Charles Atlas

Catholic Fitness Guru

I always learn something working crosswords; usually it’s a new word, something geographical, or a playwright, composer, etc., but in working the crossword in the November 10 issue of The Pilot, Boston’s Catholic newspaper (thankfully still in hardcopy print for the tactile among us who love to receive real mail) I learned that the late fitness guru, Charles Atlas, was Roman Catholic - news to me.

See 1 down.

It’s been years since I heard or read the name: Charles Atlas, and when I saw it my mind’s eye immediately recalled an image of an advertisement that once caught my attention in “Boys Life” magazine - that must be where I saw it - I looked forward to getting that magazine in the mail in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s. (I also recall the many ads for military boarding schools that I feared being shipped off to).

I looked up some of the Atlas ads and found the one I was imagining - headlined: “The insult that made a man out of ‘Mac!’’’ I never clipped the coupon enrolling in his “dynamic tension” bodybuilding program, though hundreds of thousands did - Atlas once claimed 7 million.

The crossword also prompted me to look into the life of Atlas, born Angelo Siciliano, in 1892. There is a lot of information out there about his early life, his embrace of bodybuilding, and business acumen, but little on his faith, almost none.

I did learn that his mother, Maria Francesca Fiorelli Siciliano, was a devout Catholic, so there’s that maternal influence that can’t be overstated. He died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve, 1972. His funeral Mass was celebrated at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal at Point Outlook, NY and his mortal remains interred in Saint John’s Cemetery in the Brooklyn Diocese, alongside his wife, Margaret (d. 1965) and his mother (d. 1951).

If only we had a volume of “folk figures of the twentieth century” that documented the influence of faith and family on their lives and accomplishments.

And, yes, I know, 67 across is Hosea; I’ll fill it in later.