We'll always have Paris: although he has left his bodybuilding days behind, Bob Paris is doing just fine, thank you

Flex, Feb, 2008 by Shawn Perine

Although it's difficult to state with absolute assurance the exact moment bodybuilding was born, the ancient Greek culture was the first that we know of to celebrate the muscular male physique. Greek artists were fond of depicting leonine athletes locked in the heat of athletic competition in paintings, sculptures and friezes, not to mention equally buff gods doing whatever it is gods do.

In time, this heroic male form would be considered an element of a larger "Greek ideal"--a person having an equally sound mind and sound body.

It's the contention of some bodybuilding purists that the sport in which Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, et al., compete today has its deepest roots set in the firmament of the Greek ideal. They believe that the aesthetic standard immortalized by those artists is a direct forebear of the physiques of men ranging from Eugen Sandow to Charles Atlas, Steve Reeves to Larry Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger to Frank Zane. Indeed, their overriding look--wide shoulders, narrow hips, athletic appearance--was a hallmark of championship-winning bodybuilders for at least the first eight decades of the modern bodybuilding era, which began around the turn of the 20th century.

However, as a shift in emphasis from form to size and hardness began to take place in bodybuilding in the early '90s, its participants were faced with three choices: adapt to the new standards, stick with the old standards or get out. Many opted for the first. Those whose bodies would not allow for the added mass tried the second choice first, then inevitably were faced with the third choice.

During this tumultuous time in bodybuilding history, one man would run the gamut of the three choices yet, ultimately, stay true to himself, and the Greek ideal.

At 6'1" and a competitive bodyweight in the neighborhood of 230 pounds, Bob Paris was the living embodiment of the Greek ideal during his nine-year span in bodybuilding's limelight. Winning the NPC Nationals and the IFBB World Amateur Championships at just 22 in 1983, and competing in his first Olympia a year later, Paris was seen as bodybuilding's golden boy--a champion who would soon rule his sport.

That destiny would not be fulfilled, however. Although Paris had a successful pro career, spanning from 1984 to 1992, he would never win a pro show, least of all the Mr. Olympia title he'd been predicted to own.

His is not a story of failure, however, but of success. Regardless of his competitive record, Paris was one of the most successful bodybuilders of his day, and he has since gone on to live a multifaceted postbodybuilding life as a writer (he authored the best-selling memoir Gorilla Suit), actor, model, lecturer and gay rights activist.

Paris spoke with FLEX from his home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where he lives with his partner, Brian, and their two-year-old standard poodle, Cole. Despite no longer being 230 pounds, Paris is now living truer to the Greek ideal than ever before.

FLEX: Your last bodybuilding contest was 1992, yet people talk about your physique to this day. Do fans still contact you about your bodybuilding career?

BOB PARIS: Actually, yes. It's been many years since I've competed, so having been away from the sport for a while, it's interesting to hear so many complimentary things and to know that my work is still appreciated. I still get a great deal of feedback and it's an interesting concept for me to have been away from something for so long and yet to have it still be so much a part of my life.

You really do seem to have divested yourself from bodybuilding. It's as if there was a quantum shift in your thinking when it comes to the sport. What brought that about?

It was a really complicated time in bodybuilding during the late '80s and early '90s, which is when my interest in competing began to wane. We were at a crossroads of sorts. Supposedly, it was a time when drug testing was going to be implemented and the sport was going to be moving in a more commercial direction.

I stayed around to compete for what I feel was a couple of years too long to fulfill some needs I still had, but the sport wasn't moving in a direction that resonated with me. It was starting to evolve away from the thing that drew me to it in the first place. What drew me in was seeing Arnold on the cover of Rolling Stone and then on the cover of MUSCLE BUILDER [the forerunner of MUSCLE & FITNESS]. I'm not sure I would be drawn to the sport in the same way if I were that 16- or 17-year-old kid today.

I know that these sort of sound like "old man" complaints about the "good ol' days," but, if I had a wish for bodybuilding, it would be for it to continue moving in the direction it was moving back in the '80s and '90s, and that was toward mass appeal, rather than appealing only to its base. Rather than growing, it seems that the sport is shrinking in the number of people to whom it is targeted.

How would you go about reversing that trend?

I'm not really sure. I think the first thing would be [for the sport] to have steady nerves. I thought nerve was lost back when they were attempting to drug test at the pro level because there was a sense that "we're gonna lose the audience." Yes, maybe so, but as with any kind of change, there will at first be turmoil, and, if you can stick it out, what comes through on the other side can be much better. I think that it probably comes back to putting more interest in figuring out what appears reasonable on a body rather than quibbling over "Doesn't that 270-pound guy look so much more aesthetic than that 290-pound guy?" We need to tap into just what it is in a bodybuilder's physique that makes a kid--like I was--want to pick up a weight and try to emulate him and get back to that.