The Strongest Men on Earth

by Graeme Kent

  There was another giant with just as much potential as Louis Uni’s. His staple stage act was a display of almost unrelenting power. Night after night he started his performance by using one hand to lift a 273lbs weight from the floor to his shoulder and then above his head. Next he lifted a 300lbs barbell with both hands in the same way. He then hoisted 174lbs with his right hand straight from the floor to an overhead position. Pausing only to lower the weight to the ground, he repeated the lift with his other hand. He moved on to holding out a 100lb weight at arm’s length, perpendicular to his body. He lifted a barrel of sand, said to weigh 314lbs, from the ground to his shoulder with one hand. Using only his middle finger, he pulled 551lbs from the ground. He went on to perform a few more strength feats before ending his performance by supporting across his back a platform containing eighteen seated men.

  It was a display fitting of a man who called himself the strongest athlete in the world. The only drawbacks were that the performer was a shapeless, 300lb uncharismatic giant peering out at the world through a mass of facial hair. And, apart from the final platform lift, the display was basically pretty dull.

  The man’s name was Cyprien-Noé Cyr, later known as Louis Cyr to fit on the advertising bills. A French Canadian from St Cyprien, near Quebec, he was born on a farm in 1863, the eldest of seventeen children. His father was of average size but his mother stood over 6ft tall and could manhandle 200lb sacks. Cyr was an enormous child who grew to be a huge teenager. From an early age he showed signs of possessing great strength and was soon doing a grown man’s work in the fields and forests. His mother encouraged him to grow his blond hair to shoulder length, to emulate the Biblical Samson. He had three years of full-time education, between the ages of nine and twelve, and then left school to go to work, finding employment as a lumberjack in the winter and on farms during the summer months.

  When he was fifteen, the family emigrated over the border, to Lowell in Massachusetts, but returned to the province of Quebec in Canada. A local blacksmith who had worked as a part-time strongman taught the young Cyr a few tricks of the strength athlete’s trade and the teenager was soon performing at local fairs. It was an age and an area containing few written records, so the feats of strength claimed on Cyr’s behalf as he was growing up were almost certainly exaggerated. It was certain that the young giant could lift heavy barrels, bales of straw and large agricultural implements beyond the capacity of most men. As he developed his act, however, stories were spread of the young farm labourer and lumberjack lifting barrels of cement, pushing a freight car up an inclined railway track, lifting a farmer’s cart from a rut, and carrying an injured lumberjack for seven miles on his back to find help.. When he was still a teenager he was said to have lifted a horse from the ground at an athletics competition in Boston.

  That he was enormously strong is certain, although even in his teens he possessed a great deal of excess weight around his middle which made him cumbersome and reluctant to attempt feats requiring speed and dexterity. Normally a shy, reticent man, he also had a quick temper from an early age, which led to his walking out of public displays if he thought he was being mocked. His fame spread throughout the province. At the age of eighteen he engaged in a stone-lifting contest with David Michaud, who claimed to be the strongest man in Canada. Cyr outlifted the other man by moving from the ground a heavy boulder which his adversary could not even budge. Whether the stone in question really weighed the 480lbs claimed for it is less clear.

  With the development of the strongman cult in the USA, impresarios were always on the lookout for young men who could draw in the crowds. It was not long before a local showman called Mac Sohmer had signed Cyr up and taken him on tour of Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. The young strongman managed to raise his wage from $25 to $35 a week, but it was the last success he was to have. Sohmer proved to be a hard taskmaster and a drunk. He made Louis Cyr undertake a series of two-hour performances on a gruelling tour, neglected him and finally abandoned the youth far from home, taking all the box office receipts with him.

  It was a traumatic start to the French Canadian’s professional career, but he persevered. For a time his father took over the strongman’s management, taking Louis around the countryside with several companions, billed as the Troupe Cyr. This did not work out either, and for a time Louis Cyr joined the Montreal Police Force, stationed outside Montreal in the village of St Cunegonde. He served from 1883 until 1886. The highlight of his service occurred when he attracted more attention by arresting several wrongdoers and carrying them back to the police station.

