André René Roussimoff (19
May 1946 – 27 January 1993), best known as André the
Giant, was a French
professional wrestler and actor. His great size was a result of
acromegaly, and led to him being dubbed "The
Eighth Wonder of the
World". In the
World
Wrestling Federation (WWF), Roussimoff briefly held the
WWF Championship. In 1993, he was
the first inductee into the
WWF Hall of
Fame.
Early life
André René
Roussimoff was born in Grenoble
, France, of Bulgarian
and Polish
descent. He was the third of five children. As a child, he
was referred to by his parents as Dédé and showed no signs of the
size that he would reach. Roussimoff was a good student but left
school after 8th grade because he did not feel that it was
important enough to have a high school education to live and work
on a farm that was not his own. As an adolescent, he worked on the
farm, completed an
apprenticeship in
woodworking, then worked in a
factory that manufactured
engines for hay
balers, but none
of these jobs brought him any satisfaction.
Professional wrestling career
Training
Roussimoff
was discovered by Lord Alfred
Hayes, a wrestling promoter, and left home as a teenager to become a wrestler in Paris
. He
worked as a mover by day and trained in the ring at night — though
few wrestlers were willing to train with anyone so large and
strong. In 1964,
Édouard
Carpentier, a well-known French wrestler, agreed to train with
him. Roussimoff was billed as "
Géant Ferré", the name of a legendary
French
lumberjack, and quickly made a
name for himself.
For the next few years, he wrestled in arenas
and carnivals in Europe, New Zealand
, and Africa.
In 1969,
Carpentier offered to bring Roussimoff to North America, but he had already signed to
wrestle in International Pro
Wrestling in Japan
, where he
was billed as "Monster Roussimoff".
After
wrestling in Japan, Roussimoff followed Carpentier to Montreal
, Canada
, where he
was an immediate success. However, promoters eventually ran
out of plausible opponents to fight him and, as his novelty wore
off, gate receipts dwindled. Desperate, Carpentier reached out to
Vincent J. McMahon and his son,
Vince McMahon, Jr. for help. They suggested
for Roussimoff a travel-intensive schedule so he would not wear out
his welcome in any one area. They decided to change his name to
"André the Giant" and increase his billed height from and to with a
weight that ranged from . His actual height is contested, and there
has been much speculation and debate over the issue.
Jim Duggan and
Bobby
Heenan maintain that his
kayfabe height
was correct. Wrestling journalist
Dave
Meltzer claims André was measured at in 1974 by a French
athletic commission; Meltzer also estimated André at . Wrestling
journalist Mike Mooneyham claims André was at his peak.
World Wrestling Federation
Face run (1973–1987)
On 26 March 1973, André made his WWE debut as a
"face", defeating
Buddy Wolfe in New York's Madison Square
Garden.
By the time Vince McMahon, Jr. began to expand his promotion to the
national level in the early 1980s, André wrestled exclusively for
WWF in the USA, while still holding international engagements.
André was mentioned in the 1974
Guinness Book of World Records as the
highest paid wrestler in history up to that time. He had earned
$400,000 in one year alone during the early 1970s.
André was one of WWF's most beloved "babyfaces" throughout the
1970s and early 1980s. As such,
Gorilla
Monsoon insisted that André was never defeated for 15 years by
pinfall or submission prior to WrestleMania III. This, however, is
not true. André actually had lost cleanly in matches outside of the
parameters of WWF; a pinfall loss in Mexico to Canek in 1984 and in
Japan a submission loss to
Antonio
Inoki in 1986. He also went sixty-minute time limit draws with
the two other major world champions of the day,
Harley Race and
Nick
Bockwinkel.
One of André's feuds pitted him against the Mongolian terror
Killer Khan, who was managed by Freddie
Blassie. According to the storyline, Khan had broken André's ankle
during a match in Rochester, New York by leaping off the top rope
and crashing down upon it with his knee-drop. After a stay at
Beth-Israel Hospital in Boston, André returned with payback on his
mind. On 14 November 1981 at the Philadelphia Spectrum, André
exacted revenge by destroying Khan in what was billed as a
"Mongolian Stretcher Match", in which the loser must be taken to
the dressing room on a stretcher. In reality, André had snapped his
ankle getting out of bed one morning. The injury and subsequent
rehabilitation was worked into the existing André/Khan
storyline.
Another feud involved a man who considered himself to be "the true
giant" of wrestling:
Big John Studd.
