![]() ![]() Tor left us many years ago, and George just a few days ago. Both were giants who left their sizeable footprints on my soul. Johnson was never as famous as a wrestler as he became as an actor (PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS-but you all knew that already), whereas Steele was far more famous for what he did in the ring than what he did in Hollywood. Tor’s career was sorta the inverse of Steele’s. Nor did I know that he would, in a few years, become linked with another legend of the wrestling ring-cum-crossover Horror icon, portraying Tor Johnson in Tim Burton’s film ED WOOD. I never knew that the man who was George Steele had a secret life as a high school principal with a PhD. With his bald head, excessively hirsute body and green tongue, he was a larger than life human cartoon who could rip your arm off. He had always been billed as a feared heel, or bad guy, but by the time I first saw him he was a goofy, loveable “face” (hero). By the time I got into wrestling in the mid 80s, I didn’t realize that George had already been around for quite some time and was in fact in the final days of his career. George “The Animal” Steele qualified as both a B-movie villain/monster AND a “superstar of wrestling,” as they were called back in those days. On those rare occasions when two or more of my great passions would cross over, I’d about have a pre-pubescent nerdgasm and explode my brain. To movie fans he might be best-known for his appearance as the wrestler Tor Johnson in Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood. KISS was on the radio, and I longed for the days when one of the three TV stations we could pick up on our TV with its rabbit-ear antennae would rebroadcast STAR WARS or one of the old black-and-white Sci-Fi or Horror classics. George Steele, Born William James Myers in 1937, the future WWE Hall of Fame member started out with a football career in mind like so many other wrestlers, but saw his career cut short due to knee problems. ![]() Growing up-I must be careful, lest I wax overly-poetic and become misty-eyed at the recollections of my childhood in the glorious 80s-my life was comic books, Horror movies, and Professional Wrestling.
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