# Anyone remember Doris Barrilleaux?



## Curt James (Mar 18, 2011)

*Pioneer female bodybuilder still an iron maven at 79*

By Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writer 
March 20, 2011

    Doris Barrilleaux can barely reach the steering wheel of her  champagne Honda anymore, not without one of those humiliating little  pillows.    She used to be 5 feet 4. Now she's 5-3. This seems to irritate her far more than all the other reminders of her 79 years.    More than the silver tufts that were once bouncy curls or the  crinkles around her eyes. More than her occasional forgetfulness and  even more than the slight downgrade in the weight of her dumbbells.    These small changes, she can handle.    But shrinking? Certainly not.    She is, after all, the widely recognized godmother of female bodybuilding — a woman deemed sexy by Arnold Schwarzenegger. 






Doris Barrilleaux gets a hug from Arnold Schwarzenegger 
in early March at her induction into the National Fitness 
Hall of Fame.

    Shrinking means growing old, feeble, weak.    Doris doesn't do "weak." 

Bodybuilding is a sport without a game, where you play for your team and against it. You compete with yourself.    
    For Doris, the battle began in 1955.    Birthing four babies had made her slender, athletic frame alarmingly  cushy. So, following advice in men's magazines, she picked up weight  training.    When she was pregnant the fifth time, you didn't know it until she turned sideways.    

    In the years that followed, Doris, then working as a flight  attendant, entered photos of herself into fitness magazines. She  strutted on stage in fledgling female bodybuilding contests and in 1979  organized the first known competition for women, the Ms. Brandon  Physique.    

    With a couple of friends, she founded the Superior Physique  Association and put out a magazine to foster the budding women's  industry. 





Doris Barrilleaux strikes a pose after winning her first 
bodybuilding  competition in the 1970s. Before then, the 
competitions for women had  been basically beauty contests.﻿ 
Barrilleaux had been weight training  since the 1950s.

    She published a few books, appeared on TV and traveled around the  world photographing and judging professional competitions. Back then,  female bodybuilders were more sleek and toned than today's brawny  competitors. "In my day the women looked like women," Doris explains.    

    Local fitness promoter and professional bodybuilding judge Tim  Gardner calls Doris his second mom. "She is the main reason why we have  female bodybuilding," he said. "She's legendary."    

    "She was a mentor to us," said former competitor Deborah Diana, now  an art teacher in Pennsylvania. "I hate to say motherly, but she did  take care of the girls, made sure they were in a good place."    

    "It's kind of sad. Sometimes the person who starts it all never gets  the just reward," said former bodybuilder John Schleicher, now a  Chamberlain High School teacher, noting that Doris' vision grew into a  multimillion-dollar industry. "There's nothing they can give her that's  undeserved." 

    Just this month, Doris was inducted into the National Fitness Hall of  Fame along with eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney, jump-roping  world-record breaker Mark Rothstein, fitness video guru Cathe Friedrich  and the late floor-exercise pioneer Joseph Pilates.    "(Doris) was able to elevate the whole fitness industry to include  this whole untapped population," said Hall of Fame director John  Figarelli.    

    "Don't tell me I can't do something," said Doris. 

When Doris hit her 50s, her body amped up the offense. Skin drooped in places; she noticed lines in her face.    
    Those hurdles were the manageable ones.    

    Outside her personal competition, her husband of 37 years — her high school sweetheart — wanted a divorce.     
    Her son, Gary, was killed in a motorcycle accident.    Another son, Jerry, died of AIDS.     Then her mother "just dropped dead." Doctors suspected a stroke.    Wondering why wouldn't do any good.    Doris went out to the barn-turned-weight room beside her house and cranked out lateral pulls and calf raises. 

    If you know Doris, you know she doesn't dwell on the tough stuff.    Oh, she'll talk about it — sit there in her gold velour sweat pants  and offer you a sugar-free tropical punch as she lists the tragedies  like bullet points. But a few minutes into the conversation she'll be  showing you a photo of herself with Lou Ferrigno and complimenting your  calves.    

