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03/10/2005 Entry: "3/11/2005: Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark May 21, 1987"

Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark May 21, 1987

Re the Lange article. Most interesting and it told me lots I didn't know. Not too much has been written about Father Lange, However, there were two items in the article with which I take issue. One was the statement that Father Lange got his doctoral degree at St. Edwards University in Austin-this isn't too far from where I live. St. Edwards NEVER HAS HAD A DOCTORAL PROGRAM. Not then and not now. Their highest program is a Master's-MBA.

And as for that eleven reps with 403: May I put it politely and say BULLSHIT. Father Lange MAY have benched 403, possibly two reps. But eleven reps, why some of our best present day power lifters couldn't do it. But one thing this does point out, and that is that the Wunderkind didn't invent the bench press as he claims. And it WAS being practiced in the 1920's.

[Roark note: Charles would of course spell practiced with an s not a c but the Word program I am using switches to our (American) system automatically]

Now for the sad news. Reg Park's father died around three weeks ago. He was 86. I am told the cause of death was cancer. Mrs. Park survives him and she is 82.

Charles Assirati, Joe's brother passed away Friday, 15th of May. He had an old friend around 80 who used to deliver his paper each morning. Around 7 when Charlie got up. The old boy shoved the paper through the letter box and took off coming back around 9am. He had a key to Charlie's apartment. When he tried to get in the chain was still on the door. So he called the superintendent of the building and when they got in, they found Charlie sitting in the kitchen in a chair, paper in his hand, dead. The funeral was held yesterday. Chas was 78. He had one of the finest physiques I have ever seen, and posed for statues adorning half the buildings in London. He also posed for the statues of the fountains in Trafalgar Square. I just called Joe---it's his 82nd birthday today, and he was pretty cut up about it.

Now for more news.

Weider: He also remarked that 'We are letting XXX go."

[Roark note: The following XXX is a different man]

I know about XXX and his promising certain women certain favors if they in return gave him certain favors. Grimek told me this, mentioning his name outright as being informed by XXX himself as to what he did and how he did it.

The Game is indeed in a load of trouble with certain men running it. It was bad in the old days, but never like it is now. We seem to be populated by men and women with permanent cases of the hots.

As for articles carrying the names of the famous, men and women who didn't write the articles. That has, as you know, been going on for as long as the Game itself. Ron Walker, for instance, in the late HEALTH AND STRENGTH in England had numerous articles published under his name, as did Arthur Saxon, Staff Sargeant Moss and others. None of them had written the articles but had had others write them with the famous as authors. GHOST WRITTEN. The Wunderkind did this ad nauseam in his mags. Articles by Ross, Reeves, Park, Hepburn, Goldberg and countless others, that were all written or else RE WRITTEN by Bart [Horvath] or I.

In his most recent letter, Grimek told me that when XXX left Weider, he at once applied for a job with S&H but was turned down because of his unstable background, involvement in drugs- now whether John meant steroids or hard stuff I don't know. But Grimek did say he had personally seen XXX, flat on his back out to the Crab Nebula and back with people walking by, looking at him and tut-tutting.

Sorry this letter isn't longer.

Best to you and yours,
Chas