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The First Lady An interview which appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of OXYGEN. An interview with the woman who convinced the masses to fall in love with females - with muscles, by Chris Kennedy. Doris Barrilleaux is one of the founders of weight training for women and its promotion to the masses. For that she has been affectionately dubbed the first lady of bodybuilding and thus the figurehead of fitness as well. When the female athletes began to masculinize their bodies by taking steroids Doris lost interest in the sport. But now, with the growing popularity of fitness competitions, she has seen her dream reborn. The following is an exclusive Oxygen interview. OXYGEN: Why are you known as the first lady of bodybuilding? DORIS BARRILLEAUX: I started weight training in 1955 after having four children. But my interest in bodybuilding began in 1977 when I began photographing bodybuilding competitions. Comely women were asked to present trophies but none received recognition for their achievements in weight training,as did the men. The only competition for women at that time was the traditional beauty contest. O2: So how was it you got the ball rolling? DORIS: Back in 1962 I submitted a photograph to Strength & Health magazine. I was doing a double biceps pose I had seen in the men's bodybuilding publications. Strength & Health returned it with a request for a photo that was more feminine. I sent in a more feminine photo which ran in 1963 and I continued to correspond with John Grimek, the editor. Years later, in 1978, word of a women's bodybuilding competition being held at the WMCA in Canton, OH, by Henry McGhee caught my attention,. John Grimek encouraged me to enter the contest. I was terrified having never appeared on stage before. We wore shirts to have our lower bodies judged, then had to remove the shirts and don pants to have our upper bodies judged. There were no rules and no experienced judges. It was total chaos. O2: What happened next? DORIS: I was asked to guest pose at several local shows and the Tampa Tribune started doing articles about me and women's bodybuilding. Two months later I entered one of George Snyder's new shows in Pennsylvania. The women were really more models than fitness representatives. Having no modeling experience, my routine was based on those I'd seen at the men's shows. But my music was "I Am Woman" so that nobody would think I was trying to imitate a man. At 47 I was the oldest competitor. I was in good shape but not muscular like my male counterparts. It was not my objective to look like a man. After the show, Frank Zane pulled me aside and said, "Doris, the world's not ready for women bodybuilders!" I guess that was all it took. I set out to prove him wrong. O2: How did you prove him wrong? DORIS: After a guest-posing exhibition in Tampa, Suzanne Kosak came up to me and asked why we couldn't have shows for the women like they did for the men. In October of 1978, Suzanne, Linda Gleason and I formed the Superior Physique Association, Inc.(SPA). We put in countless hours contacting gyms, the media and all the interested women we could find. W held regular meetings and formed competition rules, then put on the Ms. Brandon Physique competition in Brandon, Fl, on April 29, 1979. There were 13 contestants. I remember organizing, competing and even cooking for 50 people for the party at my home following the show. It was great fun and everyone was so enthusiastic. O2: Did the women's competitions catch on? DORIS: The following May 25, we held the first-ever State competition. It was the Ms. Florida Physique. We had to supply our own trophies but we were allowed to hold it along with the men's show. In the very beginning, they actually had to end the men's show and then let us have ours so as not to conflict with their sanctions. O2: How long did you compete? DORIS: I won the best-poser award at the Florida State that year, then in October I won Ms. Gold Coast for women over 35. After that, I was too busy with the administrative end to compete any longer. (But in 1985 I placed third in a fitness and beauty contest at the age of 54 and then won Ms. Senior Citizen in '87.) O2: What do you think propelled the sport so rapidly? DORIS: Suzanne and I worked endlessly. While the number television shows, interviews and my collection of newspaper clippings and magazine articles about the sport is mind-boggling, it was our appearance on Real People that really gave us a boost. Immediately after I wrote them about our contests, the TV crew came to Tampa and filmed a number of us at work and at the gym. They also filmed our Ms. Tampa competition. Laura Combes won and Real People showed Laura's and my routines on the show. Laura was the most muscular woman we had seen at that time. The sport was launched nationwide. O2: Were you on any other major television shows? DORIS: I was on To Tell The Truth, What's My Line (they didn't guess that I was the bodybuilder), SportsWorld and 20/20. For some time I'd tried to interest 20/20 in doing something to expose the steroid use that was so rampant in the men's sport and beginning to creep into the women's. They were not at all interested. But they did come to my home to interview me, and filmed women at gyms. When the show aired, it began by talking about the women using steroids and stated that some were lesbians. There was such a negative reaction to that show they actually edited it and rebroadcast it later. I don't know if that ever happened before. O2: What about the magazines, were they interested in the women's competitions? DORIS: Suzanne tried and tried but was unsuccessful at reaching Joe Weider, publisher of Muscle & Fitness, to tell him about our organization. Then one day I received a surprise telephone call. A woman's voice stated, "Doris Barrilleaux please, Joe Weider calling." And I knew we finally had his attention. He sent a reporter down to shoot one of our shows and featured it in his magazine. The other bodybuilding magazines gave us a lot of publicity as well. Muscle Training Illustrated made me women's editor and I had a regular column called "Curves and Peaks." I also continued photographing and reporting the contest for all the other bodybuilding publications as well. Especially MuscleMag International. O2: Were women generally accepted in this line of work? DORIS: Not all of the general public and not even all within the bodybuilding field accepted us. I specialized in photographing couples. I'd choose a man and woman from the show and photograph them together outdoors the next morning. (I've lost track of the number of covers I've had on all the different