Joe Rollino

Human endurance is a fascinating thing. One is often drawn to characters that prevail where others fall, who push life to the edge and whose lives occupy extreme territory. It can take different forms - there are those who can drink and drink and drink and still remain standing/alive.

Actor Richard Harris' capacity for drink was infamous and astounding. In 1997 he discovered he owned a Rolls Royce that had been housed in a New York garage since 1974, and such was his almost constant inebriation during the 70s he had no recollection of ever owning it (If this anecdote seems a little crowbarred in, it's because I love that story).

More honourably representing the nature of human endurance are characters like Joe Rollino. His innate ability was not with alcohol imbibing but weight lifting. He was cool in several ways but chief among them were the following:

- He was the self-proclaimed world's strongest man in the 1920's
- Time could not kill him, he only died after being hit by a van aged 104

Endurance is the wrong word for this man. He wasn't merely enduring living this long, he was showing off at it, still bending coins in his teeth at the age of 103. And unlike characters like Harris, Rollino never drank, smoked and or ate meat.

His whole story reads like an urban myth or a television movie, with a bizarre hotch potch of cameos throughout history - World War II heroics, bodyguard for Greta Garbo, bit part in On The Waterfront (left on the cutting room floor). More than anything he was clearly well loved and a local hero in Brooklyn.

And now for quite a gay looking photo:

It's that guys glasses that makes it gay and not Joe Rollino who is badass.