| Abbye "Pudge" Stockton | |
|---|---|
| Personal Info | |
| Nickname | Pudgy |
| Born | August 11, 1917 Santa Monica, California |
| Died | (age 88) June 26, 2006 California |
| Height | 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) |
| Weight | 115 lb (52 kg) |
| Professional Career | |
| Pro-debut | 1948 Miss Physical Culture Venus, 1948 |
| Best win | 1948 Miss Physical Culture Venus, 1948 |
| Active | Retired |
Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton (August 11, 1917 in Santa Monica, California – June 26, 2006) was a professional strongwoman and forerunner of present day female bodybuilders, who became famous through her involvement with Muscle Beach in the 1940s.
Abbye “Pudgy” Evile Stockton was not only a tremendous influence on women’s weightlifting and exercise, but she also was just as influential in the men’s realm of physical culture. She was seen as very sexy, beautiful, athletically built, feminine, and unique. Pudgy was something different from what was considered the “normal woman weight lifter”. Most women involved in weightlifting looked nonfeminine. She was something new and her feminine yet muscle bound physique stood out to everyone.
Abbye Eville was born on August 11, 1917, and moved to Santa Monica, California in 1924. She acquired the nickname "Pudgy" as a child, and the name stuck, even though she weighed approximately 115 pounds at a height of 5'2". She began dating UCLA student Les Stockton during her senior year of high school; they were married in 1941.
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One of Stockton’s first occupations was working as a telephone operator. This was when she believed she had put on some weight. Her boyfriend, soon to be husband, at the time, Les Stockton, bought her a pair of dumbbells. She began to pick up and put down these weights occasionally, which resulted in helping her to shed some of her weight gain. Along with lifting the dumbbells she began to do calisthenics, and teaching herself different moves such as a handstands and a headstand. Her mother taught her when she was a little girl how to swim with water wings, also known as armbands, in which she used in her free time. In addition to her mother’s teaching she says that reading Physical Culture by Bernarr Macfadden and her future husband’s generous gift of dumbbells are what attributed to her life long participation in exercise and weightlifting.
Abbye and Les were frequent visitors to Muscle Beach, where they primarily worked on acrobatics and gymnastics. Following World War II, several thousand people would frequently gather to see their performances on weekends. To capitalize on their popularity, the city of Santa Monica built an elevated outdoor platform. One of their most famous feats involved Pudgy serving as the "understander", supporting Les (180 pounds) over her head in a hand to hand stand. Pudgy quickly became a media favorite, and was included in pictorials in Life, Pic, and Laff. She was also featured in the newsreels Whatta Build and Muscle Town USA, as well as ads for Ritamine Vitamin Company and the Universal Camera Company. She estimated that she was featured on the cover of forty-two magazines by the end of the 1940s (Todd, 1999). She posed with many of the top male bodybuilders of the time, including John Grimek and Steve Reeves (Black, 2004).
Muscle Beach probably wouldn’t have boomed as much as it did during the 1940s without the performances and appearances from the Stockton’s and a few of her colleagues. She would perform handstands, headstands, and lifts with various people including her own husband. Les, Pudgy, and friend Bruce Conner also formed a group called “The Three Aces” where they would make public appearances and perform at half times of football game. After Les got deployed to the Air Force, the group soon became “Pudgy and her boys” as the public appearances continued. In the latter years of their marriage, the Stockton’s began opening gyms throughout the Los Angeles area. Their first action in the gym business was a women’s gym located on Sunset Boulevard. Soon after that they opened both a men’s and women’s gym in the Beverly Hills area and lastly expanding into the Pasadena area sharing a gym with John Farbotnik. Though there were only a few accounts actually recorded, they had an impact on many people’s lives. Stockton transformed women’s lives across the nation by proving to them that it was okay to exercise and weight lift and still be able to look feminine.
Stockton was rarely if ever seen in a photograph with a one-piece bathing suit on. She had her signature two-piece suit on which consisted of high wasted shorts and a bra top. She first obtained this outfit by working with her mom to design a suit patterned from a bra top and men’s swim trunks to make up a “jerry-built” two-piece bathing suit. It was rare to have seen a woman in anything but a one piece during this time, but because one pieces limited the appearance of her musculature physique and confined her movement during her performances the two-piece seemed to be appropriate for her. Therefore, two pieces became the answer. No doubt her two-piece helped form the fashion statement of the bathing suits in that time era. Stockton was only 5 foot 1 and weighted only 115 pounds. Her out of the ordinary body for that time was something that was one of the most beautiful athletic figures that has ever graced the women’s weightlifting scene.
In 1944, Stockton began writing a regular column on women's training, "Barbelles", in Strength & Health magazine,[1] then the most influential fitness magazine in the world. She also helped organize the first sanctioned weightlifting contests for women. The first of these contests with a sanction from the Amateur Athletic Union was held on February 28, 1947 at the Southwest Arena in Los Angeles. In that contest, Stockton pressed 100 pounds, snatched 105 pounds, and clean and jerked 135 pounds.
Physique contests for women were virtually non-existent in the 1940s, and Stockton held only one such title during her career - she was named "Miss Physical Culture Venus" in 1948. She was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2000.
Pudgy and husband Les had one daughter, Laura, born in 1953. Les died on April 19, 2004 at the age 87 from melanoma (Roark, 2004). Abbye died on June 26, 2006 at the age of 88 from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.