STEVE 'HERCULES' REEVES BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:
Steve Reeves was born on January 21st, 1926 in Glasgow, Montana. At the age of ten his mother, Goldie Reeves, relocated to California after losing his father, Lester Dell Reeves in a farming accident.
While Reeves was in High School in Oakland he became interested in bodybuilding at trained at Ed Yarick's gym. At the age of seventeen he was so physically fit before there ever was an interest in this type of bodybuilding.
During World War II he joined the Army and served in the Pacific. Upon completion of his service he began to show an interest in acting and therefore, decided to attempt to pursue a career in the industry. He became more interested in body building and in 1946 at the age of twenty he won, "Mr. Pacific Coast" followed by winning Mr. America in 1947, "Mr. World" in 1948 and "Mr. Universe" in 1950.
He then traveled to New York to study acting and subsequently moved out to California to attempt a career as an actor. He was able to get cast for a small role in his first major picture in 1954 on, "Athena" a musical. This role was followed by another small role portraying a cop character in "Jail Bait" (1954).
Along with his film work he was a guest star on the ABC sitcom, "The Ray Bolger Show" (1954). In 1957 he went over to Italy to film a low-budget epic, "Jason and the Argonauts" playing Hercules as the lead role. Interestingly, it was the two films in 1954 that his own voice was used and for the rest of his career, he worked on Italian made films where his voice was dubbed.
Although Reeves is best known for playing the role of 'Hercules' he actually only portrayed this character twice, in 1957 and in the sequel in 1959 on "Hercules Unchained". He worked on a variety of sword and sandal movie shorts that were mostly low budget films.
Reeves portrayed a number of different characters throughout his acting career such as, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Goliath, Henry Morgan who was the governor of Jamaica and Emelio Salgari among others.
Since Hercules turned out to be such a huge success, he actually made the mistake of passing on the role in "Fistful of Dollars" (1964) which went to Clint Eastwood since he felt that it was not possible for Italians to make westerns.
In 1959 Reeves was filming "The Last Days of Pompeii" when he suffered an injury when a chariot he was driving struck a tree which dislocated his shoulder. It was this injury that ultimately began to affect his stunt work and caused a great deal of his career to be lost and going into retirement.
Continuing to suffer pain from his shoulder injury he was unable to continue body building and his final film role was in 1968 on "A Long Ride from Hell". He did make an appearance on screen in 2000 in a made for television movie, "A&E Biography: Arnold Schwarzenegger" appearing as himself.
Even though he remained retired, he used his knowledge of bodybuilding to promote drug free bodybuiling. He retired to Valley Center, California where he had an interest in breeding horses. He lived there with his second wife, Aline Czartjarwicz, until she passed aaway on July 24th, 1989.
On May 1st, 2000 Steve Reeves died from complications of lymphoma in Esondido, California. Steve was married once before to Sandra Smith on January 31st, 1955 but divorced only one year later on September 4th, 1956.
Steve Reeves wrote a book titled "Building the Clasical Physique-The Natural Way" where he promoted bodybuilding using natural suppplements and powders.
Filmography
1968 A Long Ride from Hell
1964 I pirati della Malesia
1963 Sandokan the Great
1963 The Shortest Day
1962 The Avenger
1962 The Slave
1961 Duel of the Titans
1961 The Trojan Horse
1961 The Thief of Baghdad
1960 Morgan, the Pirate
1959 Giant of Marathon
1959 The Last Days of Pompeii
1959 Goliath and the Barbarians
1959 Agi Murad il diavolo bianco
1959 Hercules Unchained
1958 Le fatiche di Ercole
1954 Athena
1954 Jail Bait
1953 Topper
1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1951 Stars Over Hollywood
