Andre the Giant was one-of-a-kind.
Some wrestlers have found success outside of sports. Names include John Cena, Hulk Hogan, and Dwayne Johnson, all of whom became actors after their wrestling careers ended.
One man paved the way. That man was Andre The Giant.
Diagnosed with giantism, Andre became one of the greatest wrestlers ever. He was a sometimes actor, too, just like Hogan–the man who beat Andre at 1992 Wrestlemania.
Andre didn’t follow a paved road to success. At 12, he was already 600 pounds and way too big to ride the school bus. So he had got rides to school from Nobel Prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett. Later, Andre tried to fight for his home country France but was rejected for being too big.
Legend has it that he had an enormous appetite, able to drink 156 beers and 14 bottles of wine at a time, and eat 12 steaks and 15 lobsters at one sitting.
As his health declined, doctors didn’t know how much morphine to give him. They surmised that if it took two bottles of vodka for him to get a buzz, then it would take two bottles of morphine to kill his pain.
Andre the Giant passed away at the young age of 46.
To this day, Andre is remembered for his movies, wrestling, and in tales about him shared at campfires around the world.