Throughout the early to mid-1980s, André and Studd fought all over
the world, battling to try and determine who the real giant of
wrestling was. In December 1984, Studd took the feud to a new
level, when he and partner
Ken Patera
knocked out André during a televised tag team match and proceeded
to cut off André's hair. André had the last laugh at the first
WrestleMania on 31 March 1985 at
Madison Square Garden. André conquered Studd in a $15,000 Body Slam
Challenge. After slamming Studd, he attempted to give the $15,000
prize to the fans, before having the bag stolen from him by his
future manager
Bobby "The Brain"
Heenan.
The following year, at
WrestleMania 2
on 7 April 1986, André continued to display his dominance by
winning a twenty-man battle royal that featured top NFL stars and
wrestlers. André last eliminated Bret Hart to win the contest.
Afterward, André continued his feud with Studd and
King Kong Bundy. André was suspended after a
no-show; he returned under a mask as "The Giant Machine" part of a
team with "Big Machine" (Robert Windham) and "Super Machine" (Bill
Eadie) (The Machines gimmick was copied from New Japan Pro
Wrestling character "Super Strong Machine", played by Japanese
wrestler Junji Hirata).[6] Soon afterwards, Giant Machine
disappeared, and André was reinstated, to the approval of
Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.
Heel run (1987–1990)
Feuding Hulk Hogan and WWF Champion
André was
turned heel in 1987 so that he could
face
Hulk Hogan for the
WWF World Heavyweight Championship in the
main event of WrestleMania III. In early 1987, Hogan was presented
a trophy for being the WWF World Heavyweight Champion for three
years. André came out to congratulate him. Shortly afterward, André
was presented a slightly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in
WWF for fifteen years." In actuality, André had suffered a handful
of countout and disqualification losses in WWF but had never been
pinned or forced to submit in a WWF ring. Hogan came out to
congratulate André and ended up being the focal point of the
interview. A visibly annoyed André walked out in the midst of
Hogan's speech. Then, on an edition of "
Piper's Pit", Hogan was confronted by Bobby
Heenan. Heenan announced that his new protege was André, who then
challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III, ripping the
t-shirt and
crucifix from Hogan.
At WrestleMania III, he was billed at , and the stress of that
immense weight on his bones and joints resulted in constant pain.
After recent back surgery, he was also wearing a brace underneath
his wrestling
singlet. Hogan won
the match after body slamming André, followed by Hogan's running
leg drop finisher. Years later, Hogan claimed that André was so
heavy, he felt more like , and that he actually tore his
latissimus dorsi muscle slamming him.
Another famous story about the match is that no one knew if André
would lose the match. André had agreed to lose the match some time
before, mostly for health reasons, though he almost pinned Hogan
(albeit unintentionally) in the early goings of the match. Contrary
to popular belief, it was not the first time that Hogan had
successfully bodyslammed André in a WWF match.
A then-heel Hogan
bodyslammed a then-face André early in a match in Hamburg
, Pennsylvania
on 13 September 1980, though André was much lighter
and more athletic at the time. This, of course, back in the
territorial days of wrestling three years before WWF began its
national expansion (André had also previously allowed
Harley Race,
Kamala, and
Stan
Hansen to slam him. By the time WrestleMania III had rolled
around, the WWF had gone national, giving more meaning to the
André-Hogan match that took place then. The feud between André and
Hogan simmered during the summer of 1987, even as Roussimoff's
health declined. The feud would begin heating up again when each
wrestler was named the captain of rival teams at the inaugural
Survivor Series event.
André's team won the main event after André pinned
Bam Bam Bigelow.
In the meantime,
"The Million Dollar Man"
Ted DiBiase failed to persuade Hogan to sell him the WWF World
Championship. After failing to defeat Hogan in a subsequent series
of matches, DiBiase turned to André to win it for him. Acting as
his hired gun, André won the WWF title from Hogan on 5 February
1988 in a match where it was later revealed appointed
referee Dave Hebner was "detained backstage", and a
replacement who DiBiase paid to get plastic surgery to look like
Dave (in reality, his twin brother
Earl
Hebner), made a three count on Hogan while his shoulders were
off the mat. After winning, André "sold" the title to DiBiase; the
transaction was declared invalid by then-
WWF President
Jack Tunney and the title was vacated.