  He was no happier upholding the law than he had been touring the sticks with his shows and by this time he was married and had several children. He resigned from the police force and opened a tavern with an adjacent gymnasium, hoping that his local fame would bring in the customers. For a time he was successful in his aim. He would attract publicity to his hostelry by staging well-managed stunts. He would carry 300lb casks of ale from the brewer’s cart into his saloon and would lift his wife over the bar by seating her on his outstretched palm on one side and depositing her on the floor on the other side.

  During this period, Cyr rejected a number of offers to turn professional. Eventually the bar failed and for a time Cyr was back on tour with a small troupe of boxers and wrestlers. The American-based promoter and magazine editor Richard K. Fox soon persuaded the strongman to embark upon a tour of the USA, and in March 1891, Louis Cyr gave an exhibition of his strength to journalists in the offices of Fox’s Police Gazette.

  Again the strongman was not happy with a touring life, but at first made conscientious efforts to lift heavy weights in his act. In 1895, in Boston, he pulled off the greatest feat of strength of his whole career: he lifted an inch or so from the ground a platform containing eighteen seated men. His burden was estimated to have a total weight of 4,327lbs.

  The Boston Herald wrote that Cyr retained a self-satisfied smile as he motioned the men to the lifting platform, supported on trestles. Then he stooped beneath it and placed his back firmly against the oak board. So silent was the crowd in the hall that the gibbering of a monkey in the eaves could be heard. Cyr strained, the board did not move. He braced himself for a supreme effort. ‘A mighty tugging was heard, the muscles of the strongman creaked like a door upon a rusty hinge, and slowly did the platform rise with him.’

  Cyr was a considerable glutton. As a sideline, he and his partner Horace Barre engaged in eating contests with challengers. On one occasion he and Barre were reputed each to have eaten a whole suckling pig. As a result of these indulgences his weight ballooned. Soon he scaled over 400lbs and his health began to suffer.

  He continued to tour, however, and over the years developed the dubious reputation of being a strongman’s strongman; other strength athletes were in awe of the French Canadian’s power but his stage act continued to be less than gripping. For some time his main offering was to hoist a sack of pig iron on to his back. Compared with the sparkling displays of Sandow, Launceston Elliot and others, it was pretty low-key stuff. Cyr tried to spice up the act and included a feat in which, wearing a piece of apparatus consisting of straps and hooks, he stood between two horses pulling in opposite directions without being torn in half himself. The theoretical principle of the act was that as long as the pull from each horse was equal Cyr merely acted as a human link in a chain.

  He also balanced a ladder on his chin while his wife Melina stood on top of the contraption. He sometimes included a stunt in which three men gripped his long hair while he revolved and spun them round and round. In addition to balancing men on a platform, sometimes he would end his act by lifting a heavy barbell on to his shoulders. Four men would hang from each side of the barbell and another would sit on his shoulders. Carrying the nine men, Cyr would then walk off the stage. He issued an open prize of $100 to anyone who could duplicate any of his major feats.

  On his tours of North America he engaged in a number of public challenge matches with other s
trongmen. On these occasions even the normally meticulous Cyr was prepared to conform to the accepted practice of fixed results, if he could be persuaded that the resultant publicity would be good for his career and bank balance. In October 1891, he competed publicly against the distinctly dodgy partnership of Cyclops and Sandowe – the false Sandow – in Montreal.

  The whole affair had a dubious ring to it. While the French Canadian was away touring the USA, the duo challenged Cyr from the stage of the Lyceum Theatre during their act. They followed this up with posters claiming that Cyr was frightened of them and should accept their challenge or for ever keep his silence. ‘Why does he not come forward?’ they demanded.

