orig. Angelo Siciliano
born Oct. 30, 1893, Acri, Italy
died Dec. 24, 1972, Long Beach, N.Y., U.S.
Italian-born U.S. bodybuilder.
Atlas immigrated to the U.S. at age 10. In 1929 he and the advertiser Charles P. Roman launched a course involving isotonic exercises and nutritional maintenance. Their mail-order bodybuilding course became legendary through advertisements in three generations of pulp comic books, the standard ad depicting scenes in which a skinny boy loses his girlfriend to a well-built lifeguard (who kicks sand in his face) and regains her after taking the Atlas course.