To his fans, he’s "The Iron Guru." To his detractors he’s the man they love to hate, an egomaniac for more decades than Schwarzenegger has muscle. But to a growing contingent of Hollywood actors, he’s all of the above and more: he’s the guy who gets them in shape for the movies and television and keeps them that way. While "Body by Jake" Steinman, Jane Fonda and her training philosophies, and the big-time former bodybuilding champion types like Franco Columbu continue to garner much of the publicity surrounding the training of celebrities and "stars," Vince keeps pumpin’ ‘em up at his torture chamber in Studio City, California. He’s cornered the marked at whittling off unwanted inches, adding needed ones, and churning out tuned-up bodies of "Beautiful People."

While readers of this magazine are familiar with "Dr. Gu" (as actor/client Gary Wood affectionately calls him), some might be surprised to learn that he’s operated out of the same location since 1938. In an age where training fads change on an almost monthly basis and where fitness "authorities" crop up overnight, it’s nice to know that there is a standard, a constant, a tradition. That, in fact, is one of the reasons that many of Hollywood’s finest wind up at Vince’s gym. As they say in the movie business, the guy’s got "legs."

John Schneider, known to television audiences from a high-profile stint on The Dukes Of Hazzard and a popular country-western singing talent, first went to Vince over ten years ago. In person, John is quite a bit taller than you might expect and is currently sporting a big-shouldered, trim-hipped physique that is a direct result of hours of one-on-one training with Vince. As John explains it, "Vince is a man of many moods, talents, and ideas." The thing that attracted John to Vince’s particular methods and madness was a combination of the physical and mental training involved in the Gironda mystique. "He is never at a loss for words, suggestions, and orders that are guaranteed to improve your overall performance in the gym as well as your life in general. Discipline to him is more than a word. It is a constant state of mind. Vince Gironda is the man of stone with the heart of gold."

The awesome Rowdy Roddy Piper, wrestling-superstar-turned-actor, star of the upcoming John Carpenter movie, They Live!, echoes John’s sentiments. In fact, Roddy needed to drop 20 pounds and get ripped up for his role in the Carpenter movie. He turned to Gironda to perform the needed muscle magic. Vince placed him on the infamous "Any Meat Any Water" all-protein competition diet to strip the excess body fat off Piper’s body. As movie fans will soon see, the result is great. Roddy calls Vince "the only man in history who made Roddy Piper scream."

Erik Estrada has trained under Vince’s tutelage on and off since 1973. Estrada credits Vince for his physique. "He gave me the C.H.I.P.S. look", Estrada says with a wry laugh. It was Estrada, in fact, who literally laid the groundwork for Vince. Several years ago Vince made a passing remark that he needed new carpeting in the gym and Estrada, as a gesture of appreciation and friendship, had new carpeting delivered and installed the next day.

Gary Wood, the star of the movie Hardbodies and the upcoming Soldier of Innocence, credits Vince with "helping to create the illusion of size by concentration on shape rather than adding on a lot of extra poundage which would be undesirable for the camera." Gary also has Vince to thank for helping to strip the fat off which he gained during seven grueling months shooting Soldier on location in South Korea. "I came back from that location completely out of whack, diet-wise. I’d trained with many of the popular trainers here in L.A. but hadn’t gotten the result. For me, that’s what Vince is all about – result!"

Jared Martin (Dusty Farlow on Dallas and currently starring in the new series War of the Worlds) and Doug McClure (formerly of the Virginian and lately of Out of This World) have both been Gironda disciples for years. Martin, who lives in Canada now while shooting War, first went to Vince in 1981 and still tunes up at Vince’s when he’s in Hollywood. He says jokingly, "He’s too hard on me. He makes me leave town." In a more serious vein he adds, "There are really two men who have had a major impact on my life. The first is Lee Strasberg. The second is Vince Gironda." McClure jokes that "Vince has a unique way of seeing if you’re serious and will stick to it: he doesn’t talk to you for at least the first two years." The truth is that Gironda is notorious for a mercurial temperament which changes in direct proportion to the amount of commitment and intention a student possesses. He’s not easily pleased, but then the guy’s a perfectionist. And that’s why his opinion is so highly valued by those he trains. They know that if they can please The Iron Guru, they’ve accomplished something.

The Gironda touch works not only for men, but for women as well. Greta Blackburn, who appeared on Dynasty as "Jennifer" and in the mini-series V: The Final Battle as "Lorraine," first started weight training for a role in the movie 48 Hours at Gold’s Gym in Venice. She later worked her way through what she calls the "Yuppie trainers" at places like Nautilus Plus in Los Angeles and the exclusive Matrix One club. Miss Blackburn needed to get in top shape and fast last winter for a lead role in a soon-to-be-released motion picture entitled The Party Line in which she appears in several workout sequences. She followed husband Gary Wood’s lead and signed up with Vince. As she tells it, "I had always been tall and lean. What I wanted was to build more muscle density, to pack a little muscle on these bones. When I saw the itty-bitty Nike workout clothes I was going to wear in Party Line I knew I had to get cut up. Vince dramatically changed my body in less time than all the other trainers I had tried. Plus I liked the idea of the ‘Mileage’ Vince has. After all, when you really want to learn something well, don’t you go to the source, if at all possible?"