  For the next few nights the two strongmen continued to denigrate Cyr during their Montreal appearances. They were so successful in their aim that supporters of the local hero stormed the theatre one night and the police had to be called out. Towards the end of the week, as Cyclops and Sandowe were going through their act and issuing their customary jeers at Cyr, the French Canadian strongman lumbered down the aisle, shouting ‘Je suis ici! Je suis arrivé!’ (‘I am here! I have arrived!’).

  To the delighted cheers of the audience Cyr climbed painfully up on to the stage, seized a pair of challenge dumbbells and lifted them easily above his head. Cyclops prudently disappeared from sight. Sandowe moved forward as if to challenge Cyr, seemed to think better of it, turned and bolted from the stage. After a few moments Mr King, the manager of the theatre, appeared from the wings and addressed the audience: ‘I have spoken with Sandowe and Cyclops,’ he shouted, ‘and told them that they owe it to you and themselves that they meet Cyr in a contest!’

  Mr King went on to announce that the proposed contest would take place on the stage the following evening at eight o’clock. The hall was full at the appointed time. Cyr took his place to an ovation but the other pair did not turn up. Mr King appeared to explain that Cyclops and Sandowe knew that there was no point in attempting to compete with the mighty Louis Cyr.

  The event caused an enormous stir in Canada and the USA, and Richard K. Fox put up a sidestake of $5,000 to back the French Canadian in a contest against any strongman in the world. The more cynical, however, suspected a publicity stunt, especially as it was known that both Fox and Cyr were eager to broaden the strongman’s public appeal and boost his international reputation. To this end Cyr even put an advertisement in the Boston Globe:

  Louis Cyr is at all times ready and anxious to meet any of the alleged strong men from any nation – Sandow preferred – and will cheerfully forfeit the sum of $1,000 to any of them who can duplicate his feats.

  Soon afterwards Cyr left for a tour of Europe. During this trip he spent a day on the estate of the Marquess of Queensberry. The peer promised to give one of his horses to the strongman if Cyr could repeat his feat of resisting the pull of two horses. The French Canadian was up for the challenge and was attached to two of Queensberry’s strongest dapple-greys. The horses were quite unable to shift the giant. The Marquess did indeed hand over one of his own favourites and Cyr kept it on his farm for many years. He also included a fanciful drawing of the Marquess of Queensberry looking on in awe as part of a poster advertising his act.

  Cyr’s arrival in London was greeted with interest by his fellow strongmen but was an artistic and financial disaster. He appeared at the Westminster Aquarium on 19 January 1892. Among the crowd were the aristocracy of those strength athletes currently earning their livings on the British music hall stages: Eugen Sandow, C. A. Sampson, the McCann Brothers, Launceston Elliot, Monte Saldo, Charles ‘Professor’ Vanisttart, Louis Attila and many others. While they were impressed by the sheer strength of the French Canadian, they all agreed that Cyr’s powers of presentation and showmanship were practically nonexistent and that the big man would never make a name for himself outside North America.

  A tour of the major provincial cities followed and was equally unsuccessful. His stage performances continued to be dreary, none of the leading strongmen would accept his challenges and he was cheated financially by his European agents. Nor did he adapt well to local customs. A popular music hall song of the day was called ‘Get Your Hair Cut’. When Cyr was appearing in Liverpool he became convinced that passers-by were abusing him. He stalked into a hairdresser’s and had his locks trimmed, which meant that he had to remove from his act the stunt in which he swung men clinging to his hair.

  At this stage in his career, Cyr was still taking some pride in the integrity of his act. Once, when he was appearing at a London hall, the strongman was lifting a dumbbell when a man in the audience complained that the weight that was being hoisted so easily could not possibly be as heavy as the strongman asserted. His jibe touched a nerve. The infuriated Cyr stalked down to the footlights and engaged in a heated exchange with his heckler. At the time, still arguing, he idly tossed the dumbbell from hand to hand as if it were a light book. Fellow strongman Charles Vanstittart, who was in the audience, later said that it had been the most amazing feat of unconscious strength that he had ever witnessed.

