Too big for this world: the tragic life of Princess Bride star Andre The Giant

The cast of The Princess Bride first met seven-foot wrestler André the Giant in London’s Dorchester Hotel for a script read-through. Cary Elwes, writing in his memoir, describes the moment André walked through the door as being “like a scene from an old western where the guy enters the saloon and everyone stops what they are doing, including the piano player.”

That evening, André near-emptied the hotel’s wine cellar and passed out in the lobby. So massive was André – billed by WWE as being 7’4” and 520lbs – that the hotel staff couldn’t move him. They had to cordon him off with velvet rope and let him sleep it off.

André’s drinking was legendary. As the stories go, he could sink more than 100 beers in a single session, and The Princess Bride director Rob Reiner saw him drink 20 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau in one day. It’s just one of many legends which made André the first wrestler to transcend and become a mainstream celebrity – years before The Rock.

“People knew André the Giant even if they weren’t wrestling fans,” says multi-time WWE Champion Shawn Michaels. “He was the first one to branch from wrestling into that notoriety.”

According to other much-repeated legends, André would order and eat everything from the menu in restaurants; he could flip over cars; he could drink cases of beer without ever emptying his bladder; he was undefeated for 15 years; his hands were so enormous he made beer cans look miniature; he had two rows of teeth (and sometimes two hearts); and wielded such power in the wrestling locker room that he would make or break careers. There were even incredible stories about his flatulence.

But behind the tall tales, life for the giant – real name André Roussimoff – was hard. Too big for almost all aspects of the world, he lived in discomfort. He was gawped at and hounded by fans wherever he went, and his body – suffering from acromegaly – broke down.

On the set of The Princess Bride, the giant who had once tangled with every monster that wrestling had to offer, couldn’t lift the 5’6”, 115lb Robin Wright. Instead, she had to be suspended by wires. Following an acclaimed HBO documentary in 2018, André’s life is now the subject of a new book, named after his iconic wrestling moniker – The Eighth Wonder of the World: The True Story of André the Giant, by Bertrand Hébert and Pat Laprade.

“The thing that gave him fame and fortune and made him André the Giant, ultimately turned on him,” says Hébert about his condition. “It’s a tragic story in a lot of ways.”

Born in 1946, André René Roussimoff was raised in the French village of Molien, 40 miles northeast of Paris. André was a large child from birth – a whopper 13lb baby – but grew at a faster, larger rate as a teenager. By the age of 15 he was 6’6”. He began training as a pro wrestler aged just 19 and originally performed under the name Jean Ferré, taken from the lumberjack folk hero Grand Ferré who chopped down 85 Englishmen with his ax during the Hundred Years War.

Fast becoming an attraction in France, André came to the UK to wrestle in 1969. He performed in the Royal Albert Hall and suffered his first ever one-on-one loss to Kendo Nagasaki – a vicious masked “heel” (wrestling lingo for villain) and scourge of excitable grandmothers on ITV’s World of Sport.

André went on to wrestle across Europe, and in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. As described in the book, he even performed in front of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In the early Nineties, American wrestling became a craze here in the UK, creating a generation of fans who never quite grew out of it (I am among them: I remember vividly trying to convince my nan that André the Giant was as tall the balcony on a block of flats).

Those fans remember André later in his career – almost immobile in the ring, only capable of throwing painfully unconvincing punches. But the younger André was a different, more athletic performer altogether: quick, agile, and armed with actual wrestling holds. Looking back André’s career, Hébert and Laprade’s book is an incredible achievement of research. It takes on the mammoth task of separating fact from fiction – in a business which makes the unbelievable believable by guarding secrets closely and perpetuating its own myths and untruths.

One such mystery is André’s true height. He was billed anywhere between 6’9” and 7’4” over the years. “I believe that André the Giant was 7’4”,” says Hébert. “Let’s just say that André Roussimoff might not have been that actual height.”

