Wrestling’s Villain Emerges as Hollywood’s Bad Guy

Production is nearly complete on Eddie Murphy’s new movie, “The Golden Child.” Inside Sound Stage 16 at Paramount Studios, “Judo” Gene LeBell, menacing as a greasy biker, awaits the cue for his final scene. A former professional wrestler turned Hollywood stunt man, LeBell is playing the role he loves the most. Obviously, it’s not the good guy.

When director Michael Ritchie calls for action and the camera begins to purr, LeBell snarls with the same ferocity he exhibited in the ring as Ivan the Terrible, Eric the Red and the not-so-adorable Hangman. Then he braces himself as the film’s petite heroine runs up to him, flips in the air and knocks LeBell through a wall. Justice has been served.

LeBell, 53, has been playing the villain for more than 30 years. In the mid-1950s, wearing black tights, he was the evil Dr. Kryptonite, touring the country with the late George Reeves to promote the television series “Superman.” Then, as a bad-guy professional wrestler who played cities from Texas to Canada, he incited fans and literally asked for trouble. In one memorable week, his big mouth got him stabbed five times, he claims.

“To make money, I had to be the villain,” LeBell said in his Sherman Oaks condominium. “In wrestling, you either get the audience to love you or hate you.”

It wasn’t love that made LeBell sneak out of Salt Lake City 23 years ago--he was trying to keep from being tarred and feathered after a no-holds-barred match with light-heavyweight boxer Milo Savage, who was a Salt Lake City home boy. Although the scenario seems straight out of a Hollywood adventure tale, LeBell has an 8-mm film to prove it.

In the bedroom of his condo, he popped a videocassette into a recorder and a poor-quality black-and-white film appeared on his television screen.

“My brother Mike bet $20,000 on me,” LeBell said as he watched the grainy figures stalking each other. “Before the match, we find out Savage’s got brass knuckles under his gloves. Mike yells, ‘The fight’s off! The fight’s off!’ I said to Mike, ‘Are you worried about me or your money?’ ”

For four rounds, the wrestler and the boxer circle each other with only a few blows exchanged. “I tried to grab him,” LeBell said, “but he had grease all over him.” Sure enough, there’s Savage slipping out of LeBell’s clutches like a bar of soap. In the fifth round, however, LeBell managed to take Savage down, then applied a rear arm-bar chokehold and, LeBell said, “I put him to sleep.”

Parading around the ring to celebrate his victory, LeBell gingerly stepped on Savage’s chest, the ultimate act of villainy. The film shows seat cushions raining into the ring. Then chairs. Still sleeping on the canvas, Savage was unaware of the mayhem, however, and was not to awaken for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, the LeBell brothers fought their way to the dressing room, then had to sneak out of town.

When the film was over, LeBell flipped on a portable stereo and a tape began to play “The Ballad of Gene LeBell,” written and performed by Hollywood stunt coordinator Mike Vendrell.

Unless a wrestler knows Cyndi Lauper personally, he’s not likely to get a song written about him. But Vendrell had been a big fan of LeBell even before he met him.

“I had heard about him and the Milo Savage fight for a long time, and it really intrigued me,” Vendrell said. “I wound up doing a lot of research on it. The amazing thing is that Gene fought with a dislocated shoulder and, basically, the fight was rigged in Savage’s favor. Gene should have lost. I had collected so much information on the fight that after I’d finally met Gene, I wanted to give him something for his 50th birthday, so me and a buddy wrote the song.”

LeBell not only went one-on-one against boxers and pro wrestlers, but he also wrestled bears, football players and other subhumans during a career that spanned 25 years. “I was a fanatic in the early days,” he said. “If I heard about a tough guy wrestling in Chicago, I’d take a bus across country and stretch him.”

Stretch is a wrestling term for punishing the other guy. During his career, LeBell has stretched a lot of opponents. For years, he had a standing offer of $10,000 for any man who could whip him. Nobody ever collected.

In 1960 in Amarillo, Tex., he beat Pat O’Connor for what was billed as the world wrestling championship, only to have it taken away 12 seconds after the decision when he swung the diamond-studded championship belt to celebrate and--accidentally, he says--clipped the wrestling commissioner on the cheek, drawing blood and a suspension.

Despite his flamboyance, LeBell, a barrel-chested redhead weighing about 230 pounds, never made a lot of money as a wrestler. Tops, he says, was $3,600 for the championship match against O’Connor. As a main event, he would earn perhaps as much as $1,500 a bout, but he would tour only six months a year. Today’s pro wrestling stars, such as Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper, are said to make more than $1 million annually.

