Wrestlers go Hollywood
In February 2007 Wrestlemania – described on Wikipedia as the annual “Super
Bowl event” of the wrestling world – reached its landmark 24th year. It was the
most successful Wrestlemania ever, with a record 80 000+ fans in attendance and
“the highest-grossing pay-per-view in WWE history as well as the
highest-grossing event in North American professional wrestling history”.
Vinnie Mac must have been rubbing his hands together in glee...
Wrestling fans have always understood the power of professional wrestling: the
theatre of the sport, the extreme spectacle, the charisma of the stars… And so
has Hollywood, often plucking wrestling stars out of the ring (and off the
small screen), and plonking them onto the big screen, where they can put their
special brand of personality and extreme sport into action.
And as you’d expect, action movies are where most wrestlers have thrived. Ox
Baker (inventor of the dreaded ‘heart punch’) made a memorable appearance in
John Carpenter’s classic sci-fi action pic Escape From New York (1981), playing
“Slag”, handle bar moustache in tow. Carpenter also made a film actor out of
Rowdy Roddy Piper in his legendary – yet very underrated – alien movie They
Live! (1988), which featured Roddy being beaten up in an alley by an
other-wordly predator that only he can see.
Speaking of predators – former Governor of Minnesota – and WWE heavyweight
champion – Jesse “The Body” Ventura also left his mark in Predator (1987), one
of the greatest science fiction action movies of the 1980s. Alongside fellow
future governor Arnold Schwarzennegger, Jesse fought valiantly against the
invisible monster from outer space in his very first big screen role. He went
on to appear alongside Arnie again in The Running Man (1987), Denzel Washington
in Ricochet (1991) and Sylvester Stallone in The Demolition Man (1993).
Politics and wrestling just weren’t enough for “The Body”...
Before we move onto the biggest crossover star of them all (yep, The Rock),
perhaps the biggest wrestling star to ever make the jump to the big screen –
literally – is the late Andre The Giant. Ironically for a man of his stature
(7’ 5” - 340lb/2.26m - 245kg) and known for his ferocity in the ring, Andre
made his movie name in one of the sweetest family films of the 1980s, The
Princess Bride (1987), playing kidnapper Fezzik the Giant. Born André René
Roussimoff, the French national died in 1993 aged 46 with his status forever
cemented in popular culture by not only his giant wrestling stature, but his
sweet bumbling role in The Princess Bride.
With the help of WWF kingpin-turned-movie mogul Vince McMahon, Dwayne “The
Rock” Johnson has also worked very hard on gaining a ‘legit’ performance career
outside of the ring, having all but hung up his wrestling boots to concentrate
on becoming a fully-fledged Hollywood star. He made such an impression in
sequel The Mummy Returns (1999) that an entire prequel was created around his
character The Scorpion King (2002), playing cheeky desert warrior “Mathayus”.
Flexing his acting muscles further, he has graduated to other dramatic roles
with much success, in movies like First Blood-knock off Walking Tall (2004),
Get Shorty-sequel Be Cool (2005), with a lead role in Shazam! on the cards for
2008. The Peoples’ Elbow rules supreme on the silver screen...
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