  Cyr returned from Europe with his record as a strongman intact but having failed to become an international celebrity. However, for the next three years, between 1893 and 1896, Louis Cyr was probably at his peak as a strongman. It helped that the lordly Richard K. Fox arbitrarily bestowed upon the French Canadian the title of the strongest man in the world. Under this heading he found plenty of work touring with shows in North America, and joined up with the Ringling Brothers’ circus while spending the winter months appearing as a leading act at Austin and Stone’s dime museum in Boston. The latter proved to be hard work. The establishment was open for over twelve hours a day, with a fresh show starting every hour. Admittance, as always, cost ten cents.

  Cyr did not enjoy the grind of touring with the circus, although he was a featured act. A bonus of his itinerant life was that he made a steady income on the side engaging in various challenges. Once he even defeated John L. Sullivan, the former heavyweight boxing champion. Sullivan was still frequenting saloons and laying down the law to fellow drinkers. He would bet that no man could emulate his trick of being able to blow a silver dollar out of the bottom of a glass with a single exhalation of breath. Cyr beat the former boxer with ease.

  After a few years, including a spell running his own circus, he grew tired of life on the road. He continued to eat too much and took little exercise. His weight continued to balloon and he grew depressed. His health started to deteriorate. He had once been meticulous in his behaviour onstage, even to the extent of keeping a set of scales on the platform so that the accuracy of the weights he was lifting could be checked. One day the scales disappeared for ever. It became common knowledge on the strongman circuit that Louis Cyr, le homme le plus forte du monde, was cheating.

  A friend asked him why he, of all people, was dissembling in such a manner. The world-weary Cyr shrugged and replied cynically: ‘What’s the use? I make the people think I am working. They would believe I lifted 480lbs if I said so … what’s the sense of lifting 240 if I can get by with eighty?’

  Soon afterwards he retired to his farm near Montreal, where he lived as a virtual recluse, too shy to appear in public because of his increasingly ungainly and unkempt appearance. He continued to eat voraciously and took to drinking heavily. He spent much of his time sleeping at night in a large rocking chair, a lonely, embittered man, reduced finally by his doctors to a milk-based diet. Towards the end of his life he made a comeback of sorts, in 1906, defending the title of the world’s strongest man against Hector Decarie at Parc Sohmner. Cyr was forty-four years old and had to leave his sick bed in order to compete. He could still bring in the crowds in his home country and it was estimated that an audience of four thousand people came to see his swan song.

  It is possible that the match was fixed in order to give Cyr one last payday and to allow him to pass on his title to the younger man, of whom he approved. Out of eight lifting events, each competitor won four. By the end, Louis
Cyr was panting for breath after any exertion on the stage and was forced to sit down between each lift. Cyr made one last public announcement: ‘I have decided to retire forever. I pass on my crown as the world’s strongest man to Hector Decarie.’ The newspaper La Presse summed up the feelings of many of the strongman’s compatriots: ‘Louis Cyr, beaten by age, is no more than a shadow of himself, a remnant of his past glory, a relic of his former power.’

  9

  THE ELECTRIC GIRL

  AND OTHER LADIES

  Few strongwomen appeared as single acts until the eighteenth century. Some appeared as adjuncts to male strength artists, but their jobs were usually to fetch and carry the lighter pieces of equipment and to look on admiringly as the male members of the troupes strutted on the stage. By the eighteenth century, however, the first solo strongwomen were beginning to put on displays of their own.

  In a handout entitled The Parlour Portfolio, dated 1724, one woman was described thus:

  To be seen at Mr John Symes, peruke-maker, opposite the Mews, Charing Cross, the surprising and famous Italian Female Samson, who has been seen in several courts of Europe with great applause. She will absolutely walk barefoot on a red-hot bar of iron; a large block of marble of between two and three thousand pounds’ weight she will permit to lie on her for some time, after which she will throw it off at about six feet distance, without using her hands, and exhibit several other curious performances, equally astonishing, which were never before seen in England. She performs exactly at twelve o’clock, and at four, and six in the afternoon. Price: half a crown, servants and children a shilling.