Everyone knows professional wrestling is fake. The fans know. The wrestlers know. The officials know. Everyone. But, professional wresting has remained popular ever since it was the only thing to watch in the early days of television. In fact, it has exponentially increased in popularity and made a fortune for its promoters, most notably Vince McMahon Jr. who turned the staged matches and contrived intrigue into a multimillion dollar brand.

Canadian George Stipich began wrestling in the role of “the bad guy” in the 1960s. He used the name “Stan Stasiak” and played the villainous brute character to the hilt. He bounced around different pro wrestling organizations for several years, always playing the same brooding ogre in the ring. In his third stint with Vince McMahon Sr.’s fledgling World Wide Wrestling Federation, Stan got a brief and unexpected shot at glory.

In December 1973, Stan was in a venue dressing room in Philadelphia prior to a World Championship bout in which he was to battle popular reigning champion Pedro Morales. A representative from the World Wide Wrestling Federation entered the dressing room to go over the particulars of how the match was to play out. This was a common formality and Stan hardly paid attention. He had this same conversation in the dressing rooms of a dozen venues in a dozen cities on the Eastern seaboard. The WWF agent discussed various moves and holds, describing the scene as it had been described many times before.

“Pedro makes a big comeback,” the agent said, “and the referee starts to count — right? — one, two…”

Stan, giving his full attention to lacing and tying his boots, nodded and grunted a half-hearted “Uh-huh.”

“On ‘two’, you roll your shoulder up, and Pedro’s shoulders will be down on the mat.”, the WWF official explained.

Stan looked up, knowing he was about to hear the familiar fate that ended each match.

The official continued, “The ref hits the mat at ‘three’ and Pedro is down. Okay?”

Stan froze and looked at the offical. “You mean I win?, ” he said, after a long silence.

“Yeah, Stan.”

“I win?  And this is a title match? “,  a confused Stan questioned, “I  win the title? I’m  the champion?”

The WWF agent answered very matter-of-factly, “Yes, Stan.”

Stan was the World Wide Wresting Champion for nine days, until Bruno Sammartino defeated him at Madison Square Garden and took the belt.

Stan retired from the ring in 1984 and became a security guard for a shopping center. He passed away from heart failure at the age of 60. For nine days he lived what most wrestlers only dream about.

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You need a bear? Call Janos.

You need a gorilla? Call Janos.

You need a monster? Call Janos.

For fifteen years, Janos Prohaska was Hollywood’s “go-to” guy when a script called for a ursine, simian or otherworldly character to interact with a leading actor. Janos would don one of his many homemade costumes and happily perform his patented animal pantomime. He played countless gorillas in laboratories, performing circus bears and outer space monsters in television and movies. He was the popular “Cookie Bear”, a character played for comic relief, on fourteen episodes of The Andy Williams Show,  a variety showcase hosted by the easygoing singer. Janos appeared in episodes of The Munsters, Bewitched, The Lucy Show, Love American Style, I Dream of Jeannie  and even Perry Mason,  all hidden under heavy fur and latex costuming. His roles were, for the most part, uncredited. In 1969, he made an appearance on the TV game show What’s My Line?,  in a full ape get-up.

Janos was also an accomplished stuntman, doubling for Peter Falk in the physical comedy classic It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World  in 1963. In 1971, he played Heloise the gorilla in Escape from Planet of the Apes,  in which he strangled Dr. Milo, the character played by Sal Mineo.

In 1974, Janos, his son, fellow stuntman Robert Prohaska, and 34 passengers were returning by chartered plane from a mountainous location set for the ABC Television series Primal Man.  In total darkness, the plane flew into a mountain ridge, killing everyone aboard.

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Rugged, good-looking Eric Fleming began his acting career in low-budget features like Curse of the Undead  and Queen of Outer Space  opposite Zsa Zsa Gabor (yes,  she was actually in  movies). In 1958, the 6-foot 3-inch Eric was cast in Rawhide,  a TV Western that joined the ranks and popularity of Gunsmoke, Bonanza  and others of the genre. Eric starred as trail boss Gil Favor, alongside a then unknown actor named Clint Eastwood. The series also featured Sheb Wooley, whose novelty song “Purple People Eater” reached number one on the charts the year Rawhide  premiered.

After the cancellation of Rawhide  in 1966, Eric starred with Doris Day and an ensemble cast in The Glass Bottom Boat,  a typical madcap spy comedy. Soon afterward, he signed on to join the cast of High Jungle,  an MGM adventure film to be shot on location in Peru.

During the final days of filming High Jungle,  Eric and fellow actor Nico Minardos were shooting a climactic scene in a canoe on the rough waters of the Huallaga River. The canoe overturned. Minardos was able to swim to safety, but Eric was swept up in the churning current. His mutilated body was discovered downstream four days later. Eric was 41 years old and had planned to marry his fiancee days after production wrapped.

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Sixty-five years before Anna Nicole Smith set her sights on oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, there was Peaches.

Wealthy New York real estate mogul Edward Browning just couldn’t pick women. At 41, Edward married Adele Lowen, a young lady 18 years his junior. Edward showered his new bride with gifts and jewels and furs and an opulent home. When Adele wished for children, Edward placed an ad in the newspaper seeking to adopt. The couple adopted two daughters, but a bored Adele soon contracted gonorrhea from an extra-martial affair and the couple divorced in 1923.

Edward met Frances Heenan at a dance in March 1926. She was weeks away from her sixteenth birthday and 51-year old Edward was smitten, professing his love to “the girl of his dreams”. Reporters followed the new couple around New York, as Edward purchased anything and everything Frances laid eyes on. The press nicknamed them “Peaches and Daddy”. They married in late June 1926. The bride sported four diamond-encrusted platinum bracelets. The groom was all smiles.

The marriage lasted until October, when Peaches cleared $30,000 worth of clothing and jewelry from her closet and ran home to her mother. She portrayed herself as the victim of a “perverted monster”, as he called her husband. At the January divorce proceedings, Peaches told nightmarish stories of how Edward kept a honking African goose in their bedroom. Through tears, she related how he forced her to look at pornographic magazines and insisted she eat her breakfast in the nude. She delivered her horrific tale of marital grief while draped in an $11,000 Russian sable coat. “I’m a good girl,” Peaches attested. When Edward took the stand, he painted a very different picture. Edward said that his poor, little “dream girl” had never acted as a wife and had never even kissed him. Peaches and her mother, he claimed, were nothing but a pair of gold-digging schemers. Then, Edward’s attorney produced evidence of a heavily-populated roster of Peaches’ spurned former boyfriends. The judge agreed that Peaches had abandoned her husband without cause and ruled in favor of Edward.

Peaches parlayed her fleeting notoriety as her ticket to enter vaudeville. Although she never achieved the stardom she desired,  she did snag three more husbands along the way. In 1956, she accidentally slipped in her bathroom — an accident that proved fatal. Peaches was 46.

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