This was shown on WWF's NBC program
The Main Event. At
WrestleMania IV, André and Hulk Hogan fought
to a double disqualification in a WWF title tournament match (with
the idea in the storyline saying that André was again working on
DiBiase's behalf in giving DiBiase a clearer path in the
tournament). Afterward, André and Hogan's feud died down after a
steel cage match held at
WrestleFest on 31 July 1988 in
Milwaukee. He and DiBiase also wrestled Hogan and
Randy "Macho Man" Savage in the main event of
SummerSlam; the DiBiase-André team
lost, despite apparently having
referee
Jesse "the Body" Ventura on their
side.
WrestleMania VI; The Colossal Connection
André's next major feud was against
Jake
"The Snake" Roberts. In this storyline, it was said André was
deathly
afraid of snakes, something
Roberts exposed on
Saturday Night's Main
Event when he threw his snake, Damien, on the frightened
André; as a result, André suffered a
kayfabe
mild heart attack and vowed revenge. During the next few weeks,
Roberts frequently walked to ringside during André's matches,
causing him to run from the ring in fright (since he knew what was
inside the bag). Throughout their feud (which culminated at
WrestleMania V), Roberts constantly
used Damien to gain a psychological edge over the much larger and
stronger André.
During the late summer and fall of 1989, André engaged in a brief
feud with then-Intercontinental champion
The Ultimate Warrior, where the younger
Warrior regularly squashed the aging André. Earlier in 1989, André
and the returning Big John Studd reprized their feud, this time
with Studd as a face and André as the heel.
André won the World Tag Team Championship with his partner
Haku (known collectively as
The Colossal Connection) from
Demolition on 13
December 1989. Managed by Bobby Heenan, they lost their titles at
WrestleMania VI back to Demolition
on 1 April 1990. After the match, a furious Heenan slapped André;
he responded by knocking Heenan out, much to the delight of the
fans. André went into the match as a heel, and left as a
face.
Sporadic appearances
André continued to make appearances in the WWF throughout 1990 and
1991, including coming to the aid of
The
Big Bossman in his
WrestleMania
VII match against
Mr. Perfect. His
last major appearance was at
SummerSlam in 1991, where he seconded
The Bushwhackers in their match
against
The Natural Disasters.
He also
made an appearance later in the year to help The British Bulldog who had just won a
Battle Royal in London
.
Japan and World Championship Wrestling
"Japan-U.S. wrestling summit" held in
Tokyo
Dome
performance offered the tag team of "André the
Giant and Giant Baba" on 13 April
1990. The team of "André and Baba" semi-won the championship
with
World's Strongest
Tag Team League that
All
Japan Pro Wrestling had held in 1991. Afterward, he went back
to Japan, this time for
All
Japan Pro Wrestling.
His last U.S. television appearance was in a brief interview on
World Championship
Wrestling's
Clash of the Champions XX special that aired on TBS on 2
September 1992.
Other media
André branched out into acting in the 1970s and 1980s, making his
acting debut playing a Sasquatch ("
Bigfoot")
on the 1970s television series
The Six Million Dollar Man.
He went on to appear in other television shows, including
The Greatest American
Hero,
B.J. and the
Bear, and
The Fall
Guy.
Towards the end of his career, André starred in several
movies, most notably as Fezzik (his favorite role) in
the
1987 film The Princess Bride. He had an
uncredited appearance in the
1984 film
—
Conan the Destroyer,
as Dagoth, the resurrected horned giant god who is killed by Conan
(
Arnold Schwarzenegger). In
his final film, he appeared in something of a cameo role as a
circus giant in the comedy
Trading
Mom, which was not released until the year after his death. He
also participated in an episode of
Zorro.
On 25 January 2005 WWE released
André The Giant, a DVD
focusing on the career of André. The DVD is a reissue of the
out-of-print
André The Giant VHS made by
Coliseum Video in 1985, with commentary by
Michael Cole and
Tazz replacing
Gorilla
Monsoon and
Jesse Ventura's
commentary on his
WrestleMania
match with Big John Studd. The video is hosted by
Lord Alfred Hayes. Later matches,
including André's battles against Hulk Hogan while a
heel, are not included on this
DVD.
André: Heart of the
Giant is a movie about André's life and struggles in and
out of the wrestling ring. Actors will play real life wrestlers,
managers, promoters, and legends.
Legacy
In 1993 when the then-
World Wrestling Federation
created the
WWF Hall of Fame, André
the Giant was the first inductee.
André's face was immortalized among the
skater and
graffiti
sub-cultures by graphic designer
Shepard
Fairey.