Greta’s enthusiasm soon caught on to her friend and current training partner Jane Badler (Diana on V and the current female star of NBC’s The Highwayman). Jane also needed to get in shape for a movie that she was soon to star in in Spain and sought Vince’s diet and training secrets to give her a "quick fix." Within two weeks she noticed results. Jane says, "I wasn’t getting the tone I needed from aerobics classes and I didn’t have a clue about the dieting aspect of it all. I can’t believe it, but I’m hooked on weight training. I know what’s possible now and I can’t imagine not doing it".

Word of mouth is a mainstay for Vince’s business within the Hollywood community. In a profession where it’s as competitive as it gets and where looking fabulous is the norm rather than the exception, everyone wants an edge. And Vince provides just that. Kimber Sissons, Ron Ely’s co-star on Sea Hunt, and an actress known to many for her "Spuds MacKenzie" and Lean Cuisine commercials, went to Vince to drop about ten pounds that had crept up on her. She was a serious contender for the new Charlie’s Angels and needed to be in top shape. Vince whittled her back down to what she calls "The old Kimber, the one I knew was there under that little bit of extra weight." Out of thousands of girls who auditioned for the new Angels, Kimber got right down to the finals and also immediately landed a string of national commercials. Her results were so dramatic, in fact, that her friend Leah Ayres Hendrix asked her the secret to her new silhouette. The answer? "Vince Gironda!"

Leah, whom audiences will remember as Valerie Bryson on The Edge of Night, as Jill Schrader on First of Ten and as the female lead opposite Jena-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport, beat a hasty path to Vince’s sanctum. There, she experienced a much different result than the hours of aerobics classes she had been taking. As she puts it, "I didn’t like the way I was looking and feeling from aerobics. Then I saw Kimber and said, ‘Where have you been?’" Leah studied dance for many years and sees a relationship between that and the work she is doing now at Vince’s. "I used to be a dancer and I think this is very refined and specific like dance." She smiles slyly when she adds, "I feel more sensual!"

Newcomer Heidi Thomas, seen briefly as a dancer on Days of Our Lives last year, hopes that the Gironda touch will give her that added magic that is mandatory in Hollywood success stories. "I’m into it. I was looking at the back of my hair the other day in the mirror and I noticed these cuts starting to show on my back. I’m gonna get ripped!" The Gironda touch has already turned to gold for Heidi. Within three weeks of training at Vince’s, Heidi landed a Cherry Coke commercial in which she frolics on the beach in a bikini, "a little string thingy, the kind I could never bear the sight of myself in before," she adds.

The ladies at Vince’s gym will put up with pain, deprivation, and occasional disappointment. What they will not tolerate is becoming "Wide loads." As Vince himself puts it, "You know how sometimes at night on the highway you see these trucks pulling a house or an oversized cargo and they have these little follow-up vehicles with a big sign with flashing lights which says ‘Caution: Wide Load!’ Well, as soon as any of these movie actresses put on a few extra pounds all I have to do is say, ‘Look out! Wide load comin’ through the door’ and you’d be amazed how fast they get back to meat and water."

Talking to Vince, it becomes obvious that he has a great deal of affection for all of his clients and, in particular, those in the movie business. When asked how he stays interested in training people after all these years, he says, "I like to think of myself as half madman, half magician. You have to be a little mad to deal with people on such a personal level day in and day out. I see people at their best and at their worst. And I also have to work magic. The magic part is only possible when the guy laying on the bench waiting for that next set is as motivated as I am. That’s why I like movie people so much. They’re the most highly motivated group of people alive. That inspires me!"

The list of people who have inspired and been inspired by Vince is longer than a workout on "Hell Day." (That’s any Friday at Vince’s gym and if you can walk out the door unassisted, post-workout, you didn’t work hard enough!) It includes: Cher, David, Bobby and Keith Carradine, Tommy Chong, Brad Davis, Clint Eastwood, Lou Ferrigno, William Holden, James Garner, Brian Keith, Jack LaLanne, Michael Landon, Burt Reynolds, David Lee Roth, Richard Roundtree, Kurt Russell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, O.J. Simpson, Carl Weathers, and Denzel Washington, among others.

Vince is a real one-of-a-kind, as those who have met him will be apt to point out. But he gets results. Ask the Hollywood celebrities. After all, they should know. Their livelihood depends on looking and feeling good. Ironically, one gets the feeling that it’s not just the physical result that keeps them coming back for more. It’s also an almost intangible mental set that helps them cope with the rigors of an emotionally demanding and competitive business. John Schneider sums it up best when he says, "Vince is a philosopher of great magnitude that I am honored to know and proud to call a friend."

:: Back ::