Paul Edward Anderson (October 17, 1932 – August 15, 1994) was an American weightlifter, professional wrestler, powerlifter and strongman. During the 1950s, he was an Olympic gold medalist, a world champion, and a two-time national Olympic weightlifting champion.
Anderson contributed significantly to the development of competitive powerlifting in the 1960s. Due to his many world records and outstanding feats of strength specially for his time, he has often been called "the strongest man who ever lived".
Anderson was born in Toccoa, Georgia, the only son of Ethel Bennett and Robert Anderson. As a teenager, he began his early weight training on his own in his family's backyard to increase his size and strength so that he would be able to play on the Toccoa High School football team, where he earned a position as first-team blocking back. He used special homemade weights that his father created out of concrete poured into a wooden form. Anderson attended Furman University on a football scholarship, where he began lifting weights. He later moved to Elizabethton, Tennessee, with his parents, where he met weightlifter Bob Peoples, who would greatly influence him in squat training and introduce him into weightlifting circles.
Like his contemporary and future rival Doug Hepburn, Anderson quickly identified the squat as the most important exercise for developing strength. On December 27, 1952, he set a new world record of 660.5 lb (299.6 kg) at the Chattanooga and Tennessee Weightlifting Championships, done at a bodyweight of 285 lbs (129.3 kg). The following year, 20 year-old Anderson extended his own record to 714.25 lb (324 kg) on May 30 and again to 762.25 lb (345.8 kg) on July 25, 1953, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Anderson's early record in Olympic Weightlifting was similarly impressive: from an 800 lb (362.9 kg) three lift (clean and press, snatch, clean and jerk) total in Chattanooga, he progressed to 875 lb (396.9 kg) on March 21, 1953, and again to 940 lbs (426.4 kg) at the Junior National Championships in Cleveland, Ohio on May 17. Although handed a rare defeat at the contest by Canadian champion Doug Hepburn, Anderson set a new Junior National record in the clean and jerk with 382 lb (173.3 kg). These lifts were done under much stricter rules than today's weightlifting, where the bar was not permitted to come into contact with the athlete's body at any point during the snatch or clean.
Recovering from a wrist injury in September 1953, Anderson lifted an unofficial world record 1,076 lb (488 kg) total at the Bob Hoffman Birthday show on November 7, and in early 1954 increased his training best in the back squat to 820 lb (372 kg). On January 16, 1954, Anderson broke his other wrist at the Middle Atlantic Open in Philadelphia; this injury prevented him from competing again until mid-May. That month he recorded a total of 1,030 lb (467.2 kg) and looked to be on track to break the 1,100 lb (499 kg) barrier before fracturing several ribs in a car accident. Nonetheless, Anderson finished the 1954 season with a 1,070 lb (485.4 kg) total at the All Dixie Championships on December 11, nearly matching his personal best.
Despite the setbacks in 1954, 1955 proved to be another breakout year for Anderson. Now weighing over 340 lb (154 kg), Anderson finally crossed the 1,100 lb mark on February 12, 1955. On April 15, he became the first person to clean and press more than 400 lb (181.4 kg), with a lift of 402 lb (182.3 kg), along with a snatch of 315 lb (142.9 kg) and clean and jerk of 425.25 (192.9 kg) for a total of 1,142.25 lb (518.1 kg). Shortly afterward on April 23, Anderson extended his press record to 403 lb (182.8 kg), snatched 300 lb (136.1 kg), and clean and jerked 434 lb (196.9 kg) for a total of 1,137 lb (515.7 kg). Heading into the 1955 Senior Nationals in Cleveland, Ohio, the 22 year-old Anderson further increased his personal best in the back squat to 910 lb (412.8 kg); that year he also bench pressed 450 lb (204.1 kg) for 3 reps in a special exhibition at the Frye Institute in Chattanooga. At the Senior Nationals Anderson set new American records in the clean and jerk (436.5 lb, 198 kg) and total (1,145 lb, 519.4 kg), exceeding Norbert Schemansky's previous American record total by 20 pounds.
