When I was a ten years old, I remember going to a birthday party at The Newark Armory. We went to see a wrestling match featuring some of the legends of that time (1964). The star of the show was Bruno Sammartino who I thought was Superman’s brother. He played the good guy and would never stoop so low that he would need a gimmick like most of the other wrestlers. You would never see him pick up a chair and slammed it in the face of an opponent. He was a real athlete and had a mythic quality about him. Even his name sounded so legendary – Bruno Sammartino.
Wrestling at the Armory
This armory was an old building back in 1964 and must have originally been used during WWII for recruitment and training. I think the place smelled liked bricks and beer. But the stage was filled with famous performers of that era like Haystacks Calhoun, Bo Bo Brazil, Argentina Apollo and Andre, the Giant. These were larger than life athletes who provided me with hours of amusement and a strange form of entertainment. Wrestling at the time was like The Three Stooges recruited to work at the circus. It was both comical and semi-athletic with virtual no redeeming qualities. It was pure rebellious fun that in 1964 felt like anarchy. It didn’t have any of the slick overproduced hype of the current productions.
The Human Circus
In this human circus, the elephants and lions were replaced with massive creatures who had to work out at a gym to get their mountain of muscles. No steroid shortcuts for these guys. Oddly, something in this show connected with me since I was never the aggressive, super competitive male like these men.
I don’t know what it was about this spectacle, but this tragic/comic theater spoke to me. Haystacks Calhoun, who was so aptly named, was as wide as a Volkswagen Beetle and Bo Bo Brazil who was as tall as Amazon tree with limbs that could wrap around several opponents at one time. Even Andre the Giant who went on to appear in one of my favorite movies (The Princess Bride), was another oversized star from that period. Those were the days.
Thirty Years Later
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| Sales Collateral From 1997 for Slim Jim with Randy |
Fast forward from 1964 to 1994 when I was working at GoodMark Foods in Raleigh, North Carolina. We had sold our wholesale bakery business (Rachel’s Brownies) in 1989 to this Raleigh-based snack food company. For the first few years, I was involved with their bakery sales. Then around 1994, I became involved in managing the marketing for their core brand of snack foods and eventually was promoted to VP Marketing for the entire company.
Our largest brand was Slim Jim® the thin smoked meat stick that was a staple of every convenience store in America. Slim Jim was a very big brand and one of the American icons in junk food like Twinkies® and Cheetos®. One of my favorite ironies from those times was that I didn’t eat red meat, so I was the vegetarian VP of Marketing for Slim Jims. (Note to self: update this fun fact on your resume)
Our Connecticut advertising agency, North Castle Partners, had brought forth an idea to use wrestling as a marketing vehicle in the late 1980’s. Their logic was that a Slim Jim, like professional wrestling, isn’t quite real. It also represented the anti-authority image we wanted to project to young male teens (our demographic). Credit goes to Hal Rosen who was the Creative Director and had this inspired insight. This marketing work preceded my involvement and added credit is due to the team who worked on this before I was involved in our core business. Dick Miller, Mike Ritchie, Andy Modlin and George Stewart all played a key role in bringing this great idea to life as did many others from our marketing team. The phrase “You guys a bit bored? Snap into a Slim Jim” became part of the lexicon during this period. So with the strategy in place, I got the best job of all.
I got to spend time with Randy Savage AKA Macho Man.
I like to read thoughtful books, cook elaborate recipes, listens to romantic opera, drink Italian wine and watch foreign films- not your typical wrestling fan.
Truth be told, I grew out of my interest in wrestling when I was about 13 as I moved on to playing baseball in high school. I didn’t care for all the fake violence and soap opera-like story lines anymore, but I did know Randy Savage with his bold and an over-the-top personality. He was a genuinely interesting guy and as he was an emerging wrestling star; I even knew who he was way back in the late 70’s.
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| Randy at one of many hospital visits and charity events |
As a spokesperson for Slim Jim, Randy knew that he had a job to do on stage but also had an incredibly soft heart for children who were ill and in the hospital. I got to witness an interesting aspect of Randy. He made it a requirement that when we would be doing publicity in a city for a Slim Jim event, we would spend time visiting kids at the hospital. No one asked him why- remember he had arms the size of loins of beef- but we knew it was his way of giving a little back. He had an enormous heart, but his Macho Man character didn’t allow it to emerge too often. So I got to witness this conflict between the public Macho Man and the private Randy the Man. Looking back it was a real privilege to be a part of this behind the scenes experience.
One day in the early Spring in 1997, I got a phone call from Randy. Now Randy’s voice is so distinctive that you would never forget it. It was raspy, deep and sounded like a truck backfiring diesel. Everything always started with Oh yeah or Brother.
My friend Britt Carter, our publicist at the time is the only person who could do his voice so perfectly that he could even fool Randy. I could never tell if it was Randy or Britt on the phone.
Teaching Macho Man How to Email
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| Macho Man and Gorgeous George |
Randy asked one more favor:
Randy: “One more thing- can you also teach Stephanie too?”
