Charles Gaines, whose book Pumping Iron inspired many people to build bodies, has died at the age of 84 | Books

Charles Gaines, an author whose book and articles Pumping Iron helped bring professional bodybuilding into the sport Arnold Schwarzenegger to the world, he is dead. He was 84 years old.

Gaines died Tuesday, according to Greta Gaines, the author’s daughter. He did not reveal the reason.

“You always go to your own drummer and inspire everyone around you to do the same,” she wrote in a tribute to her father. Follow that joy, catch the fish and kiss the lips as much as you can because my father was a complete human being.

Gaines teamed up with George Butler to write Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding, which led to the documentary Pumping Iron, for which Butler and Gaines wrote the script.

In the preface to their 1974 book, Gaines wrote that he and Butler considered it “a respectful report from within a fascinating, beautiful and previously neglected area of ​​American life”.

In the 2022 edition, he admitted that no author thought that “many people outside the bodybuilding world would like” the book. Gaines wrote that Schwarzenegger almost single-handedly “brought his body out of the shadows cast from his early days in America and in the limelight”.

Schwarzenegger, who won seven Olympia titles and five Mr Universe titles and was pictured on the cover of Pumping Iron, focused on his career, first in films – including The Terminator, True Lies, Twins and Predator – and then politics, serving as governor of California from 2003 to 2011.

Gaines wrote that he has been involved in bodybuilding in various ways since he was 16 years old, when he started lifting weights. Pumping Iron started as a Sports Illustrated story in 1972 for the Mr East Coast bodybuilding competition.

“If we sometimes feel like 18th-century explorers, it’s because we discovered that bodybuilding was as primitive and uncharted as parts of Labrador,” he wrote. “No one, we found, went back in to send a report on what was going on.”

Gaines and Butler used the book as the basis for their 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, which centers on the rivalry between Schwarzenegger and fellow bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno in the Mr Olympia title. Ferrigno next appeared on TV in The Incredible Hulk.

Gaines grew up in Alabama and earned a bachelor’s degree from Birmingham-Southern College and a master’s in creative writing from the University of Iowa.

Gaines published many books throughout his career, including Waters Far and Near: Tales of Angling Adventure and Misadventure Around the World and the books Stay Hungry, Dangler and Survival Games. Stay Hungry was adapted into a movie starring Jeff Bridges, giving Schwarzenegger his first movie role.

“He climbed mountains, walked on ice, fished, and hunted on almost every continent, writing about each adventure in a way that captured the hearts and minds of people. He was interested in everything – and his interest was contagious,” Schwarzenegger wrote on Instagram.

“I’m lucky that he’s always looking for new frontiers, because that’s how he found me and our gym.”

In addition to his daughter Greta, Gaines is survived by his wife, artist Patricia Ellisor Gaines, and two other children, Latham and Shelby Gaines.