Pumping Iron<\/em> helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s career, died July 21. He was 84.<\/p>\n\n\tSchwarzenegger announced the news on his social media channels with a heartfelt tribute to the writer and lover of outdoor pursuits whom he described as \u201ca lifelong friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBorn in Jacksonville, Florida on January 6, 1942, Gaines spent his childhood and adolescence in Birmingham, Alabama. He took up bodybuilding as a teenager and then pursued his love of writing after school with a BA from\u00a0Birmingham-Southern College and an MFA in writing from the\u00a0University of Iowa. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAcross his career, Gaines wrote more than 25 books and also contributed to a variety of magazines including Harper\u2019s, GEO, Sports Illustrated, Town & Country, Playboy and Outdoor Life.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe is best known for his 1974 non-fiction best-seller Pumping Iron<\/em> exploring the world of professional bodybuilding, which was then spun into the 1977 docudrama of the same name centering on the competition between Schwarzenegger and main rival Lou Ferrigno for the title of Mr. Olympia.<\/p>\n\n\tWritten and narrated by Gaines, and directed by George Butler and Robert Fiore, the film is credited with having put professional bodybuilding and Schwarzenegger on the mainstream map.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe climbed mountains, trekked across ice, fished, and hunted on almost every continent, writing about every adventure in a way that captured people\u2019s hearts and minds. He was interested in everything \u2013 and his interest was contagious,\u201d Schwarzenegger wrote of Gaines in his social media post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m lucky that he was always looking for new frontiers, because that\u2019s how he found me and our niche sport of bodybuilding. That\u2019s how the book and the movie Pumping Iron<\/em> launched me into the mainstream \u2013 he wrote that book and then worked relentlessly on the documentary and introduced bodybuilding to millions and millions of people. It\u2019s how I broke into Hollywood with my first big role in Stay Hungry<\/em> \u2013 a movie Charles also wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tBased on Gaines\u2019 1972 novel of the same name, which he adapted in 1976, Stay Hungry<\/em> starred Jeff Bridges as a wealthy layabout who becomes embroiled in a mobster scheme to buy a beloved local gym so the land can be redeveloped, with Schwarzenegger appearing as the venue\u2019s star bodybuilder.<\/p>\n\n\tIn another achievement in his varied career, Gaines is also credited with inventing the team sport of paintball in the early 1980s with Wall Street trader Hayes Noel following a debate over whether city-dwellers had the same survival instincts as people who grew up close to nature, pursuing activities such as hunting, fishing and building cabins.<\/p>\n
\n\tInspired by the discussion, Gaines, who was living on a farm in New Hampshire at the time, devised a survival game using sheep-marking dye pellets, hosting the first iteration in woods on his land in June 1981.<\/p>\n
\n\tGaines is survived by his wife, the artist Patricia Ellisor Gaines, whom he married in 1963, as well as his three children, Latham, Greta, and Shelby Gaines.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
\n
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