(Stephanie was his girlfriend at the time and used the name Gorgeous George as she was his side kick in the ring). I said that I would bring my daughter Fanny along and she could teach Stephanie, and I would work with him.
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| Fanny Slater beats Macho Man in an arm wrestle |
So I bought some tickets for Florida and off we went down to Treasure Island where he lived. We came over to his apartment and immediately got down to work. Randy had enormously thick fingers although his hands were of average size and I worried that he would never be able to type on a key board. His knowledge of typing was pretty limited, so we had to hunt and peck our way along the keyboard. We signed up for an AOL account using part of his real name which was Randy Poffo.
That evening we celebrated Randy’s new success by going out to dinner at one of his favorite local restaurants. You would think Mickey Mantle or Michael Jordan had walked in for dinner by the reception he got. I remember him telling the Maitre’d that I was his friend who was teaching him how to use a computer and he asked him if he had an email address so he could write to him later tonight to practice.
I worked with Randy for many years as our star in our commercials (Snap into a Slim Jim!) and later as our PR spokesperson for everything from the X Games with Dave Mirra, 3 on 3 Hoop It Up basketball, Country Music Concerts with George Strait and even Nascar with Bobby and Terry Labonte. Even around other super stars from music and sports, Randy was always the center of attention. Randy even got to appear in The Original Spiderman Movie and several other minor roles.
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| Jeffrey Slater as Macho Man at work. Oh yeah. |
Time Goes By
Randy and I lost touch after I left ConAgra Foods in 2003. They had acquired GoodMark Foods about five years prior and eventually moved it to Minnesota. I stayed in Raleigh and eventually went to work at Nomaco and then at a sister company in the wine business called Nomacorc where I hang my hat today. (see photo)
Of the many pieces of memorabilia I kept, I had one of Randy’s costumes from one of our commercials. It consisted of a cool jacket with yellow streamers, Randy’s over sized sun glasses and a nifty hat.
Two years ago I dressed up as Macho Man at Nomacorc for our Halloween party. I know I probably looked a little foolish, but I have to admit it was an honor putting it on. The best part was the looks I got driving on I540 to work.
This costume got around as even our Chairman of the Board, Ron Doggett, wore it at several GoodMark occasions to pump up the team. In fact, Ron wore it recently at a GoodMark reunion. We all wanted to be like Randy.
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| Ron Doggett, Jeff Slater and Randy Savage in 1999 |
I hope Randy is out there on Twitter and Facebook using those skills that I helped him with many years ago. In exchange, he showed me the secret of the Sleeper Hold and the Flying Elbow – and for that, I will forever be grateful.
Most of all, he allowed me to see a that behind the Macho Man is a big heart and a real human being who thought he needed to give back to kids who needed a little break from their illnesses.
stephaniiieee ::::slap:::::
i love how you described his voice. i remember how cool i felt having his phone number in my contacts and sometimes i would think about calling just to hear that raspy voice. i liked the pictures of the wrestlers in the beginning…awesome way to start the story. another great one dad. OHHHH YEAH BROTHER! ps. thanks again for putting extremely awkward phase photos of me out for the world to see. oh well. at least my looks seemed to go uphill from there.
Jeff,
Great piece and thanks for introducing me to Randy….he is such a great guy and when I invited him to throw out the 1st pitch at a Pirates game, he said he would only do it if he could do it with a young man from the American Cancer Society. He really loved letting kids shine. When I brought him into the lockeroom to meet the Pirates, it was so cool to see these pro baseball players run over and ask for pictures and autographs. I’ll also never forget when he called me and said “Garret, you’ll be calling me tomorrow for my wake up call!”
We need more people out there documenting the real life legacies of pro wrestler’s out there. So many of them have social networking capabilities, but use them in character to help promote themselves or their companies. If we knew more about the causes and cares of these guys outside of the ring, I think a lot of wrestling fans might be more inclined to help out.
Hey Jeff, great memories… thanks for letting me come along for the ride!
Hope Randy’s doing well these days… I believe he just got married…
Jeff,
Your blog is a fantastic tribute to Randy. We’re all still in shock and mourning the loss of a good friend and very smart, funny man. Randy made a major impact on many of our lives. We’ll miss him.
Britt
I wish I could’ve had the honor of meeting the man, the Macho Man. He was a childhood hero of mine and it’s sad to know he is gone.
Thanks for the great story. More people need to know about his huge heart. I remember at ConAgra in Omaha, they had him down for a public appearance, and everyone brought their kids to get pictures and autographs. He never once rushed anyone and seemed to really enjoy the smiles he got back from the kids. I am not sure if the kids had more fun of the parents had more fun. Everyone was acting like a little kid in the line I was in!
Don Hyde
Don, Thanks for your comment on my story about Randy. I was responsible for bringing Randy to ConAgra’s headquarter and I remember how much fun we had that day. He stayed a long time signing autographs and talking to the kids. Most of the kids were the grownups who all wanted to be photographed with him.
I miss my friend. Oh, yeah.