RIP George Butler - Pumping Iron.

[Wynn]

**broken link removed**

 

[iam2big4me]

Appreciate his work put another level to bodybuilding during many eras inspiring so many future bodybuilders. . RIP Sir.. Pumping Iron Iconic bodybuilding documentry.

 

[Love_to_Bodybuild]

Humble person, very open minded and although he didn't bodybuild, he admired it, and promoted it from pumping iron

 

[chrisrivers]

Thank you Mr Butler for getting into bodybuilding. Pumping Iron will live on forever.

RIP

 

[Dugbet]

Butler was born in Chester, then traveled to Kenya and Somalia with his father. There, he grew up with animals, such as the gazelle he thought was his sister, accompanied by Askari warriors. The family then moved to Jamaica, where among other things his father worked to support Jamaican veterans of the Second World War. Butler came to Groton from Jamaica with an English accent, dark tan and exotic ways at odds with the staid conservatism of that school.

After earning an M.A. in Creative Writing from Hollins College in Virginia, Butler worked as a reporter for Newsweek. Objecting to the Vietnam War, he joined VISTA (the domestic Peace Corps) as a volunteer, working in the inner city of Detroit’s North End, where he established a successful community newspaper, The Oakland Lion. The author of a number of books, Butler collaborated with David Thorne and former Secretary of State John Kerry on The New Soldier (1971), a highly praised book about the Vietnam Veterans Against War.

In 1972, a photo assignment for Life magazine to cover the Mr. Universe Championship inspired Butler to make a theatrical documentary on the subject of body-building; this proved to be a challenging undertaking, as he had difficulty convincing potential investors that bodybuilders and their Austrian-accented star performer could hold the screen. The eventual movie Pumping Iron launched Arnold Schwarzenegger, put bodybuilding and the gym business on the map, and became a film classic. With Pumping Iron, George Butler established White Mountain Films, named for the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where he made his home.

White Mountain Films has gone on to create some of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed documentaries made. Butler’s films have screened at festivals such as Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, Leningrad and Full Frame, and won honors ranging from National Board of Review Best Documentary of the Year (2001, The Endurance), IDA Best Documentary finalist (1990, In the Blood), the Whitney Biennial (2006, Going Upriver), National Academy of Science Best Science Film of the Year (2008, Roving Mars) to the Warner Prize for Best Director, Environmental Film Festival (2015, Tiger Tiger).

Cool dude, RIP

 

[Bio]

He helped change the trajectory or bodybuilding! RIP

 

[Wynn]

 

[USMuscle9403]

dude brought bodybuilding more mainstream and attempted to normalize it through Pumping Iron. he succeeded. I've even heard non bodybuilders talk about Pumping Iron, the movie; even non lifters love the documentary.