Bodybuilders - Part 14

Charles Atlas

Chalres Atlas (1892-1972) was born Angelo Siciliano in Italy.  He moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1904 and became interested in exercise and bodybuilding.  Physical Culture magazine called him "America's most handsome man" in 1921.  He never won a contest, but that didn't stop him from claiming that he did and promoting himself as the "World's Most Handsome Man" (above).

I got this photo from Vintage Muscle Men, which has done several posts on Charles Atlas.  Thanks, Jerry!

In 1922 he legally changed his name to Charles Atlas because it sounded more American, and he began marketing his exercise program that he called "Dynamic Tension," consisting of twelve lessons.  Above, the cover of a 1924 booklet promoting the program.

One of many nude photos of Atlas inside the booklet.  

Another nude photo of Atlas from the booklet.  They are all rear or side views, never frontal.

A photo of Charles Atlas in Artists and Models magazine, August 1925.

A 1929 postcard of Charles Atlas.

A photo of himself that he signed "Yours for physical beauty."

I got this photo, and the previous one, from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

Photographer Edwin Townsend took a series of photos of Charles Atlas in the mid to late 1920s.  Above, posing as the discobolus (discus thrower).

A Townsend photo of Atlas showing off his muscles.

A rear view photo by Townsend.

I found this in an online post of photos of Charles Atlas by Townsend.  If it's really Charles Atlas, it would be the only nude frontal photo of him that I have ever seen.  The question is: is it Charles Atlas or the very similar-looking Tony Sansone, who was also photographed by Edwin Townsend?

Here's a photo of Charles Atlas (left) and Tony Sansone (right) in a pose called "The Slave."  Sansone had taken Atlas' course, and Atlas called him "the most beautiful man in America."

Here's a photo of Tony Sansone by Edwin Townsend.  Physically, Charles Atlas and Tony Sansone looked very similar.  Even their facial features were similar.  However, Sansone slicked back his hair with hair grease, which Atlas did not do, and Sansone's penis in this photo looks a bit different from the penis in the frontal photo of Atlas (this has a larger opening of the foreskin).  So, I think the frontal photo of Charles Atlas may really be Charles Atlas.

Charles Atlas died of a heart attack in 1972 at age 80.

Unlike Charles Atlas, Tony Sansone posed for many nude frontal shots by Townsend and other photographers.  We'll see more of him next time.