Dan Lurie, 1923–2013
The bodybuilder who arm-wrestled President Reagan
Dan Lurie sculpted his award-winning physique as a young man not merely by hours of weight lifting but also by hauling furniture for his father’s Brooklyn moving company. He would even fit in exercise between loads. “One routine would require 25 push-ups on the landing of the stairs before I returned to the truck for more furniture,” he later said. “Ten trips meant 250 push-ups.”
Lurie’s early life was something of a “storybook tale,” said The New York Times. He was born with a heart defect and not expected to live beyond his fifth birthday. But by the time he was a teenager, he was “freakishly strong.” At age 17 he could lift a 150-pound barbell above his head with one arm, and by the time he was 19 he was voted most muscular American by the Amateur Athletic Union. At Lurie’s peak fitness, he could do 1,665 push-ups in 90 minutes. Yet the muscleman’s defective heart made him ineligible to serve in World War II, an irony widely reported at the time.
Lurie won fame in the 1950s as “Sealtest Dan the Muscle Man” on the CBS TV show Sealtest Big Top, said the Long Island Herald, and he went on to become a bodybuilding entrepreneur, opening a chain of gymnasiums, selling weight-lifting equipment, and publishing six different bodybuilding magazines. In 1984, when one of his publications named President Ronald Reagan the fittest president in history, Reagan challenged Lurie to an arm-wrestling contest in the Oval Office. The president, then 73, made headlines by defeating the 60-year-old strongman. It was only years later that Lurie admitted to having thrown the match. “I wasn’t going to beat the president,” he wrote.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
What would it be like in jail for Trump if he's convicted?
Today's Big Question The Secret Service has begun grappling with how to protect a former president behind bars
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
How much can you save shopping secondhand?
The Explainer Many Americans are buying pre-owned items to counteract the effects of inflation
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published
-
Downtown St. Louis is in a real estate 'doom loop'
Under the Radar The city is ripe with abandoned buildings and vacant lots, with its real estate market in dire straits
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Remembering former US Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court
the explainer O'Connor played a pivotal role on the bench and was regarded as the one of the powerful women of her era
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published