“I got out of wrestling too soon,” LeBell said. “Now everyone is making big bucks, but then again, wrestling is as tough a business as you can get into. If you get hurt, there’s no insurance, and you’re out of work. Travel isn’t fun, either. You’re always on the road, living out of a suitcase.”

What does LeBell say to all those people who suggest that pro wrestling is, uh, not completely realistic? “I say, ‘Come on down and wrestle me if you think it’s phony,’ ” LeBell said. And then what? “Then I stretch ‘em.”

LeBell’s office is packed with memorabilia such as trophies for winning the national Amateur Athletic Union judo championships as a heavyweight in both 1954 and ’55. On the wall are framed covers from Inside Kung-Fu and Black Belt magazines showing him flipping opponents, his ever-present snarl prominent in both. From a closet in the room, LeBell extracts another souvenir, an old X-ray of one of his numerous dislocated shoulders.

“I got hurt more in wrestling than I have doing stunts,” he said.

Stunt work, however, has given him more than contusions. A year ago, LeBell said, he made about $200,000 for being thrown through walls, driving cars off piers, jumping motorcycles, crashing various vehicles and exposing his body to explosions, cave-ins and fire. His most difficult stunt? “Just getting up in the morning,” he said, wincing at some pain.

LeBell comes from a sports-minded family. His mother, Aileen Eaton, ran the Olympic Auditorium for 38 years and was the only woman in the country then licensed to promote wrestling and boxing. His older brother, Mike, was a well-known sports promoter in the area before retiring recently. Aside from growing up around people who spoke the violence business, LeBell hung out at the Main Street Gym with guys who let their fists do their talking.

Becoming a pro wrestler was a natural progression for him. Not only did he have the background and the skills, but his flair for mugging and theatrics was a vital asset on the wrestling circuit. His rubber face and athletic ability, he found, also came in handy for another career, stunt work.

After LeBell hung up his Mr. Kryptonite outfit, Reeves got him on the “Superman” series in 1956 as a villain who “spoke a couple of lines and then got the hell knocked out of me,” LeBell said. It wasn’t long before LeBell was working regularly in TV and movies, and discovering the joys of residuals. In 1962, he joined the Stuntmen’s Assn. of Motion Pictures. By the mid-1960s, wrestling was occupying only 30% of his time, stunt work the rest. Over the years, he has worked on hundreds of TV shows, from “Magnum P.I.” to “General Hospital,” as well as appearing in movies that featured Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. He also narrated pro wrestling on Los Angeles TV for 15 years. This year he was nominated for two Stunt Man awards.

In his living room, LeBell points out a laminated movie poster depicting LeBell, as Turk McGurk, holding Ruth Buzzi above his head and subjecting her to a wicked airplane spin. No, this isn’t a remake of “Citizen Kane.”

LeBell was supposed to be stunt coordinator on the film, called “Bad Guys,” but the producers liked his acting ability so much they cast him as a lead.

Versatility is nothing new for LeBell. When Muhammad Ali took on Japanese wrestling champion Antonio Anoki 10 years ago, LeBell was selected from among 200 applicants to be the referee. Before the match, LeBell figured that Anoki would win easily. But Ali won on a decision, although LeBell had voted for a draw. Anoki, LeBell recalled, fought defensively, lying on his back most of the time like a crab and trying to leg-whip the elusive Ali.

LeBell, wrestler, stunt man, actor, also whittles, composes poetry, writes books and has been teaching wrestling and self-defense at L.A. City College for the past 15 years. A black belt, he has written four books on judo, wrestling and self-defense. His latest, “Pro Wrestling Finishing Holds,” contains, he said, “150 ways to break a guy’s arms and legs,” holds like the “hair grab and rib crush with knee, the head hug with knees, the thumb crush, behind-the-chin dislocation, Indian death lock and the front face lift,” which is not the recommended way to improve someone’s looks. Minors, says a cautionary note in the front of the book, should not try any of the holds without their parents’ permission.

“If you can learn these holds,” said LeBell, “they’re the best self-defense in the world. You won’t have to worry about handling yourself on the street. For instance, a guy picks a fight with you. You put a neck choke on him and boom!--he’s on the ground doing the floppy chicken.”

It may be hard to believe, but LeBell doesn’t go around kicking dogs and growling at children. At home, clean shaven, dressed in slacks and a pullover and wearing reading glasses--a cauliflower left ear the only clue to his profession--he looks more like a cuddly uncle than a guy who makes others say uncle. LeBell doesn’t smoke or drink and is a devoted father. His son, David, 27, also is a stunt man.

“The best thing about Gene,” said Vendrell, “is that he’s the nicest guy in the world.”

Now that may be stretching it.