    "It happened, and you can't change it," she said. "You can't lie down and die, too, you know?"    She seems to live in the present almost to a fault, flitting between  unfinished sentences and continually leaping from her chair to find some  document or picture.    

    Somebody once called her a hummingbird, which she liked. Somebody  else once suggested she "age gracefully," which she did not like.     Doris still rides her bike at least 5 miles a day, does nearly all  her own home repairs and lifts 10-pound dumbbells while she watches  television. 





Doris Barrilleaux, 79, one of the country’s first female 
bodybuilders,  does curls while watching TV. She has been 
inducted into the National  Fitness Hall of Fame.

    Her diet is simple: cereal, soup, chicken pot pies from the freezer, a  good many salads, a fistful of vitamins. She allows herself chocolate  in moderation, but abstains if she begins to exceed 124 pounds.    

    She won't say if she's had any cosmetic surgery*, besides the permanent lipstick and eyeliner tattooed on her face.    
    She says her doctor loves her.    "I always feel good," Doris said. "How can I feel old?"    

    An issue of _Parade_ magazine sits on her coffee table, the cover story promising "the secrets to a long life."    
    Doris hasn't had a chance to read it.    

    Age is one of those things that settles in slowly, like tarnish on a shiny trophy.    You don't see it until one day you do.    On Doris' 70th birthday she tried too hard to start a weed trimmer  and tore a piece of her right biceps. Five years later her rotator cuff  ripped as she tried to pedal her bike through a particularly thick hunk  of grass.    

    At 77 she woke up with a weird aching in her left arm and went home from the hospital with a stent in her heart.    
    It's not easy to accept. Not with so much left to do. "Well, I've got to pressure-wash the roof, paint that side of the  house. I want to work on my flower beds," Doris explains.    

    And then there's the book.    

    For the past five years, just about all day, every day, Doris has sat  at the computer in her cluttered home office working on an  autobiography titled _And I Did_, which she'll release on DVD to accommodate photos and videos.    
    All over the walls, shelves and in five bulky filing cabinets are  awards, magazines, negatives and newspaper clippings. An old poster of  an impossibly strong Tarzan hangs nearby.    

    "I'm the oldest in my family," Doris said. "If I don't write the book, all this will be lost."    She's just about finished with the last chapter, and thank goodness.    Sometimes she'll start telling a story, then forget what she was  saying. She swears it doesn't bother her, though — it happens to her  10-year-old grandson, too.    

    When it happened the other day, she hurried over to the computer to  scroll through pages and pages of memories, hitting "Save" when she was  through. 





The steely senior shows her good form against a backdrop 
of items that  she collected in her travels at bodybuilding
 competitions and as a  flight attendant. She still rides her 
bike at least 5 miles a day and  lifts dumbbells.

From *Pioneer female bodybuilder still an iron maven at 79 - St. Petersburg Times*

###

*Regarding cosmetic surgery, Barrilleaux and her then husband documented their facelift surgery in the pages of either Strength & Health or Muscular Development years ago. Perhaps the readers of the St. Petersburg Times aren't familiar with bodybuilding history, but I recall that article which offered actual pics of the procedure the husband and wife underwent way back when.


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## sassy69 (Mar 18, 2011)

Doris was the "official show photographer" at the first show I ever did in Tampa in 2000. Little did I know this little old lady w/ the camera was probably someone who had a big hand in allowing me to get on that stage. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I found out the history that Doris brings with her to the sport. 

Another cool thing is that even in 2000, she did all her photos in black & white. They turned out so cool and I just love them.

It wasn't until a couple of years later that I found out the history that Doris brings with her to the sport.  Doris is really an inspiration. 

In my own little sidebar, I think its important to remember that women's physique competition has been around since the 50s & 60s - it has a rich history that I sincerely hope doesn't get lost somewhere in the trend towards more T&A and less physique...


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## Curt James (Mar 18, 2011)

sassy69 said:


> Doris was the "official show photographer" at the first show I ever did in Tampa in 2000. *Little did I know this little old lady w/ the camera was probably someone who had a big hand in allowing me to get on that stage.* It wasn't until a couple of years later that I found out the history that Doris brings with her to the sport.
> 
> Another cool thing is that even in 2000, she did all her photos in black & white. They turned out so cool and I just love them.
> 
> ...