The book also looks into how – or even when – André first learnt that he had acromegaly, a condition caused by the pituitary gland producing excessive growth hormones. Symptoms include gigantism, enlargement of the head, hands and feet, heart problems, and back pain – all suffered by André.

André made his North American debut in Montreal, Canada in June 1971. He became a star attraction and drew thousands of fans to shows. At the time, wrestling was divided into “territories”, with promoters running shows in their local area. André moved from Montreal to other North American territories – Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Texas – and back again. In 1973, he made his debut for the New York-based WWWF – the company that would become WWE, now a global entertainment powerhouse.

Now based in New York, André was the biggest wrestling star in the world. Bertrand Hébert – a wrestling fan since the age of 10 – remembers seeing André come back to wrestle in Montreal. “He came in for every big show,” says Hébert. “I saw him wrestle all the big guys who came through the territory. This was the big draw behind André – when he was here it was like the sheriff coming back into town. He would help put down the heels who had been running amok. He would draw people who came to wrestling shows only once a year – or once in a lifetime – just to see André the Giant in person.”

As the story goes, he wielded huge influence behind the scenes. If he didn’t like another wrestler, he could have them fired or use his sheer power in the ring to send them a message. “Matches went the way he wanted them to go,” says Shawn Michaels, who both wrestled and teamed with André later in his career. “Much like in life, he did what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, where he wanted, how he wanted.”

André became a star beyond the ring. His first film role had been back in 1967, in the French martial arts spy film Casse-tête chinois pour le judoka (Chinese Puzzle for the Judoka). In 1974, he appeared in the The Six Million Dollar Man, in a popular episode called The Secret of Bigfoot.

André played – unsurprisingly – bigfoot. Disguised by a full body suit and hairy make-up, André has a slow motion punch-up with Lee Majors in the forest – hilariously naff by modern TV standards – which ends with Majors pulling off André’s arm to reveal that bigfoot is, in fact, a robot. Other TV credits soon followed, including BJ and the Bear, The Greatest American Hero, The Fall Guy (another Lee Majors show), and French language sitcom Les Brilliant.

He became a popular guest on Late Night with David Letterman. André also had a role in the Dudley Moore film Micki & Maude and uncredited cameo (hidden under a giant demon costume) alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer. Speaking on the HBO documentary, Arnie – a longtime grapple fan – recalled going out for a meal with André and insisting that the giant let him pick up the cheque. André responded by picking up The Terminator. “He gets up and grabs me out of the chair,” Schwarzenegger said, “and he holds me up and he puts me up on a piece of furniture… he just set me up there like I’m a little doll.”

The Princess Bride – in which he played gentle giant Fezzik – was filmed in 1986. Rob Reiner described first seeing André as like a “landmass sitting on a barstool”. André’s English was limited (“I didn’t understand a single word he said!” said Reiner about the audition) so they recorded the script on a tape for André to learn.

Much like the wrestling world, everyone on The Princess Bride had an André story. Elwes describes how André drank a mix of liquors from a 40oz beer pitcher, a drink that André dubbed “The American”. Robin Wright recalls how André’s hands were so massive that he’d clasp one over her head to keep her warm during cold shoots.

And Reiner tells a story about how André was too heavy to ride a horse, so had to be suspended on guide wires to create the illusion – a “500-pound drunken giant” dangling in the air after quaffing 20 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau.

André had been in severe pain during the production. But his biggest wrestling match was still to come. In the early Eighties, WWE (then called the WWF) ate up the wrestling territories. Led by boss Vince McMahon and larger-than-life champ Hulk Hogan – plus publicity from Cyndi Lauper, Mr T, and MTV – the cartoonish wrestling became a national, then worldwide phenomenon. It led to WWE’s first WrestleMania in 1985, a wrestling-meets-pop culture super-show.