On June 7, 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Anderson, together with Tommy Kono, Chuck Vinci, Joe Pitman, Stan Stanczyk, and Dave Sheppard, traveled to the Soviet Union, where weightlifting was a popular sport, for a series of 3 invitational competitions against the Soviet team. In an American newsreel the narrator, Bud Palmer, commented as follows: "Then, up to the bar stepped a great ball of a man, Paul Anderson." Palmer said, "The Russians snickered as Anderson gripped the bar, which was set at 402.5 lb (182.6 kg), an unheard-of lift. But their snickers quickly changed to awe and all-out cheers as up went the bar and Anderson lifted the heaviest weight overhead of any human in history." "We rarely have such weights lifted," said the solemn Russian announcer as Anderson hoisted it in the two-hand press discipline. Prior to Anderson's lift, the Soviet champion, Alexey Medvedev, had matched the Olympic record of the time with a 330.3 lb (149.8 kg) press. Anderson then did a 402.5 lb (182.6 kg) press. At a time when Americans were engaged in a symbolic Cold War battle with the Soviet Union, Anderson's strength — and his singular, tank-like appearance — became a rallying cry to all. Anderson totaled 1,163.5 lb (527.8 kg) in Moscow on June 15 with a 402.5 lb press, 336 lb (152.4 kg) snatch, and 425.25 lb (192.9 kg) clean and jerk. He followed this up with another total of 1,129.5 lb (512.3 kg) in Leningrad on June 18, again easily winning his weight class.
During the 1955 World Championships in Munich, Germany, Anderson went on to establish two other world records in the press with 407.7 lb (184.9 kg) and total with 1,129.5 lb (512.3 kg) as he easily won the competition in his weight class to become world champion. Upon his return to the United States, Anderson was received by then Vice-president Richard Nixon, who thanked him for being a goodwill ambassador.
In the lead up to the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, Anderson set his all-time highest total in amateur competition at the 1956 Senior Nationals, lifting 400 lb (181.4 kg) in the press, 335 lb (152 kg) in the snatch, and 440 lb (199.6 kg) in the clean and jerk, for a total of 1,175 lb (533 kg) at a bodyweight of around 330 lb (150 kg). At the games, Anderson won a gold medal in a long, tough duel with Argentine Humberto Selvetti (while suffering from a 104 °F (40 °C) fever). The two competitors were tied in the amount of weight lifted, but because Anderson, who weighed in at 137.9 kg (304 lb), was lighter than Selvetti (143.5 kg, 316 lb), Anderson was awarded the gold.
Although his popularity was at an all-time high after the Olympics, Anderson could not accept payment for his performances due to regulations governing athletes' amateur standing. Thus, at the age of 24 he decided to turn professional, ending his career in Olympic weightlifting.
Throughout 1957 and 1958 Anderson, despite his ineligibility to compete in weightlifting, continued pushing his strength to new heights in a series of public performances, some of which were televised. The day after the 1957 Mr. USA contest, Anderson push pressed 500 lb (226.8 kg) at Muscle Beach, California, surpassing Doug Hepburn's public record of 460 lb (208.7 kg) done at the Montreal Forum on November 21, 1954. Later, Anderson famously appeared as part of a Silver Dollar Squat challenge at the Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada, in which a prize of $15,000.00 was offered to anyone who could duplicate his feat of squatting a bar loaded with two coin-filled safes. Anderson's act was broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show to an audience of more than 40 million, in which he also broke his own record in the clean and press with 415 lb (188.2 kg).
It was also around this time that Anderson reportedly performed several feats that would later become the subject of controversy. In the December 1957-January 1958 issue of Iron Man magazine, sportswriter Peary Rader reported that Anderson had, among other things, squatted 1,160 lb (526.2 kg) and bench pressed 600 lb (272.2 kg) at Muscle Beach. Subsequently, the December 1958-January 1959 issue commented on a reported backlift of 6,200 lb (c. 2800 kg), by far the greatest weight ever lifted in this movement.