I was a teenager when SPA was around and Barrilleaux was competing. Art Zeller is another former competitor who is more famous for his physique photography.

And, yes, female bodybuilding definitely has a rich history which should be preserved _and continued._






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## sassy69 (Mar 18, 2011)

^^ I love Vicki so much!


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## Built (Mar 18, 2011)

What a great thread!  Sassy, that is BEYOND cool about your being photographed by a woman of such distinction. I'd love to see some of those pix sometime.


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## sassy69 (Mar 19, 2011)

Built said:


> What a great thread!  Sassy, that is BEYOND cool about your being photographed by a woman of such distinction. I'd love to see some of those pix sometime.



LOL this is before they did digital so I have to scan them ... see if I remember to bring them to work.... 

Weird huh - she sent me the proofs on little strip film like what you get out of those photo booths, I picked the ones I wanted and she printed them and mailed them via snail mail. - just like back in the day when you did class / school photos


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## Built (Mar 19, 2011)

Yep, I had some nudes done about 20 years ago and they did 'em the same way, got the proofs, picked out the ones I wanted, and had those printed. 

Preemptively I'll add there are no scanned copies of those either; they were a gift for my husband. It is interesting to see how different my body looks now than it did the last time I weighed 150 lbs. I had dieted DOWN to 150. Now, I've bulked UP to 150. At the same weight, I was about 20 lbs fatter (than I am now) in my earlier incantation.


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## suprfast (Mar 19, 2011)

Built said:


> *Yep, I had some nudes done about 20 years ago* and they did 'em the same way, got the proofs, picked out the ones I wanted, and had those printed.
> 
> Preemptively I'll add there are no scanned copies of those either; they were a gift for my husband. It is interesting to see how different my body looks now than it did the last time I weighed 150 lbs. I had dieted DOWN to 150. Now, I've bulked UP to 150. At the same weight, I was about 20 lbs fatter (than I am now) in my earlier incantation.



As a guy, that is all I read


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## sassy69 (Mar 27, 2011)

999 said:


> Apparently not too many remember that hag.



Jeesus, who the fuck are you relative to her in this industry.


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## jagbender (Mar 29, 2011)

I found the Story of Doris very intertsting, A true Pioneer. 

Also Very cool Sassy


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## Kathybird (Mar 29, 2011)

Cool.  I like hearing about pioneering women and their lives after their period of fame.  Doris sounds like my Aunt Rose, did stuff women "didn't do" in her day and age.

... and is it me or are there a lot of new children on the forum lately?


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## buddhaluv (Mar 30, 2011)

wow she was one hell of a woman back than, & she still is! props to her!


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## HotRodAnglican (Mar 30, 2011)

I remember her from all the magazines back in the day.

Cool thread!


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## HotRodAnglican (Mar 30, 2011)

Curt James said:


> IAnd, yes, female bodybuilding definitely has a rich history which should be preserved _and continued._
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Kay Baxter is the entire reason I originally became interested in bodybuilding ... as both a spectator and a competitor.

RIP, Kay.


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## Curt James (Mar 30, 2011)

HotRodAnglican said:


> Kay Baxter is the entire reason I originally became interested in bodybuilding ... as both a spectator and a competitor.
> 
> RIP, Kay.



She is an icon, absolutely.

And welcome, welcome, *WELCOME!* Very glad to see you posting here!


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## sassy69 (Mar 30, 2011)

Dude, respect is one way to keep something positive, positive. Respect in a quality post also implies respect for this forum and its members. Apparently you have no respect for anyone.

Why do you even have to go out of your way to be LESS rude than apparent you are capable of? That's also fucking big of you to not go further out of your way than you already have.


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## sassy69 (Mar 30, 2011)

> Me respecting no one here doesn't mean I don't respect anybody.



Actions often speak louder than words. And if you don't respect anyone here, why are you here?


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