Lou Ferrigno

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Family

American actor and bodybuilder. He won the teenage contest of "Mr. America" in 1970 and "Mr. Universe" in 1973. He was a journeyman sheet metal worker in 1976 when he won the role of the 6'5", 275 lb green man "The Incredible Hulk," the alter-ego of Bill Bixby on the TV series. Playing for five seasons, 82 episodes, he moved quickly into the class of $20,000 an episode. After "Hulk," Ferrigno appeared in a half dozen movies and a stage role. The TV movie, "The Incredible Hulk Returns" played on 5/22/1988. Born in a blue-collar section of Brooklyn, the son of a cop and a homemaker, he had severe ear infections which destroyed 85% of his hearing before he was three, as well as a speech impediment for which he later had therapy. He did poorly in school where classmates teased him cruelly. To compensate for his limitations, he turned to bodybuilding. When he won the role of Hulk, all his dreams came true, he was a superhero. He met his second wife, a psychotherapist Carla, in a bar in 1979 and married ten months later; three kids. In 1992, he returned to competitive bodybuilding after a 17-year hiatus, making the rounds at film festivals. But training for the 1994 Masters Olympia, a contest for bodybuilders 40 years and older, made Ferrigno mean, hard, tough. He finished second at the contest and nearly lost his family, who left him for a while until he regained a perspective. He continued to lift weights, but left the obsessive training behind. He maintains a handful of clients whom he guides in their bodybuilding, but no longer torments himself and those around him in his Olympia quest. In 1994, he published "Lou Ferrigno's Guide to Personal Power, Body Building and Fitness for Everyone." Ferrigno added another position to his body-builder-actor resume. On February 13, 2006, he was sworn in as a reserve deputy in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Link to Wikipedia biography