BILL GRANT: Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?

Written by

Irene L. Hause

Right On!, June 1982

The scene is a professional bodybuilding competition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The auditorium is packed. Girls sitting near the front are wearing elaborately decorated shirts that proclaim their devotion to Bill Grant.

Suddenly the provocative sounds of Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? pierce the air and Bill Grant leaps into the spotlight. At 5’9” and 192 pounds, Grant’s sculptured body glistens beneath the thin coat of oil which reveals the sharply defined perfection of each muscle. Slowly turning to the pulsating beat, he gracefully flexes his muscles in the mandatory poses required in bodybuilding contests. Smooth, graceful, polished. Unexpectedly, there’s a little extra twist of his hips, and the crowd goes wild. One girl screams, falls out of her seat and lands on the floor.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mirrored disco ball, a silhouette light, smoke pots and colored lights are added to his performance. Grant gets three standing ovations.

Such reactions have become commonplace over the past five years. What does the man known as “The World’s Sexiest Bodybuilder” have to say about all this?

“That’s kind of hard to answer. The whole thing has really come to me by surprise. Maybe it’s the way I pose on stage—I do shake my rear a little! It more or less just happened when bodybuilding competitors were allowed to start selecting their own posing music. I feel that bodybuilders should be showmen on stage, and I personally like to be a little flashy, a little flamboyant and I like to make the audience feel they’re getting their money’s worth, at least out of me. I love dancing. I love partying, and I love having a good time. Maybe that’s what I’m projecting to the audience.”

The road to becoming The World’s Sexiest Bodybuilder wasn’t paved with easy victories for Bill. He won the Mr. Junior Suburban contest in New Jersey in 1964. It took him eight more years of gut-busting training before he reached his goal of Mr. America in 1972. Next came his most distinguished title, Mr. World, in 1974. Sandwiched in between all this was an impulsive teenage marriage that ended in divorce.

“I don’t like to repeat the same old story, but I have to say it because it’s true,” admits Bill. “When I was a kid growing up back in Orange, New Jersey, I was that skinny kid who was an oddball because he wanted to be a bodybuilder. Back then bodybuilding wasn't considered anything special. You were generally considered a fag, a freak.

“I remember this one girl’s reaction in particular. She was a friend of one of my sisters. I’d be in the bedroom lifting weights, and she’d come in and start giggling. ‘Look at those skinny arms! Look at those skinny legs! Just what are you planning on doing with them?’

“And when I’d try to put the make on my sisters’ friends, they’d say, ‘Get lost, kid! There's nothing there that’s interesting!’”

That certainly isn’t the case now! Both Bill and the editors of the world’s leading bodybuilding magazines are getting letters that are too steamy to print. Like two of his more reserved fans wrote, “As Bill’s trunks get smaller and smaller, we get hotter and hotter!” Another gushed, “Bill Grant is too hot to handle!”

Says Bill, “I’ve done the work, I’ve trained hard, that’s true, but being on stage alone, with no audience, doesn’t make me the sexiest bodybuilder in the world. You have to have someone out there being the critic, making the statement, and I think I have some of the best fans in the world. If you don’t have the fans, then you’re nobody!

“And it isn’t just women I hear from. I often get letters like the one I just received from a nine-year-old kid. He saw me in a recent contest and thought I should have placed higher. That kind of letter really makes me feel good inside.

“From all this I’m trying to move into show business. I’d love to be an actor, and I don’t make any bones about it anymore. Every time I do something for the media, I have fun doing it.”

For most of his professional career, Bill has trained at world-famous Gold’s Gym in Venice, California. “At first, Gold’s was my biggest agent. Whenever media people came to the gym wanting to interview bodybuilders, the gym owner always told me first. He knew I liked to talk, and he knew I had the interest. I now have two agents, but it was Gold’s Gym that really got me started.

“I’ve been on several talk shows like Merv Griffin, I’ve done a couple Toyota commercials and a TV-movie, The Hustler of Muscle Beach, and have appeared with Miss Piggy on The Muppets. But the most fun I’ve had was doing a skit for Fridays and appearing on Eyewitness Los Angeles to help publicize a book I’m in, Buns: A Woman Looks at Men’s¹. Not many people are asked to appear on television on the basis of what their backsides look like!

“My main problem in getting roles seems to be that I don’t have a nasty face! For my size, most roles call for a guy who looks mean. Every time I go in for roles like that, they smirk and say, ‘Forget it, kid! Your face won’t cut it as a nasty killer!’

“I’ve been approached about appearing nude in women’s magazines, but I always say ‘no.’ I’d love to do an interview for them with my trunks on or maybe with a towel wrapped around me. I want to leave something to the imagination, like Burt Reynolds did in that Cosmopolitan centerfold spread a few years back.”

However, in the fall of 1981 Bill was approached with an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was a contract to supervise the start-up operations of Ben’s Gym in Panelus, Denmark. Wanting some time away from the California scene to rethink his life’s goals, he accepted. He’s been traveling throughout Denmark presenting bodybuilding seminars and meeting all kinds of people.

“The people in Denmark are quite different from in the U.S.A. They are very low-key and don’t rush around like we do in the States. Most of the younger people speak English very well, so I don’t have a problem communicating, although I can now understand and speak a few words of Danish. The hospitality is just great! The people really know how to treat a guest. Sometimes I think we as Americans should take this as an example.”

Today there’s not a bodybulding fan in the world who doesn’t know who Bill Grant is, and if Bill has his way, a lot more people will know who he is. He’ll be returning to California later this year, and he plans to open his own gym while at the same time pursuing his acting career.

His most cherished dream is to develop a short opening act for Las Vegas. “I’d really love to take my posing routine to Vegas, not just me alone, but with a couple of professional dancers. That’s my real goal right now!”

FOOTNOTE: ¹Christine Jenkins. Buns: A Woman Looks at Men’s. New York: Perigree Books, 1980.

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