Philadelphia Inquirer – February 24, 1978
By Clark DeLeon
Inquirer Staff Writer
Benny and Billy McGuire weight 727 pounds and 747 pounds respectively and they are billed as the world’s fattest twins, a distinction they have turned into a lucrative livelihood. This weekend they will make an appearance at the Downington Farmers Market.
Think of Bill Cosby’s character Fat Albert calling from a distance as he starts his run to rush the opposition in a game of buck-buck. “Hey, hey, hey,” he growls as his feet pound the ground boom, boom, boom sending shivers through the earth. “What’s this?” asks a member of the other team. “That’s our secret weapon,” says Cos with a knowing smile. “Hey, Hey, Hey” the voice grows louder as the steps come closer. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
The ground around the challenging team shakes violently. Somwhere a needle on the Richter Scale leaps. The last man on the buck-buck team turns in time to see the sun blotted out by a massive form on its final approach. “HEY, HEY, HEY,” Fat Albert cries while taking his last three steps. DOOM, DOOM, DOOM… SPLAT!
Fat Albert, of course, is a Philadelphia legend. But if such a person existed, and if he were white, and if he hailed from Hendersonville, N.C., and if there were two of him, then their names would be Billy and Benny McGuire.
Benny and Billy weigh 727 pounds and 747 pounds respectively. “Billy’s the jumbo jet,” his twin brother teases. “I do domestic and Billy does the overseas flights.”
The McGuire brothers are billed as the world’s fattest twins, a distinction they have turned into a lucrative livelihood. This weekend, for instance, they have been booked to do a personal appearance at the Downingtown Farmers Market, where the twins will ride their motorbikes and discuss something called the first annual Billy and Benny Twins Club convention scheduled in July – an event neither twin was familiar with when interviewed earlier this week.
But personal appearances are only a sideline for the McGuire boys, whose true calling is wrestling – or as they prefer to call it, wrassling. Billy and Benny have been members of the professional ranks for 10 years. Their tactics have resembled Fat Albert’s buck-buck strategy. “We use our weight to our advantage,” Billy says in a gem of an understatement.
The McGuires’ strategy consists of two basic moves: the “big splash,” in which an opponent is the victim of an avalanche of human flesh, and the “steamroller,” in which the opponent, who is reluctantly prone following the “big splash,” is persuaded to holler uncle before being reduced to the thickness of a pizza pie.
Of course, these tactics, although proven successful, have cost the boys something in popularity among fans. Benny is still recovering from a six-inch wound suffered earlier this month in Tokyo when an irate fan stabbed him following a big splash over the Japanese tag team wrestling champions. “Japan is one of the countries that hate us,” Billy says. He thinks it’s because he and Benny are Americans.
And yet the McGuires have suffered from fans at home as well. In Louisville, an opponent was shot from the stands, and he died in Billy’s arms. During another incident in Kentucky some playful fans tossed a bag full of rattlesnakes inside the twins dressing room. Benny led the excape out the door. In his hurry he never bothered to open the door.
Like most professional wrestlers, the McGuires have suffered injuries in the ring. “I broke my arm last year when it got underneath me when I was doing a big splash,” Benny recalls. “Bill broke four ribs the same way.”
But nothing suffers like the ring itself when almost 1,500 pounds of McGuire brothers step inside. “We’ve had rings collapse under us several times,” Billy says. “One time we wrestled in Madison Square Garden in ‘Big Men’ competition. You had to be 400 pounds just to get in the ring. Haystacks Calhoun was there, and Andre the Giant. When it was over the ring was demolished.”
Billy is concerned about his friend Haystacks, who has been losing weight recently. “He must be down to 425 pounds.”
Billy and Benny weren’t always enormous. In fact, they weighed five-pounds each when they were born prematurely on Dec. 7, 1946. But a bout with German measles at age 10 disturbed their pituitary glands and they began to balloon. By 12 they weighed 250 pounds. By 20 they were up to 500 pounds. They leveled off to their present weight – give or take 40 pounds – in their late 20s.
The McGuire boys claim they only eat normal sized servings of normal food. “My wife eats as much as I do and she only weighs about 400 pounds,” Benny laughs. Actually, Benny’s wife, Tammie weighs in around 130 pounds. Billy’s wife, Danielle, is a mere wisp of person weighing only 98 pounds.
Billy and Benny plan to lose weight after they’ve retired from wrestling. They are realistic about the health hazard they risk by carrying that excess poundage. But just when they will retire is uncertain. “It’s like Muhammad Ali,” says Billy. “A lot of people would be disappointed if we retired. And another thing – the bread’s real good.”
Until that day then, the McGuires will continue to earn a living by their bulk. They have more overseas tours planned. They are even returning to Japan again. “We’re looking forward to that,” says Billy. “In countries over there, they don’t see that many large people. And when they see people like me and my brother, they’re quite astonished.”
The twins agree that they’d trade their fame in a minute if they could weigh 150 pounds. “But let’s face it,” Billy says. “We’re making the best of bad situation.”
In the meantime, we had to know: How do you keep your weight up?
“Clean living,” Billy laughs. “That’s how we do it. Clean living.”
If you go…
You can meet Billy and Benny McGuire tomorrow and Sunday at the Downingtown Farmers Market on Route 30 (Lancaster Avenue) in Downingtown, Chester County. The twins will answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
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