Charles Gaines, Pumping Iron writer and paintball pioneer, dies at 84
Arnold Schwarzenegger paid tribute to the author whose work helped bring bodybuilding, and Schwarzenegger, into the mainstream.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Charles Gaines, the author and screenwriter whose Pumping Iron book and film helped turn professional bodybuilding into a mainstream fascination and boosted Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise, died July 21 at 84, according to Deadline.
Schwarzenegger announced the death on social media, calling Gaines “a lifelong friend” and praising the writer’s appetite for adventure, sport and discovery.
Gaines was born Charles Latham Gaines Jr. in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 6, 1942, Deadline reported. He grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where he took up bodybuilding as a teenager before turning to writing as a career.
He earned a BA from Birmingham-Southern College and an MFA in writing from the University of Iowa, according to Deadline.
The book and film that changed bodybuilding
Across his career, Gaines wrote more than 25 books and contributed to magazines including Harper’s, GEO, Sports Illustrated, Town & Country, Playboy and Outdoor Life, Deadline reported.
His most famous work was Pumping Iron, the 1974 nonfiction bestseller about professional bodybuilding. The book led to the 1977 docudrama of the same name, focused on the rivalry between Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno as they competed for the Mr. Olympia title.
Gaines wrote and narrated the film, which was directed by George Butler and Robert Fiore. Deadline reported that the movie is credited with helping bring both bodybuilding and Schwarzenegger to a wider audience.
In his tribute, Schwarzenegger said Gaines’ restless curiosity led him to the sport that would change both their lives.
“I’m lucky that he was always looking for new frontiers, because that’s how he found me and our niche sport of bodybuilding,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “That’s how the book and the movie Pumping Iron launched me into the mainstream.”
Schwarzenegger also credited Gaines with helping him reach Hollywood through Stay Hungry, the film based on Gaines’ 1972 novel. Gaines adapted the book for the 1976 movie, which starred Jeff Bridges as a wealthy man caught up in a mobster plan to acquire a local gym for redevelopment. Schwarzenegger appeared as the gym’s star bodybuilder.
A life of adventure and a new sport
Schwarzenegger described Gaines as a man drawn to the outdoors and the next challenge.
“He climbed mountains, trekked across ice, fished, and hunted on almost every continent, writing about every adventure in a way that captured people’s hearts and minds,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “He was interested in everything, and his interest was contagious.”
Gaines also helped create paintball in the early 1980s, according to Deadline. The sport emerged after Gaines and Wall Street trader Hayes Noel debated whether people from cities had the same survival instincts as those raised closer to nature, including people accustomed to hunting, fishing and cabin-building.
Living on a New Hampshire farm at the time, Gaines came up with a survival game using sheep-marking dye pellets, Deadline reported. The first version was played in woods on his land in June 1981.
Gaines is survived by his wife, artist Patricia Ellisor Gaines, whom he married in 1963, and their three children, Latham, Greta and Shelby Gaines, according to Deadline.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.