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Bill Pettis, bodybuilder and Muscle Beach icon, found dead in Pennsylvania
A screen capture of an interview with Bill Pettis at Venice beach uploaded in September 2012.
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Juan Ferrer via YouTube
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Photographer Garry Winogrand and his Olympics poster, featuring Venice bodybuilder William Pettis. Photo dated: February 13, 1983.
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Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library
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Bodybuilder William "Bill" Pettis, a well-known fixture of Venice's iconic Muscle Beach, was found dead in Pennsylvania, the coroner confirmed Thursday.
The Dauphin County Coroner in Harrisburg, PA said Pettis was found in a creek bed late Wednesday night. He was 69 years old.
In the '70s Pettis was a well-known figure on Venice's iconic Muscle Beach. He was renowned for having larger biceps than his colleague Arnold Schwarzenegger. A photograph of him was used as the poster for the 1984 Olympics in L.A., according to a profile of Pettis in Los Angeles Magazine.
Photographer Garry Winogrand and his Olympics poster, featuring Venice bodybuilder William Pettis. Winogard stands in front of his poster of a weightlifter whose huge upper torso echoes the massive barbells at his side. Robert Fitzpatrick, head of the '84 arts festival, says he had in mind a poster series "that would not come all from a single sort of viewpoint." Photo dated: February 13, 1983.
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Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library
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"Bill Pettis was one of my favorite training partners. He had the biggest arms I've ever seen but more importantly, he had the biggest heart. I'm going to miss him," Schwarzenegger told the website Penn Live.
Coroner Graham Hetrick told KPCC that photo was found in a tin box Pettis had with him at the time of his death, along with a duffle bag containing a picture of him and Schwarzenegger. He was found wearing a Gold's Gym Venice Beach muscle shirt.
"He had failing health, he had, I think, somewhat confusion or dementia of one kind or another," Hetrick told KPCC.
Pettis grew up in the Harrisburg area and still has family there, Hetrick said, but he had a California I.D. on him when he was found.
"When you look at the homeless, or the people that seem to be down and out and only have a duffle bag — here was this guy with this amazing story," Hetrick told KPCC.
Hetrick said that Pettis' family had bought a bus ticket for him to come home to Pennsylvania for a reunion of some kind.
"He almost made it home," Hetrick told KPCC.
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