1926-2000 Glasgow, Montana, US – FESCH.TV

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Stephen L. Reeves (Glasgow, Montana, January 21, 1926-Escondido, California, May 1, 2000) was an American bodybuilder and actor, who stood out in the peplum genre films made in Italy from the late 1950s to the mid-1950s. the sixties.

He was born in Glasgow, Montana, and moved to California at the age of ten with his mother, Goldie, after the death of his father, Lester Dell Reeves, in an accident.

In high school he developed a great interest in bodybuilding and trained at Ed Yarick’s gym in Oakland. At 17 he already had a very developed body for his time and after graduating he entered the Navy to later fight in World War II and serve in the Pacific.

He soon began winning awards in the world’s top fitness competitions.

In 1946 he was Mr. Pacific in Oregon, in his own category and in the senior category.
In 1947 he was Mr. Western America.
In 1947 he was Mr. Pacific.
In 1947 he was Mr. America.
In 1948 he placed second in the Mister USA tournament.
In 1948 he was NABBA Mr. Universe in his category and second in the absolute category.
In 1948 he proclaimed himself Mr. World.
In 1949 he was third in the Mister USA tournament.
Finally in 1950 he was NABBA Mr. Universe in his and the absolute categories.
Cinema

Steve Reeves in Hercules from 1958
These successes encouraged him to try a career as an actor, and he was on the verge of becoming Samson in Cecil B. DeMille’s film Sanson and Delilah, but Victor Mature was finally chosen, so Reeves‘ film debut was in 1954. by Ed Wood (considered the worst director in the history of cinema) in the film Jail Baits. However, in that same year, 1954, he would appear in another more prestigious project: a Metro musical comedy called Athena, directed by the prolific Richard Thorpe and starring the production company’s stars such as Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds.

A few years later, the Italian director Pietro Francisci, upon viewing this film, would decide that the muscular Reeves would be the protagonist of his film Hercules. The success of this film led to a real boom in films of this genre in Italy. Reeves himself, with the same director, would make a sequel titled Hercules and the Lydian Queen. Reeves‘ success made other strongmen go to Italy in search of his success (Reg Park, Ed Fury or Mark Forrest), but only the former Tarzan Gordon Scott somewhat touched Reeves‘ popularity.

Reeves‘ filmography continued in Italy, with successful films, such as Mario Bonard’s The Last Days of Pompeii, and especially in the co-production The Battle of Marathon by famed director Jacques Tourneur. In the sixties his successes continued, and in 1961 the director Sergio Corbucci put him on the screen opposite his great rival Gordon Scott in the film Romulus and Remus (film), in which both strongmen played the mythical twins. He continues in Italian co-productions but leaves the peplum genre to move on to pirates, playing the pirate Morgan in the film of the same title directed by Primo Zeglio and André de Toth, and Sandokan in The Tiger of Momparcem by Umberto Lenzi.

The Paramount Company considered Reeves for a role in the 1958 version of their Broadway musical, Li’l Abner, but the role ultimately went to Peter Palmer. After the box office success of Hercules, Reeves rejected numerous Hercules sequel films, which other actors nevertheless took advantage of to create their careers. He was offered the role of James Bond in the 007 film against Dr. No in 1962, but he turned it down just as he did with the role that Clint Eastwood eventually played in the 1964 film A Fistful of Dollars.

He also made a new version of The Thief of Bagdad directed by Arthur Lubin and Bruno Bailati, to return to the peplum playing Aeneas in two films, The Trojan War by Giorgio Ferroni and The Legend of Aeneas by Giorgio Rivalta. He works again with Corbucci in Son of Spartacus, a kind of continuation of the famous Kubrick film in which the son of the famous gladiator takes revenge on the murderer of his father.

At the end of the sixties the peplum began to go out of fashion, especially because from the beginning of the sixties the Spaghetti Western made its appearance and little by little it was displacing the Roman genre in popularity. After filming a western Yuma from which he came out without much glory, curiously, the last film of the biggest star of the peplum would be an Italian western titled Alive for the Death of Yours by director Camillo Bazzoni.

George Pal considered him for a role in Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze but the role ultimately went to Ron Ely. At the height of his career he was a well-paid actor in Europe and his last on-screen appearance was in 2000 in his television biography,