Gorgeous George

From ordinary grappler to sensation

George Wagner was born in Nebraska in 1915 and grew up in Texas. For years he was a solid but unremarkable wrestler. In 1941, in Eugene, Oregon, he began to reinvent himself. He grew his hair long, dyed it platinum blond, set it in elaborate waves, and wore extravagant robes into the ring. He became Gorgeous George.

His entrance was a show by itself. Music played as he strolled slowly to the ring. A valet sprayed the ring with perfume before George would set foot in it, and he handed out gold-plated bobby pins he called Georgie pins to the crowd. Fans howled with outrage, and that was exactly the point.

Made for television

George arrived at the perfect moment. In the late 1940s, American television was new and hungry for programs that were cheap and easy to film. Wrestling fit perfectly, and Gorgeous George was the most watchable thing on it. Viewers who had never cared about wrestling tuned in to see the preening villain they loved to hate. He became one of the best-known entertainers in the country and earned far more than most wrestlers of his time.

His act also changed how wrestlers thought about character. Before George, most performers were simply tough men in plain trunks. After him, promoters and wrestlers understood that a costume, an entrance and a strong personality could make someone a star. The entrance music, robes and attitude seen in arenas today all owe something to him.

The lesson for a young boxer

In 1961, a young Olympic champion named Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, crossed paths with George in Las Vegas. Ali later described how struck he was by the huge crowd, which he recalled as 15,000 people, that had paid to see George, many of them hoping to watch him get beaten. The boxer realized that boasting and outrageous confidence could sell tickets just as well as talent.

Ali's rhyming predictions and loud self-promotion became famous, and he openly credited George as an influence. That makes a perfumed wrestler from Nebraska one of the hidden ancestors of modern sports trash talk.

Legacy

George's health declined as his career wound down, and he died of a heart attack in December 1963 at 48. His influence reached far beyond wrestling: singers, boxers and generations of flamboyant villains borrowed from his act. The idea that a character can be as important as the athlete started, in many ways, with him.

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