The Gold's Gym community believed in transformation then—and we still do today. To a lot of people, Gold's Gym's image is seen as a gym for the big, built, and burly.
But what's missing from that picture is the community that allowed Gold's Gym to make history. While a lot has changed over time, the friendly, supportive focus of Gold's Gym hasn't! From the very beginning, Gold's Gym was built by a community.
Joe Gold built his own equipment—and it was top tier for the time. Serious bodybuilders gathered at the gym, where they rubbed elbows okay, biceps and built relationships along with their muscles. The corporate unit owned and managed 19 gyms by Gold's also added franchises in two years. The company gave franchisees more power, binding them into a national vendor program so they could buy in bulk for better rates than as individual gym owners. Its licensing area also grew, with new arrangements inked with major companies, such as the women's fitness clothing company Marika Group, Inc.
All seemed to be going well for the company under its new management. Yet the Galiani brothers stepped down from leadership of Gold's in They were the company's major shareholders and they retained their seats on the board, but the brothers claimed to want to return to what they knew best, operating individual gyms.
The Galianis would focus on their Washington, D. The Gold's chain continued to lead the field in the number of gyms it had around the world. Growth in the United Kingdom was particularly strong in the early s. Gold's had first come to the United Kingdom in under a licensing arrangement with the American singer Jermaine Jackson. But Jackson's venture did not flourish, and the Gold's brand was not then a success in England. The license later changed hands, and under the leadership of Karl Sandhu of Vistastar Leisure, the brand expanded dramatically.
Refurbished Gold's in the United Kingdom were large, around 20, square feet, with attached restaurants and bars run by contractors. One newly remodeled English Gold's was built inside an Art Deco theater from the s.
The new Gold's featured a five-floor gym, a pool, spa, sauna, and ice-filled "igloo room. This kind of facility was a far cry from the early Gold's, and yet the British licenser Vistastar used the celebrity status of the original Gold's and its many Hollywood connections to market the new model. The company hoped to build 40 to 50 corporate-owned Gold's Gyms in the United Kingdom over the next ten years, and also to franchise perhaps a hundred more.
While marketing in Britain seemed to proceed with confidence and panache, domestic advertising did not go smoothly. Gold's hired a new advertising agency in , hoping specifically to shed what it called the "intimidation factor" of its hard-core bodybuilding past and create a friendlier image. This seemed to be what Gold's had been doing for years. But the company ditched its new agency after only five months, amid concern that the corporation, the agency, and the franchise-holders were at cross-purposes.
The company hired a new advertising agency in , and developed a new slogan, "Train anyway," and its first television advertising campaign in five years. In June , the company announced it had been bought by a new group of investors. New marketing under TRT's ownership concentrated on unifying an image for the franchisees. Toggle navigation. User Contributions:. Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: Name:. E-mail: Show my email publicly. Human Verification:.
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Known as the 'mecca of bodybuilding', it was made famous by bodybuilding champion Arnold Schwarzenegger and the filming of "Pumping Iron", the iconic docudrama that launched the sport into mainstream America. Posted Sunday, May 10, am. Not that the lack of support deterred the two men. There the two men would film legends like Arnold, Columbu, Waller and countless others lift weights with unparalleled intensity. The movie itself was shot over the course of a month and detailed the epic bodybuilding battle between Arnold and Lou Ferrigno for the Mr.
Universe and Mr. Olympia titles. Aside from the constant financial worry the two men faced, they also had to deal with massaging the egos of the periphery lifters.
Every now and then, scenes would have to be re-shot after a disgruntled bodybuilder deliberately stepped into frame. Eventually however, deals were struck and by the end of , Butler had all but wrapped up shooting the movie.
All he had to show for his work was a single print of the movie and no means of promoting it. For two years, the movie sat in the back offices of studios in what film buffs refer to as development hell. Frustrated that his movie would never see the light of day, Butler rented out space at the Whitney Museum in New York and had Arnold and Ken Waller pose on rotating discs to raise money.
To increase interest in the event, Butler arranged for Candice Bergen to be a celebrity commentator and made noise about the fact that Arnold, then a Golden Glove winner for his performance in Stay Hunger would be posing. The theme of the exhibition was living art and surprisingly, the art critics loved it.
Butler had only expected people to show up. Instead he got 5, and more money than he could fit in the registers. The publicity stunt worked, and allowed Butler to finish production on his movie. Still from Pumping Iron. In Pumping Iron finally hit US scenes and although fewer than one million Americans ended up seeing it that year, a buzz had been created.
Hollywood and popular culture became hooked on muscle. The following years saw Arnold become a movie star with flicks such as Conan, Ferrigno become the Hulk and mainstream actors like Stallone, Weathers and Eastwood display chiseled physiques in their movies. By the s bodybuilding and fitness in general had entered the mainstream, sadly Sprague would not be part of it.
By , there were over 5, Golds in the United States. Connors appears to have had a keen eye for the fitness industry, opening up the first group fitness class in Golds in , about a decade before such movements became popular.
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