ATLAS, CHARLES

born Oct. 30, 1893, Acri, Calabria, Italy died Dec. 24, 1972, Long Beach, N.Y., U.S. original name Angelo Siciliano Italian-born American bodybuilder and physical culturist who, with Charles P. Roman, created and marketed a highly popular mail-order bodybuilding course. Atlas at the age of 10 immigrated to the United States with his parents. The legendary sand-kicking episode used in his later advertisements actually occurred at Coney Island when Atlas was still the skinny Angelo Siciliano: a brawny lifeguard kicked sand on him and stole away his girlfriend. Thereafter he built up his bodyto the extent that Bernarr Macfadden, the publisher in the 1920s of many popular magazines, dubbed him America's Most Perfectly Developed Man at a physical culture exhibition in 1922 at the original Madison Square Garden. He had also changed his name, after seeing a statue of Atlas; and in 1929 he and a young advertising man, Roman, decided to incorporate and build up a business of Atlas home-study programs of isotonic exercises and nutrition tips. During his heyday, three generations of pulp comic books carried his advertisementof a barrel-chested man with amazing strength and physique and a large smile.