Superstar Billy Graham, model of the buff, blonde wrestler, dies at age 79

Superstar Billy Graham, a professional wrestler whose extravagant presence—22-inch biceps, dyed blonde hair, feather boas, tie-dye tights, and an inordinate gift of jokes—influenced the style of future stars like Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura, died at Wednesday in Phoenix. He turned 79.

The cause was sepsis and multiple organ failure, said Keith Elliot Greenberg, who collaborated with Graham on his autobiography. Graham’s long-term use of steroids had weakened his bones, requiring at least six hip replacements, and left him infertile. He also received a liver transplant in 2002 after contracting hepatitis C.

“If you look at those who came after him, more people have modeled on superstar Billy Graham and become successful in this industry than probably anyone else.” Triple Hthe superstar wrestler whose birth name is Paul Levesque, said at Graham’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004. “And when it comes to bodies, there was nobody, and I mean nobody, who could hit the Superstar.”

Born Eldridge Wayne Coleman, Graham had been an evangelist, a bodybuilder who bench-pressed a whopping 605 pounds, a defensive end in the Canadian Football League, a debt collector, and a bouncer before going into wrestling in 1970.

He came up with his bizarre ring character with the help of a former struggling villain, Dr Jerry Graham, who suggested he dye his hair blond with a bottle of Clairol.

“Dr. Jerry said it was part of the deal,” Graham told The Daily News of New York in 1998. “He said if I made it in wrestling it would be like a blonde.”

Coleman also took his mentor’s surname (which, of course, was also that of Reverend Billy Graham, whom he admired). And for extra panache, he added “Superstar,” which he borrowed from the Broadway musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

His sculpted 6-foot-4, 275-pound physique was the centerpiece of a package that also included the blonde hair and goatee, tights and earrings, leather fringe and boots, as well as considerable wrestling skills and a swaggering style he borrowed from Muhammad Ali, who himself had taken over from an earlier boastful and flamboyant wrestler, Superb George.

“I took some old stuff and made it new,” Graham told The Daily News. “I was not an old wrestler. I was the first guy to look and pose like a bodybuilder, get down on one knee and do a bicep shot, showing off those 22 inch pythons.

Graham found early success. He won the National Wrestling Alliance tag-team championship with Pat Patterson in 1971 by defeating Ray Stevens and Peter Maivia, whose grandson is the wrestler and actor Dwayne Johnson. Graham and Patterson held the title for eight months, losing to a duo that included Rocky Johnson, Dwayne’s father.

Graham wrestled for a few organizations during his career, but earned his greatest fame with the World Wide Wrestling Federation, now the WWE. In 1977, he defeated the popular WWWF champion, Bruno Sammartinofor the heavyweight title.

“Using cunning gleaned from years of ring experience, not to mention a dirty trick or two,” reported The Baltimore Sun, “pinned Graham Sammartino when the referee failed to notice he was using a ring rope for leverage while on top of the champ fed up.”

In the scripted world of professional wrestling, Keith Greenberg told Graham the day he took the title of Sammartino and which day he would lose it to Bob Backlund about a year later.

Graham, whose appeal increased as he defended his title, unsuccessfully tried to persuade the elder McMahon to let him extend his reign.

“Billy, my thoughts are on Backlund,” he told Graham, according to his autobiography, “Superstar Billy Graham: Tangled Ropes” (2006).” “I’m committed.”

Graham retired in 1987, at the age of 44, after his first hip replacement – an indication of the physical toll steroids had begun to take on him.

Eldridge Wayne Coleman was born on June 7, 1943 in Phoenix. His father, also known as Eldridge, worked for a local power company, but switched to a desk job because he had multiple sclerosis. His mother, Juanita (Bingaman) Coleman, was a housewife.

Graham remembered being beaten by his father, even as his father’s body weakened and his own grew stronger.

“If I faltered or stumbled, he would knock me down,” Graham wrote in his autobiography. “So I lay down.”

As a youngster he became enamored of weightlifting and in 1961 won the West Coast division of the Mr. Teenage America bodybuilding competition. About the same time, he became a born-again Christian and began speaking in small churches and tent revivals, reciting the sinner’s prayer, speaking in tongues, and laying on of hands. The patter of his sermons later became known to wrestling fans when he was interviewed.

But his ministry did not pay well, and he was drawn to football. In 1968, he played briefly for the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL. After he was released, he worked as a collection agent for casinos in Las Vegas, but considered an offer to wrestle.

“I think they asked me because I’m strong and tough and fast and have the showmanship,” he told The Canadian Press. ‘And I’m pretty. It is logical.”

His wrestling odyssey began in 1970 under the tutelage of Stu Hart, a Canadian promoter and trainer. When Hart first looked at Graham, he stared at his biceps. His response, Graham wrote, was “God… er… er… those are the biggest arms I… er… ever seen.”

“The guy was just drooling,” Graham recalled. “How can I not love this man?”

For the next 17 years, until his retirement, those arms and the rest of his body attracted tremendous attention, inspiring Hogan, Ventura, and others to take his example to greater heights.

“There would be no Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura without the in-ring success and pioneering showmanship of superstar Billy Graham,” said Ventura, who was elected governor of Minnesota in 1999. said on Twitter after Graham’s death.

Graham, who lived in Phoenix, is survived by his wife, Valerie (Belkas) Coleman; his daughter, Capella Flaherty; his son, Joe Miluso; and four grandchildren. His marriages to Shirley Potts and Madelyn Miluso ended in divorce.

After his retirement, Graham became a critic of steroid use that first caused and then destroyed his spectacular physique. In 1991, he testified in the trial of George Zahorian III, an osteopath and surgeon, who was to be convicted of selling illegal anabolic steroids to wrestlers. Graham stumbled onto the witness stand and testified that he had purchased large quantities of steroids from Zahorian in the 1970s and 1980s.

“They ruined my life” he testified. “They ruined my wrestling career.” He added: “I was addicted to it. When you stop taking steroids, you get a massive depression. Steroids make you feel so good, so confident, make you feel like you can conquer the world. It’s almost a plague in wrestling these days.”