But by WrestleMania III in March 1987, McMahon needed something even bigger – a monster opponent for Hulk Hogan to conquer.  André turned heel to challenge for the world title. Off-screen, André and Hulk’s relationship had been fraught to begin with. “There was a competition there at first,” says Hébert. “André was very insightful and business-smart about wrestling. He knew early on that Hogan was probably going to be the guy to replace him. That created some issues. But as Hulk started to learn, there was a protégé relationship. Hulk would drink with him and André was invited to Hulk’s wedding. By the time WrestleMania III came along, André knew it was time to pass the pro wrestling torch.”

Hogan maintains that he didn’t know if André would go along with the plan and let Hulk win the match. The idea that the biggest wrestling match of all time wouldn’t be carefully pre-planned and all agreed upon beforehand is, to quote The Princess Bride, inconceivable. Perhaps Hulk Hogan, like many wrestling old timers, has spun this André yarn so many times that he’s started to believe it himself.

Playing out in the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan to 93,179 fans (another number, like Andre’s height, that WWE has inflated for dramatic effect) WrestleMania III was, at that point, the most successful wrestling event ever. By now, André could barely wrestle – he was hiding a back brace beneath his singlet – and required back surgery afterwards. But the image of André and Hulk facing off remains the single most important moment in WWE. It encapsulates WWE’s brand of, not wresting, but “sports-entertainment”: the size, the spectacle, the OTT storytelling.

“It’s the irresistible force vs the immovable object,” says Hébert, borrowing a popular wrestling phrase. “It’s the undefeated giant vs the undefeated champion.”

“That’s the one, it’s the blueprint” says Shawn Michaels about the match. “If you’re going to talk about wrestling, WWE, WrestleMania – it’s the difference maker. It all hinged on that match – and that one guy allowing it to happen.” Michaels joined WWE in the late Eighties as part of a tag team called The Rockers. He has often compared André’s presence backstage as being like a mafia don.

“André did not like The Rockers,” he laughs. “It was sort of a custom that everyone would line up and shake his hand. So we tried and said, ‘Hello, boss’. But there was no look, no nothing – he just blew us off. Of course, you had to continue to do that. It was the strangest thing in the world, and you’d feel weird doing it – you could have your whole day ruined, knowing you’d have to go through the experience of asking this guy to shake your hand, and knowing full well you weren’t going to get it.”

It went on for a few years. Eventually, Michaels learned that André, a famous prankster, had been “ribbing” them. “I saw him at the hotel bar and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve just go to ask him why he hates us,’” Michaels says. “He told me this whole time it was just his way of entertaining himself while he was on the road. For me it was such a relief just to have a conversation with him.”

Being “on the road” – the punishing travel schedule of being a top wrestler – was increasingly tough on André’s body. The beds and facilities in hotels, in which he lived much his life, were too small. On airplanes, he couldn’t fit in the toilets so had to relieve himself in a bucket behind a curtain. “There was never a knife, there was never a fork, there was never a chair,” said Hulk Hogan on the HBO doc. “It was like, as if you had to sit on baby furniture or in a doll’s house your whole life.”

Away from the road he lived on a ranch in North Carolina, where he could retreat away from the onlookers and fans. As his body failed him, he drank heavily to mask the pain. “You can only imagine the physical pain that acromegaly brought,” says Hébert. “As he aged, his body kept having growth spurts. His extremities kept growing – the head, hands, and feet. That caused him pain and issues with his lower back."

For his last few appearances on WWE television, he was on crutches. He worked his final matches in Japan in 1992, his body now beyond broken down.  “It was not a pretty sight,” said wrestling journalist and historian Dave Meltzer. In January 1993, André travelled back to France for his father’s death. Less than two weeks later, André died of heart failure in a Paris hotel room. Two months after, WWE made André the first inductee into its Hall of Fame.

Even now, almost three decades later, the legend André the Giant casts a huge shadow over the worlds of wrestling and entertainment – even larger than the man himself. Bertrand Hébert describes it best: “André Roussimoff always took a backseat to the legend of André the Giant.”

The Eighth Wonder of the World: The True Story of André the Giant is out now. The André the Giant documentary is available on DVD and the WWE Network