magazines.) One time a reporter and photographer from Muscle Digest in California were visiting my home and asked to use some of my couples pictures in their magazine. They told me not to put my name on the photos as their publisher wouldn't use them if he knew they were from a woman. Needless to say, I never sent any. What a surprise to get a call some time later from the owner of the magazine, Donald Wong, who said, "Doris, you're the best couple's photographer in the business. I'd like to use some of your photos." Q2: When did the pro women's shows begin and what did they signify to you? DORIS: In 1980 Snyder put on the first Miss Olympia contest. Rachel McLish won. When Joe and Ben Weider called me onstage to pose with her for the awards, I knew they appreciated how much work I'd put into the sport's foundation. It was the party afterward that I received on of my all-time favorite compliments. Arnold Schwarzenegger told me, "You got to be da sexiest grandmutter in da world." I think Rachel was the best example the sport ever had. I don't know any woman who wouldn't want to look like Rachel. On the other hand, I don't know any women who would want to look like today's bodybuilding champions. Another notable compliment came from a Sports Illustrated writer in 1980 who stated, "She may have the best 48-year-old grandmother's body on earth." But the greatest tribute I ever received was in The Muscle Book written by Anthony Serafini. He said, "If Schwarzenegger and Columbo are the crown princes of male bodybuilding ,then Doris Barrilleaux merits the the same status for the fairer sex. With an intellect like Curie and a physique like Aphrodite, she has single-handedly transformed the exciting new sport of women's bodybuilding from something of an oddity to a respected and growing phenomenon." I can't think of a more glowing and humbling tribute than that. O2: Was the Olympia the first time you met the Weiders? DORIS: Actually, my first meeting with Ben Weider was at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He sent word for me to meet him at one of the exclusive restaurants. When he walked up, his first words were, "Doris, my brother and I think you were sent to us by God." What a surprise that was! O2: Were there any highlights of 1981? DORIS: I filmed a TV pilot Body Sculpture by Doris but I really didn't have the experience and/or disposition to do my own TV show. O2: What were you involved in in the following years? DORIS: It was in 1982 that I was nominated for a Healthy Fitness Leader award in Washington, DC. Although I lost to Jack LaLanne and Richard Simmons, I felt it was an honor just to be nominated. I was also the first woman to receive the Florida Bodybuilders Man of the Year Award. That's what my plaque says, "Man of the Year." I have many other awards. In '79 I was honored with the Book of the Year Award in the WBBG Hall of Fame for Inside Weight Training For Women. One of my most cherished awards was presented to me by John Schieicher at a contest in Tampa in '86. It's engraved: "We will not forget and not not let anyone else forget that your are the one who started what is now the world-wide sport of women's bodybuilding." O2: What happened to SPA? DORRIS: It grew until we had state representatives in all but two states and even had SPA branches in Europe. We held judges' clinics ,had elections and operated with a board of directors. It was a large organization. In November 1980, I was elected chairwoman of the International Federation of Body Builders (IFBB) and Ben Weider asked me to start a national organization for women. Susan Fry and Kim Cassidy helped me organize the American Federation of Women Bodybuilders (AFWB). SPA as an organization just fell by the wayside, but I continued to publish SPA News. I'd started the newsletter in '79 since there was nothing published for women in those days. It continued until 1983. I still have a number of the issues in storage. O2: Why did you finally stop publishing the newsletter? DORIS; While I was the woman's editor of MTI, Dan Luri, the publisher, offered me my own magazine - Body Talk. It absorbed the newsletter. There was no distribution for the magazine and I only had the one issue published. However, I did write a fitness book called Forever Fit. I was totally occupied with the AFWB. We even had a national congress. With the IFBB and AFWB, I was traveling to all the contest around the world to act as head judge while taking photos and writing magazine articles. I still have all the scoring sheets from those first major contests. I also have several large boxes of old correspondence from people who were so excited about my efforts to promote women's bodybuilding O2: What about movies? Were you involved in any, specifically the 1983 film Pumping Iron II The Women? DORIS: As the chairwoman of the IFBB, I had to attend the filming, but the only involvement I was allowed was when they wanted to make an issue about the padding in Rachel's bra. I was the only female official who could check out the situation so I appeared briefly in the film. Also, in 1983 I co-emceed the Miss Olympia with Joe Tete. My last official function was to head judge the World Championships in Australia in 1984. O2: Did you give up your positions? DORIS: I didn't give them up. It was at this time the National Physique Committee was formed. We were told that it was now illegal to have two separates amateur federations and that we would be absorbed by the NPC. Q2: What are you doing today? DORIS: For the last 12 years I've been photo editor of Florida Muscle News. I also photograph most of the contests in Florida. At one time we had as many as 50 shows a year. There are fewer these days, but now fitness competitions have been added. My new interest is manipulating photography with the computer. It is such a challenge and great fun to create the FMN covers using the computer. Q2: What do you think about the new fitness competitions? DORIS: I think it has taken 20 years for my original idea - recognizing fit and healthy women - to become a reality. I believe that our biggest mistake in the beginning was calling the sport bodybuilding instead of body sculpting of fitness. There was always the argument that you couldn't put a limit on development. When the women started looking just men, in my opinion, they had gone too far. As early as 1981 I suggested having two types of contests - one bodybuilding and the other physique or body sculpting - but no one would listen. At least now there is a place for both types of women,. At the age of 67 I still receive requests for autographed current photos and I thoroughly enjoy my new photography/computer interest - I don't know if I'll ever retire. |
