PITTSBURGH — There he was on the screen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia as a bodybuilder; "Conan the Barbarian" and "The Terminator" as an actor; and the 38th governor of California, one bigger-than-life character talking about another.
"Madison Square Garden, I saw for the first time Bruno Sammartino wrestling," Schwarzenegger said at the start of the newly released documentary "Bruno Sammartino."
"When he came out, I realized that this was the star of all stars. He was the best. He was the most popular. He was huge. When he came into the ring, people were standing and screaming and screaming and screaming. He knew exactly how to create excitement in the crowd. He was a showman."
Many people here remember Sammartino for his work on the popular "Studio Wrestling" show on with Bill Cardille, Ringside Rosie and Pie Traynor. His family moved to Pittsburgh from Italy after World War II and settled in South Oakland. He never left Pittsburgh and lived his final 56 years in the same North Hills home.
But Sammartino became a worldwide wrestling sensation, making 20 tours of Japan, 12 trips to Australia and countless others to South Africa and South America. He also headlined at Madison Square Garden 211 times and sold it out 187 times.
"They said Babe Ruth built Yankee Stadium and Bruno Sammartino built The Garden," Sammartino once said. "It always was my favorite place."
It was there that Sammartino famously lifted 600-pound Haystacks Calhoun and slammed him down. A wrestling legend was born that night.
"The place went absolutely bananas," Sammartino said. "I thought the roof was going to blow off The Garden."
Sammartino's celebrated career is covered thoroughly in the 93-minute documentary, which was more than a decade in the making and can be streamed on all the popular sites. There is priceless black-and-white video of him in the ring and training with weights so maniacally that he went from an 84-pound weakling when he came to America to a 275-pound giant and the best, most famous wrestler in the world.
"Bruno Sammartino's rise to the top of wrestling was unforeseeable," narrator Larry Richert said in the documentary. "His is the quintessential American story."
Sammartino's parents, Alfonso and Emilia, wanted him to become a carpenter when he graduated from Pittsburgh's Schenley High School. Famed Pitt wrestling coach Rex Peery offered him a scholarship, but he turned it down because he feared he would fail academically because of the language difference. Art Rooney Sr. extended him an invitation to go to training camp with the Steelers, but he didn't think the money was right.
Sammartino turned to wrestling when Washington D.C. promoter Rudy Miller saw his feats of strength on the Bob Prince television show on KDKA and offered him a starting salary of $30,000. It turned out to be a wise decision for Sammartino. His net worth was estimated at $4 million when he died at 82 in April 2018.
"I was going to reach the top," Sammartino said in the documentary. "Nothing in this world was going to hold me back."
Sammartino wanted to provide for his wife of 59 years, Carol, and their three sons, David and twins Danny and Darryl. Of course, he did. But that was just the start of his motivation.
"I wanted to make something of myself that would make my mom so proud," Sammartino said. "Something that's going to make her feel like a million dollars, to make her say, 'This is my son.' "
The documentary should have been called "Emilia."
Sammartino, who approved the final product, insisted that his mother be the star. She was the one true hero of his life.
"When I found out my mom was sick, I fell apart. Totally fell apart," Sammartino said. "When she died in [1995], I couldn't accept it. That was the worst day of my life ...
"I was 59 at the time. I was so devastated that I can't even put it into words. People say to me, 'My god, Bruno, she was 97. I say, 'Does that mean I love her any less and miss her any less?' "
The most poignant moment of the documentary comes when Sammartino visits the gravesite off his mother and father, who died at 93 in 1985, at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Greenfield. There were tears in his eyes, his emotion palpable.
The documentary covers in great detail Emilia's fight to keep Sammartino and his older siblings, Maria and Paolo, alive after the German invasion of Italy during World War II. The family — Alfonso had settled in Pittsburgh a few years earlier to find work in the steel mill to support his family — had escaped up the mountain to Valla Rocca from their hometown, Pizzoferrato, in the Abruzzo section of Italy. The Germans had taken over Pizzoferrato.
"One can imagine the horror," Sammartino said. "It seemed to us like the end of the world."
Every few days, under the cover of darkness, Emilia would sneak down the mountain to gather all the food she could carry back up. Once, she was captured by the German Schutzstaffel — SS, for short — but escaped. Another time, she was shot in the shoulder and nearly bled to death.
Sammartino said he has no idea how she survived.
"We'd watch not to eat a lot so my mom wouldn't have to make the journey as often. There were many times we ate snow."
Sammartino's brother, Paolo, joked in the documentary, "We'd eat beans and potatoes one night. The next night, we'd try something different. Potatoes and beans."
Sammartino wasn't just frail as a boy, he was sickly. The documentary covers the story of his mother nursing him back to health from rheumatic fever when he was 12 in 1947. Doctors predicted he wouldn't live until the morning, but Emilia put leeches on his body, believing they would suck out the poison.
Apparently, it worked.
"My mom is why I'm still living," Sammartino told me during a five-hour interview in July 2017.
Sammartino, who faced heart issues late in his life, returned to Pizzoferrato in August 2017 against the wishes of his wife and doctors. A 10 1/2 -foot statue of him was unveiled. The family home was turned into the Bruno Sammartino Museum. Most important to him, the main wing of the town's new medical center was dedicated to and named for his mother.
"How could I say no to this trip?" Sammartino asked during our interview. "Everything that I am, everything that I've done, everything I hope to be is because of my mom. If you have to put me on a stretcher to get me there, I'm going. I'd regret it the rest of my life if I didn't go."
Sammartino devoted much of his speech to his mother when he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013, an honor he had declined for years because he was disgusted by the rampant drug use and vulgarity in the sport.
"The experiences I had with my mom enabled me to tough [everything] out," he said.
"The intrigue of Bruno's story is his will to endure," Richert said in the documentary.
Schwarzenegger presented Sammartino for induction. Donald Trump asked for a private audience with him.
"He became this great inspiration," Schwarzenegger said of Sammartino. "Not only did he wrestle, he brought so much great inspiration to millions of children and got them turned onto working out and staying away from alcohol and from drugs, from gangs and all this crazy stuff, to get involved in sports."
The final words here come from famed wrestler and actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He tweeted his message soon after Sammartino's Hall of Fame induction.
"Congratulations Bruno Sammartino: 2013 #WWE Hall of Fame. You're the greatest WWE Champion of all time. Thank you for paving the way. #Hero
One more bigger-than-life character talking about another.
