Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

To my amazement, Shelley not only lined up newspaper interviews but also succeeded at getting me invited onto nationwide talk shows, including The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. That was when we realized we were right: there was actually an interest here; it wasn’t like we were just imagining it.

Of course, given bodybuilders’ stereotypical image, nobody was going to put me on the air without a preinterview well in advance. I had to go to the studio in the afternoon, hours before the show, so they could check out whether this muscleman could open his mouth and make sense. So I’d chat with the preinterviewer, who after awhile would say, “This is great! Now, can you say all this stuff when you’re under pressure and in front of an audience?”

I would tell him, “Well you know, the interesting thing is, I don’t see the audience. I’m so into it that I don’t see them. So don’t worry; I can block it out.”

“Great, great.”

The first show I did was Merv Griffin. The comedian Shecky Greene was the guest host that day. I sat down, and we exchanged a few lines, and then Shecky went quiet for a beat just looking at me. Then he burst out, “I can’t believe it! You can talk!” That got a big laugh.

When somebody sets the bar that low, you cannot go wrong. Shecky kept complimenting me. He was very funny, and he made me funny as a result. This wasn’t just a boost for me, it was a boost for bodybuilding in America: the viewers were getting to see a bodybuilder who looked normal when he was dressed, who could talk, who had an interesting background and a story to tell. All of sudden the sport had a face and a personality, which made people think, “I didn’t realize these guys are funny! This isn’t weird, it’s great!” I was happy too, because I got to promote Mr. International.

Franco and I felt pretty nervous about our upcoming event especially after we talked to George Eiferman, one of the ex-bodybuilding champions we’d lined up as judges. George was an elder statesman of the sport (Mr. America 1948 and Mr. Olympia 1962) who now owned gyms in Las Vegas. A week before the contest, he came to visit and give advice. He met with Franco, Artie Zeller, and me at Zucky’s.

George said, “Now make sure you that you have everything there.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I ran these competitions in the past. Sometimes we forget the simplest things.”

“Like what?” I started sweating, wondering what it could be. I’d been concentrating so much on selling seats that maybe I’d overlooked some important details.

“For instance, do you have the chairs for the judges at the front table? Who is going to get you those chairs?”

I turned to Franco. “Did you take care of those chairs?”

Franco said, “You’re such an idiot. How do I know about chairs for the judges?”

I said, “Okay, let’s write this down.” So I made a note that the next time we went to the auditorium, we had to figure out where to get this table to put in front of the stage and where to get nine chairs.

George went on: “You need a nice tablecloth on the table—a green one preferably, so it looks official. Also, have you thought about who is going to buy the notepads for the judges?”

“No.”

He said, “Make sure the pencils you bring have erasers.”

“Oh, shit.”

George walked us through the whole thing. We had to figure out how the stage should look, how to arrange the backstage area and have weights there ready for pumping up, where those weights would come from, and how to get them into the back of the auditorium. “Have you worked that out?” he asked. “I’m sure this auditorium is governed by unions, so what are you allowed to lift and carry and what has to be done by the union guys?”

Franco and I, of course, didn’t like the idea of having to obey union work rules. But we reminded ourselves that everything was much easier to do here compared to what it would be in Europe. Getting the permits and paying the taxes were much simpler, and the taxes were lower. Also, we had a lot of enthusiasm from the people who ran the auditorium.

In the end the competition was packed. Franco and I personally picked up all the bodybuilders from the airport, and we treated them exactly the way we would have wanted to be treated. The top bodybuilders were there. There was good, experienced judging. We invited judges, sponsors, and contestants to a reception the night before, which Franco and I paid for. All our publicity efforts really filled the hall, so that we ended up having to turn away two hundred people. Most important, the seats were filled by people from all walks of life, not just bodybuilders.

The ripples from my success on The Merv Griffin Show extended into the fall. Shelley booked me onto more talk shows. It was always the same. Since there was no expectation at all, I’d be spontaneous, and the host would respond, “This is fascinating!” Pretty soon I realized that in an entertainment interview, you could just make up stuff! I’d say things like, “In 1968 Playboy did a survey, and eighty percent of women hated bodybuilders. But now it’s turned around, and eighty-seven percent of women love guys with muscles.” They loved it.

Being on Merv Griffin led to another unexpected payoff. The morning after the show, I got a call at the gym from Gary Morton, the husband and business partner of Lucille Ball. “We saw you last night,” he said. “You were funny. She has a job for you.” Lucille Ball was then the most powerful woman in television. She was world famous for her sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, and Here’s Lucy, and was the first woman in TV to break from the studios and run her own production company, which made her rich. Morton explained that she was working on a TV special with Art Carney, best known as Ed Norton on the 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners. She wanted me to play the part of a masseur. Would I come in that afternoon and read from the script? All of a sudden Lucy was on the phone. “You were fabulous! You were great! We’ll see you later, right? Come in, we love you.”

I went to their office, and somebody handed me the script. The show was called Happy Anniversary and Goodbye. I got really excited as I read it. Lucille Ball and Art Carney were playing a middle-aged couple named Norma and Malcolm. Their twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up, but instead Malcolm declares he’s tired of Norma and suggests they get a divorce. Norma is tired of Malcolm, too. So they agree on a trial separation, and Malcolm moves out. But he goes back to the apartment to pick up something he forgot, and there is Norma, lying half naked on a table getting a massage. She plays it up to make him jealous, which leads to a hilarious fight, with the masseur, whose name is Rico, caught in the middle.

That masseur would be me. It was a seven-minute part of the hourlong show, and I thought, “This is great exposure; I will be on camera with Lucille Ball and Art Carney!” Since Hercules in New York had never been released, this would be my screen debut, and it would have an audience in the millions.

I was daydreaming about it when they called me in to read. Lucy, Gary Morton, and the director were all there, and she was very welcoming. “You were really funny last night!” she said. “Here, let’s read.”

The whole thing was so foreign to me, I had no idea that reading from a script means that you are supposed to actually act out the role. I sat and literally spoke my lines word for word, as if I was showing the teacher I knew how to read. “Hello my name is Rico and I’m from Italy and I was a truck driver there but now I’m a masseur.”

And she said “Oooo-kay.” I noticed the director looking at me. Under normal circumstances, they would have said, “Thank you very much; we’ll call your agent.” In my case, they couldn’t have done that, because I didn’t have an agent. But this wasn’t an ordinary audition because Lucy really wanted me to play the part and nobody else was auditioning. I was there just so she could get Gary and the director on board.

She jumped right in to try to save me. “Great!” she said. “Now, do you know what the scene is about?” I said yes, and she said, “Tell me, just briefly.”

And I said, “Well, it seems to me that I’m coming into your apartment because you’ve asked me to come and give you a massage, and you are getting divorced or a separation, or something like that, and I have these muscles because I was a truck driver in Italy, and I came to America, and I made some money not as a truck driver but as a masseur.”

“That’s exactly what it is. Now, can you tell me this again at the right moment when I ask you?” This time we played out the scene, starting with me ringing the doorbell, walking in with the