The 97-pound weakling has died: Famous bodybuilder and a mentor of sorts to a future weightlifter, actor, politician, and cad, Joe Weider, passed away at the age of 93.
The cause of death was heart failure:
Weider brought Schwarzenegger to the United States early in his career, where he helped train the future governor of California as well as aided him in getting into business. Schwarzenegger also said Weider helped land him his first movie role, in the forgettable film "Hercules in New York," by passing off the Austrian-born weightlifter to the producers as a German Shakespearean actor._____
"Joe didn't just inspire my earliest dreams; he made them come true the day he invited me to move to America to pursue my bodybuilding career," the actor said in his statement. "I will never forget his generosity. One of Joe's greatest qualities is that he wasn't just generous with his money; he freely gave of his time and expertise and became a father figure for me."
Weider also mentored numerous other bodybuilders.
Born in Canada in 1919, Weider recalled growing up in a tough section of Montreal.
Just like the apocryphal tale of the skinny kid who starts working out after a bully kicks sand in his face, Weider said he was indeed a small, skinny teenager picked on by bullies when he came across the magazine Strength.
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, 82, following a brief illness.
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Mountaineer George Lowe, 89, the last surviving member of the team that was the first to summit Mount Everest, died in a nursing home.
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Italian sprinter and Olympian Pietro Mennea, 60, of undisclosed causes.
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Big band-era singer Fran Warren, 87, of natural causes.
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Former lead singer of the Spinners, Bobbie Smith, 76, of lung cancer.
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Former Washington state Democratic governor Booth Gardner, 76, of Parkinson's disease:
In November 1984, Gardner beat Republican Gov. John Spellman, and since his first election victory, Democrats have won the governor's race seven times._____
During his two terms, Gardner pushed for standards-based education reform, issued an executive order banning discrimination against gay and lesbian state workers, banned smoking in state workplaces, and appointed the first minority to the state Supreme Court. The state's Basic Health Care program for the poor was launched in 1987 and was the first of its kind in the country.
Toward the end of his first term, he appointed Chris Gregoire, then an assistant attorney general, as head of the Department of Ecology. Gregoire went on to be attorney general, and then governor. Gardner was easily re-elected in 1988. In his second term, he and Gregoire, then attorney general, secured an agreement with the federal government that the nuclear waste at Hanford nuclear site would be cleaned up in the coming decades, and Gardner banned any further shipments of radioactive waste to Hanford from other states.
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