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June 1947. "Bodybuilder Gene Jantzen with wife Pat and 11-month-old son Kent." Photo by Stanley Kubrick for the Look magazine assignment "Strong Man's Family." Look Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. View full size.
It's refreshing to see once more a bodybuilder whose proportions are those of a "regular" human being, albeit writ large. Since the advent of steroids and full-time, high-tech training, most professional bodybuilders look as though their heads had been Photoshopped, at too small a scale, onto a cartoon.
Thus snarks one who never bench-pressed more than 280 in his life!
Stanley Kubrick was still 18 when he took this photo for Look, about a month shy of his 19th birthday. Pat Jantzen, who once worked as a Disney animator, is apparently still living near Bartelso, Illinois. Gene and Kent have died, Gene (Severin Eugene) in 2005 at age 88 and Kent in 1962 at 16, resulting from accidentally shooting himself with a .22 pistol.
How 73-year-old Gene Jantzen Stays Pumped Up About The Benefits Of Exercise
(Chicago Tribune -- Oct. 7, 1990)
Gene heard his wife say "Baby Kent needs some Pull-Ups" and this is what happened.
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