Andre the Giant
Has a Posse was a
street art campaign
based on a
design by
Shepard Fairey created in 1986 in Charleston,
South Carolina. Distributed by the
skater
community, the André stickers began showing up in nearly every big
city across the U.S.A.
Later, when Fairey was a student at the Rhode Island
School of Design
(RISD), he released his manifesto. At the
time Fairey declared the campaign to be "an experiment in
phenomenology." Threat of a
lawsuit from
Titan Sports,
Inc. in 1998 spurred Fairey to stop using the trademarked name
André the Giant, and to create a more iconic image of the
wrestler's face. Over time the artwork has been reused in a number
of ways and has become a worldwide movement, following in the
footsteps of the image of
J. R. "Bob" Dobbs of
Church of the SubGenius and
World War II icon "
Kilroy Was Here".
André was the inspiration for the
1998
film My Giant, written by his
friend
Billy Crystal, whom he had met
during the filming of
The
Princess Bride.
Paul Wight, better known as The Big Show
and the most similar in body structure to André than any other
wrestler since André's death, was originally billed as the son of
André the Giant during his stint in WCW (when he was known as
simply The Giant) despite no biological relation. While also
suffering from
acromegaly, unlike André,
Wight did get surgery on his
pituitary
gland in the early 1990s, which successfully halted the
progress of his condition. Former wrestler
Giant González is currently suffering
from similar problems that André had near the end of his
life.
André is quoted and impersonated in the comedy film
I Love You, Man.He is also quoted in
the
Eminem song "
Crack a Bottle" in the lyrics "Back when
Andre the Giant, mister elephant tusk, picture us and you'll be
another one to bite the dust".
Personal life
Roussimoff had one daughter, Robin Christensen, who was born in
1979.
The disease that granted him his immense size also began to take
its toll on his body. By the late 1980s, André was in constant,
near-crippling pain, and his heart struggled to pump blood
throughout his massive body.
According to
William Goldman, author
of
The Princess
Bride and its respective screenplay, André was having such
terrible back pain during the filming of the movie that in the
first shooting of a scene where Robin Wright drops about one foot
and is caught by André, he fell to one knee and almost dropped
her.
In the
A&E documentary, Biography, Arnold Skaaland mentions how André wished he
could see a Broadway
play. Arnold offered to buy tickets, but
André then passed up the opportunity, citing how he was too big for
the seats and that people behind him would not be able to see. This
was cited as a principal reason for why André frequented taverns
more than anywhere else. Another story he relates tells of when
André was in a bar one night, four men came up to him and began
harassing him about his size. At first, André attempted to avoid
confrontation, but eventually he proceeded to chase the hecklers
until they locked themselves in their car. André then grabbed the
car and turned it over with the four people trapped inside. André
was never arrested for the incident, presumably since local police
officers had a hard time believing four inebriated men's story
about an angry giant overturning their car.
He has been unofficially crowned "The Greatest Drunk on Earth" for
once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours. On an episode of
WWE's
Legends of Wrestling,
Mike
Graham claimed that André once drank 197 16-ounce beers in one
sitting, which was confirmed by
Dusty Rhodes.
In her autobiography,
The Fabulous Moolah alleges that
André drank 327 beers and passed out in a hotel bar in Reading
, Pennsylvania, and because the staff could not move him, they had
to leave him there until he regained consciousness.
André was arrested by the Linn County, Iowa sheriff in August 1989
and charged with assault after the wrestler allegedly roughed up a
local TV cameraman.
Death
André
died at the age of 46 in his sleep of a heart attack on January 27,
1993, in a Paris hotel
room. He was in Paris to attend the funeral for his father.
André's
body was cremated in accordance with his
wishes and his ashes scattered at his ranch in Ellerbe
, North
Carolina
. This
all occurred in a twenty-four hour time span.
In wrestling
- Nicknames
- "The 8th Wonder of the World"
- "The Immovable Object"
- "The Butcher"
Championships and accomplishments
Filmography
References
- Hulk Hogan: The Ultimate Anthology DVD.
- André: Heart of the Giant (2007) IMDB.
- Shepard Fairey interview in Tattoo Magazine,
1999.
-
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995817,00.html
- The MadConomist
- The Smoking Gun.
- Andre the Giant, 46, Professional Wrestler
(Obituary) New York Times, 31 January 1993.
- http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/4797970/ WRAL News,
Raleigh, NC.
- 1989 WWF results
- Andre the Giant
External links
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