KIRSTEN SWANSON: It's time again for Utah StoryCorps, everyday people sharing their stories at the StoryCorps recording booth in Logan. Support for Logan StoryCorps comes from Cache County and from USU Community Credit Union, a division of Goldenwest.
MARY HEERS: As the StoryCorps booth was rolling into Logan, Steve Reno, a well known bodybuilder in the '60s, was walking into Jump the Moon art studio to begin taking art lessons. From there, his new teacher and friend Michael Bingham brought him to the microphone to share his story.
STEVE RENO: I was, believe it or not, delivered from an unwed mother to the Catholic sisters in a Catholic orphan institution as an orphan. And I spent all that time, up until the time that I was able to reach the age of entering into the military. I was 17. They had a special going on, and so I took that opportunity because I wanted to get out of the orphanage.
I just hated to see bullies beating up on people who were not able to defend themselves. So I stepped in, becoming the protector, and took care of the bullies. I was known to be pretty good at boxing. And so I kind of went into that field before I found out that, to be perfectly honest, that some of the women saying, "You're fairly good looking, you're gonna get your face messed up." And I guess the vanity in me took over and I said, "You know, maybe there's a little truth in that." So I had to put that energy somewhere else. And everybody kept complimenting about my build, and I ended up bodybuilding.
If you're going to be the best in whatever road that you're going to spend your time adventuring in, go where the top quality of people are, and the best places that they achieve their purpose. And that's what I did, I went to where all the famous people who were movie stars trained, and I mingled among them ... OJ Simpson, Michael Landon. Arnold of course, went directly to me because I was the well known bodybuilder at the time. So I took him under my wing. We trained together, and then I helped him along the way.
One day when I was in my glory time, and thought, well, this is my chance to demonstrate a little bit of showing off — right along the side of the water — and of course, all the people were looking at me and the young girls and so forth, and a bee approached me and I just lost it. I completely looked like the fool of the bodybuilders, and they were just ... had a good laugh.
And just when I was getting offers to make movies and go on TV, I developed Bell's Palsy, and half of my face was paralyzed, so I had to grow a beard to hide all that. Then I had, of course, contracts to make movies and stuff, and I just had to let it all go. Quite a setback. So I had to push all that aside for a good period of time until a little bit at a time, it healed up.
When I won Mr. California, one day when I was holding the trophy in front of 6,000 people — and I looked up and I said, "Wow, all this energy and effort I put in for this trophy. I don't know what the cost would be for 10 minutes of glory." And I realized that I was just motivated by a conflict. I just wanted to be something because I was not recognized as anybody being something. And then when I realized that, I started to put my attention to what my inner ability was.
I am an inventor. I do schematics. I do engineering. And I develop products, and invent the products and then patent it and get it all the way from A to Z. The key thing is, you've got to really want to do it 100%. Not 25, 75. You've gotta really want to put all your eggs in one basket. Because that's the inner drive that when you have that kind of drive, go for it; you will succeed.
MARY HEERS: And this is Utah StoryCorps.
KIRSTEN SWANSON: Thanks for coming along.
MARY HEERS: See you next Friday. Same time,
KIRSTEN SWANSON: Same place.
KIRSTEN SWANSON: Support for Logan StoryCorps comes from Cache County and from USU Credit Union, a division of Goldenwest.
