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In 1965, Joe Gold, a marine, showed the world how to turn scrap into gold. With the utmost passion and an even bigger vision, the son of a junk dealer turned a modest concrete building in Venice Beach, California into the mecca for hardcore weightlifters and fitness enthusiasts. He built the first gym equipment from scrap metal all by himself, laying the foundations for a success story like no other. Within just a few years, Joe’s single-room gym had turned into a veritable hotspot for the bodybuilding scene, which was still relatively unknown at the time. With legends like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ric Drasin and Dave Draper, Gold's Gym became the symbol of a new fitness culture. The global hype surrounding 70s cult film “Pumping Iron” put the fitness and bodybuilding scene on the map. Attracting millions of sports enthusiasts worldwide, Gold's Gym developed into the epicenter of a new fitness movement and the absolute cult brand that it is today.
As the son of a scrap dealer, Joe Gold was born in 1922 in East Los Angeles. When he was just 12 years old, he began showing an interest in bodybuilding after seeing his sister-in-law working out with homemade weights made from two water-filled buckets attached to each end of a long stick. This inspired Joe and his brother Robert to make their own weightlifting equipment, using whatever they could find at their father’s junkyard. In his teens, Joe discovered Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, the place where bodybuilders, stuntmen and acrobats got together to train. Fascinated by their skills and strength, he also began weightlifting there. But after several years, he left Los Angeles to serve in the merchant marines and became a skilled machinist.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN – FROM THE BEACHT TO A SMALL CONCRETE SWEATBOX
After the Second World War, Joe returned to California to pursue his two passions: weight training and bodybuilding. Venice Beach had become the place to be for the bodybuilding scene. Scantily-clad muscle men and women would gather at this open-air gym to train and challenge each other on the weights, rings, dips and chin-up bars. Made famous by bodybuilders with glistening, sculpted bodies flexing their muscles, pumping iron and posing, Muscle Beach became a global symbol of strength and power and inspired a culture of outdoor fitness. Bodybuilders from all over the world would flock here to show off their perfectly trained physiques - much to the delight of the growing crowds of onlookers. When Muscle Beach was closed in 1959, the local bodybuilding set moved from the beach to the indoor gyms. But at that time, there were only three gyms in California for seven million inhabitants and none of them were able to fulfil the special requirements of the bodybuilding scene. So, in 1965, Gold decided to open his own gym for himself and his weightlifting friends. He purchased a plot of land on Pacific Avenue, right next to Venice Beach, and had a simple concrete building erected on it. But the little concrete box was a lot more than it appeared from the outside: it became the new home of a hedonistic subculture united by one true passion: bodybuilding.
A home for the subculture Gold knew exactly what his clientele wanted - he was one of them, after all. Familiar with the special needs of bodybuilding, he built all the machines for his fitness studios himself. And so in next to no time, Gold's Gym became the most popular hangout for the bodybuilding scene. Frank Zane, Serge Jacobs, Ric Drasin and Dave Draper all flocked to Venice to train at Gold's Gym. With his ambitious visions and passion, Joe brought this subculture up out of the underground and into the shining Californian sun. For an annual membership fee of just 60 dollars, and by waiving the fee for bodybuilders who couldn’t afford to pay them, Gold's Gym reinforced its excellent reputation and attracted even more members, including the greatest bodybuilding legend of all time: Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was none other than Joe Weider, bodybuilder and founder of Mr. Olympia, who brought the Austrian to Gold's Gym in 1968. Arnie soon became a good friend of Joe Gold’s, who was both a trusted mentor and father figure to him and ensured that Arnie and his friends could pursue their passion in a professional, but family-like atmosphere.
In 1970, Joe Gold sold his fitness studio to re-join the U.S. Navy as a merchant marine, his original occupation. Dave Saxe and Bud Danitz took over and started running Gold's Gym, until it was purchased by Ken Sprague two years later. Sprague, who had already been a member since 1969, continued to lead the unique fitness studio on the road to success - with Hollywood greats like Arnold Schwarzenegger and friends helping Gold's Gym and the bodybuilding world to achieve even more popularity and growth. More and more people were making the pilgrimage to the fitness studio to catch a glimpse of the hulks of Venice. Whether at the beach, in the bars, along the boulevard or downtown - the muscle shirts emblazoned with the Gold's Gym logo, which Ric Drasin had spontaneously designed on the back of a paper napkin, were everywhere. Just one decade after it was founded, Gold's Gym hosted the Mr. America contest in 1977. In the same year, the movie “Pumping Iron” was released: a docudrama that follows Schwarzenegger as he competes for the titles of Mr. Universe and Mr. America. It made Gold's Gym an overnight phenomenon and catapulted the sport of bodybuilding to a whole new level of popularity.
Suddenly Gold's Gym was not only a big name in the bodybuilding scene, but also being featured in countless magazines, including fashion titles. Its muscular members and their perfectly sculpted physiques could be admired on covers all over the globe. And Hollywood stars and top athletes like Clint Eastwood and Muhammed Ali started coming to the world’s most famous gym for training sessions. To this day, Gold's Gym has retained its close links to the bodybuilding scene and, as a result of its unique history, rightfully deserves the title “cult brand.”