Gold's Gym Founder Dead
Gym founder Joe Gold dead at 82
Suffered from heart, kidney problems
Updated: 10:15 p.m. ET July 12, 2004LOS ANGELES - Joe Gold, who founded the legendary California gym that brought body building to the mainstream and became the launch pad for the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, died Sunday in a Los Angeles suburb, associates said Monday. He was 82.
Gold, a Los Angeles native and lifelong bodybuilding enthusiast, opened the first Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, California, in 1965, calling it “the first gym made specifically for bodybuilders.”
The unassuming storefront in a low-rent district attracted an international following and shot to fame as the setting for the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron,” featuring Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno.
Gold sold his namesake gym in the 1970s and went on to found Marina Del Rey, California-based World Gym, where he continued to work until near the end of his life. Both operations have grown into sprawling international chains.
Gold’s Gym International was sold to privately held TRT Holdings, Inc., which owns Omni Hotels, last month in a deal the Los Angeles Times said was valued at $160 million.
Gold, who had carried dumbbells with him on merchant marine voyages for decades, hand-welded and designed much of the equipment in his original gym, including cable-based gear that bodybuilders came to rely on to push their muscles to exhaustion.
Tough-minded place
He also set the tone for the gym—a tough-minded place where “the only music was sweating and grunting,” said Michael Uretz, Gold’s longtime friend and business partner at World Gym.
“He put his gym in a place where he wanted to be,” Uretz said. “In the sun, on the beach and with cheap rent. Because in those days bodybuilders had no money.”
In the years since, weight lifting went from the fringe to the mainstream, Venice became one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the United States, and Schwarzenegger, once an unknown Austrian immigrant, went on to become first a major Hollywood action star and then governor of California.
But in the early 197Os, Gold was still charging just $45 for a year membership and bodybuilders would crowd a nearby restaurant featuring six eggs and toast for $1, Uretz said.
'Deeply saddened'
Schwarzenegger issued a statement Monday saying he was ”deeply saddened” by Gold’s death.
“Joe was a trusted friend and a father figure and was instrumental in my training during my days as a bodybuilder,” Schwarzenegger said. “Gold’s Gym was not only a training facility, but it became a home to me.
“In 1968, when I came to America, Gold’s Gym was the gym where I first went to work out. Joe looked after me and encouraged me and his dry sense of humor was a daily feature of the gym,” he said.
“He and Arnold really put fitness on the map,” Uretz said. ”And Joe did it by making gym equipment and by catering to the people he liked—bodybuilders.”
Gold, who had suffered from heart and kidney problems, had been hospitalized in Marina Del Rey on Friday.
A U.S. Navy veteran during World War Two, Gold had also been troubled through his life by pain from a back injury he suffered during the 1944 Battle of Leyte when a torpedo blew up near his ship, Uretz said.
Gold was never married and leaves no survivors.
“All of us at Gold’s Gym are saddened about the passing of Joe Gold,” Gold’s Gym International Chief Executive Gene LaMott said in a statement. “He was an icon in the bodybuilding and fitness industry and we will never forget his contributions.”
Gym founder Joe Gold dead at 82
Suffered from heart, kidney problems
Updated: 10:15 p.m. ET July 12, 2004LOS ANGELES - Joe Gold, who founded the legendary California gym that brought body building to the mainstream and became the launch pad for the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, died Sunday in a Los Angeles suburb, associates said Monday. He was 82.
Gold, a Los Angeles native and lifelong bodybuilding enthusiast, opened the first Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, California, in 1965, calling it “the first gym made specifically for bodybuilders.”
The unassuming storefront in a low-rent district attracted an international following and shot to fame as the setting for the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron,” featuring Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno.
Gold sold his namesake gym in the 1970s and went on to found Marina Del Rey, California-based World Gym, where he continued to work until near the end of his life. Both operations have grown into sprawling international chains.
Gold’s Gym International was sold to privately held TRT Holdings, Inc., which owns Omni Hotels, last month in a deal the Los Angeles Times said was valued at $160 million.
Gold, who had carried dumbbells with him on merchant marine voyages for decades, hand-welded and designed much of the equipment in his original gym, including cable-based gear that bodybuilders came to rely on to push their muscles to exhaustion.
Tough-minded place
He also set the tone for the gym—a tough-minded place where “the only music was sweating and grunting,” said Michael Uretz, Gold’s longtime friend and business partner at World Gym.
“He put his gym in a place where he wanted to be,” Uretz said. “In the sun, on the beach and with cheap rent. Because in those days bodybuilders had no money.”
In the years since, weight lifting went from the fringe to the mainstream, Venice became one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the United States, and Schwarzenegger, once an unknown Austrian immigrant, went on to become first a major Hollywood action star and then governor of California.
But in the early 197Os, Gold was still charging just $45 for a year membership and bodybuilders would crowd a nearby restaurant featuring six eggs and toast for $1, Uretz said.
'Deeply saddened'
Schwarzenegger issued a statement Monday saying he was ”deeply saddened” by Gold’s death.
“Joe was a trusted friend and a father figure and was instrumental in my training during my days as a bodybuilder,” Schwarzenegger said. “Gold’s Gym was not only a training facility, but it became a home to me.
“In 1968, when I came to America, Gold’s Gym was the gym where I first went to work out. Joe looked after me and encouraged me and his dry sense of humor was a daily feature of the gym,” he said.
“He and Arnold really put fitness on the map,” Uretz said. ”And Joe did it by making gym equipment and by catering to the people he liked—bodybuilders.”
Gold, who had suffered from heart and kidney problems, had been hospitalized in Marina Del Rey on Friday.
A U.S. Navy veteran during World War Two, Gold had also been troubled through his life by pain from a back injury he suffered during the 1944 Battle of Leyte when a torpedo blew up near his ship, Uretz said.
Gold was never married and leaves no survivors.
“All of us at Gold’s Gym are saddened about the passing of Joe Gold,” Gold’s Gym International Chief Executive Gene LaMott said in a statement. “He was an icon in the bodybuilding and fitness industry and we will never forget his contributions.”