People: Jim Myers
THE ANIMAL GOES HOLLYWOOD
For 25 years until his retirement in 1988, George 'The Animal' Steele was a professional wrestler who WWWF fans loved to boo. Bald, hairy and green- tongued, the giant madman looked like a character from Street Fighter II. He chewed turnbuckles, grunted like an early life form, and fought the likes of Gorilla Monsoon, Bruno Sammartino and The Sheik. At the same time, for 25 years until his retirement in 1985, a nice, quiet high school teacher and coach in Madison Heights called Jim Myers, '61, was enjoying success; his 1969 wrestling team won the state crown and his 1985 football team went undefeated. Both are, actually, one and the same.
'I had a wife, two kids and a $4,300 salary,' explains Myers, now living in Cocoa Beach, FL, with wife Pat. 'I needed some extra money. A friend suggested wrestling.'
Jim never wrestled before. A bad knee had stymied his football career at MSU. To conceal his identity, he wore a mask during summers wrestling in places like Madison Square Garden. 'Soon, everyone knew,' he recounts. 'Wrestling got really big, with TV coverage and all.'
In 1984, he appeared before 97,000 fans in Wrestlemania II at the Pontiac Silverdome--the largest indoor audience ever according to Guinness. His students would bring magazines featuring George 'The Animal' Steele for him to autograph. 'Who's this ugly guy Steele?' Jim would ask them with transparent innocence. Once some 80 football players showed up with his trademark green tongue (a result of chewing mints). He pretended not to notice.
A WWWF Hall of Fame inductee, Jim now works as a WWWF road agent. But he has found yet another career. After a bit part in The Nanny, he got a key role in Tim Burton's movie Ed Wood, playing Tor Johnson, 'the first actor who played monsters without makeup.' Jim worked alongside the likes of Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette and oscar-winning Martin Landau.
He is the featured star of his next movie, Blowfish. An indication of his movie success is that one can now buy George Steele stuffed animals, toys, and even dolls. Dolls? 'Well,' says Jim, 'they are action dolls.' Myers plays monster actor Tor Johnson alongisde Vampira in Tim Burton's oscar-winning movie Ed Wood.