Waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger when he returned to his hotel in London after winning Mr. Universe--his second Mr. Universe--was a telegram from Joe Weider, the muscle-culture magnate whose products--equipment, magazines, supplements, videos--had instructed and inspired countless bodybuilders for decades. The telegram read: "Congratulations on your victory. You are the new young sensation. You are going to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time." This was by way of inviting Schwarzenegger to make his maiden voyage to America.
Schwarzenegger had been among the beneficiaries of Weider's products and their promise. A long and fervent disciple of those magazines and their advertisements, he would retrospectively come to think of Weider as "sort of the Hugh Hefner of the muscle world: he owned the magazines, had his picture and column in every issue, and included his wife, Betty, a gorgeous model, in almost every beach shot." He would tear out and hang on his wall pictures of the great bodybuilders, most particularly his idols Reg Park and Steve Reeves (the latter of whom had also starred as Hercules). The magazines gave shape and color to his ambitions, rendered them actual, and, in doing so, perpetuated those ambitions and facilitated their enlargement.






