You May Be Pretty, But I Am Beautiful: The Adrian Street Story (2019) - full transcript

Exactly who or what is Exotic Adrian Street?
Well if you don't know, let me introduce you.

I started learning about Adrian
Street probably in the early 1980's.

I was a huge wrestling fan, at that
time we recieved news about wrestlers

outside of our territories mine being the
North East territory that WWF covered.

We would learn about them
through the wrestling magazines.

And there's this really
odd-looking, unique fellow.

And he's clearly...

Well it's not clear what he is,
you know.

He's androgynous. He
has a valet.

He, he's wrestling some of the
great stars from around the world

there's some classic photos of him with
Randy "Macho Man" Savage with Dusty Rhodes.



And as I get into
wrestling I learn

that not only is he flamboyant performer
but he's an amazing artist and he's one

of those legendary figures in our
business who can hurt you really bad

really quickly.

And that's fascinating.

When you can paint and destroy

you create and destroy almost at your
will, that that makes for a great story.

Exotic
Adrian Street is me.

In fact I am Exotic
Adrian Street.

Never ever...

met anybody exotic as I am.

In fact...

I was gonna say I'm perfect but,

the only thing that stopped me
from being perfect is my modesty...



I'm too modest for my own good.

The
Exotic Adrian Street.

He's
such a big name

and he's achieved so many amazing
things that he's a guy synonymous with

British wrestling certainly and to
a wider extent global wrestling.

He was
cutting-edge,

and he was doing it at a time where you really
shouldn't been doing what he was doing.

He was pushing that boat,
and then kept pushing a little bit more.

And not many people
would do that.

It was a very
close-knit community.

There were a lot of families all
living in the same kind of environment.

Neighbours were very
neighbourly.

I can remember my Dad coming home from the pit,
quite dirty really, all covered in coal.

We'd have the tin bath put out
in front of the fire,

it was that kind of a environment you
know, it wasn't as sophisticated as today.

Everybody relied on everybody
else more or less.

This is one of the
first photographs,

obviously Adrian a baby, with
older brother Terrence.

My Father at the time...

was a prisoner war with
the Japanese.

Every time I saw anybody in uniform,
I'd go up to them and say...

My Dad's a prisoner of war
with the Japanese...

When you leave will you go and
get him and bring him back?

I really wanted a Father.

But when he did come home,

the first time I ever met him was just like
maybe a few weeks before my fifth birthday.

And for whatever reason my
Father didn't like me.

And, it wasn't too long before, before I
actually learned I didn't like him either.

Adrian was as he is now, quite unique.

He would be the one that would
go off and do his own thing.

Always in trouble...

As far as I can recall, the
tales my Mum used to tell,

whatever neighbourhood
catastrophe would be happening...

Adrian was in the midst of it.

When I was a young kid
during the war,

there was only one thing I wanted more
than to be than to be a Red Indian.

I wanted to be the best, the most
famous Red Indian chief in the World.

They were colourful, they
wore the makeup.

They wore the feathers in their
hair and all that kind of stuff,

the war bonnets.

I really wanted to be a
Red Indian chief.

I can remember my
Mother making...

Oh, I loved this suit.

It was grey with beaded work
and red fringes on it.

My Mum made that for Adrian
along with the feather headdress

so Adrian was now...

the... the Indian chief
he wanted to be.

When I graduated from the infant
school which was way over there,

to the Junior School
which was here,

I wanted to make a great
first impression.

And I went to school stripped to the waist,
with just a pair of short trousers on.

I had my face painted with all
the most garish colours

I could find in my paint box

and I filled my hair with a lot
of chicken feathers

so... so that I would give
the impression

that I wanted to make whenever I
entered the school.

I want them to realise that I
was a great Cherokee warrior.

Unfortunatly, the Headmistress
didn't sort of recognise

the effort I made, and she said

"Go home you silly little bugger and put on some
warm pale face clothes and wash your silly face."

I had a friend named Peter Inge

who was really into wrestling and he
was trying to interest me in wrestling,

I was trying to interest him
in bodybuilding.

Anyway, I was over in
Ebbw Vale one day

and I noticed an American wrestling magazine
and I thought, oh I'll buy that Peter.

And I bought it and on the way, on the bus
back I flipped through it, I was hooked.

Forget about the Red Indians I wanted to
be a professional wrestler from then on.

He didn't want to do go down the mine
pit a, it was dirty, but it was the silicosis.

Because every, all the miners
suffered from silicosis.

And he didn't want that.

It was dead men's shoes in your
father's footsteps.

If dad worked in the pits, you
went into the pits.

If your dad worked in steel
works, you went into steel works.

If your dad worked in industry,
you went into industry.

The kind of people that he
worked with were quite opposite to him.

For example, they liked
smoking and...

and drinking sort of that
kind of background.

Well he was very
health conscious,

always has been.

So, hence a lot of people thought
that he never worked down the pit

because he could never be associated
with that kind of a lifestyle.

As regards to the hard work,
because it was hard work...

Adrian reviled in that because it was
part of, of him being able to show people

what he could do strength-wise seeing
that, remembering that he was quite young.

He was one that would do what
he wanted to do in his own way

and that's the way he grew up, and that's the
way he's developed and he's still the same.

I mean the last thing I wanted
was to work in a coal mine.

It's dark down there and I
needed a spotlight.

I was made to be seen.

I do identify with that iconic image
of Adrian at the mines with his father.

I remember seeing it and just
thinking to myself,

what manner of human being is this? Because
it was such a sharp contrast you know,

there's, you know the... the dad
and this, you know,

dangerous, desolate, occupation

and Adrian with the eight inch
platforms, you know

being glam rock before glam
rock even existed.

And it's just, it's
just so cool.

It was almost like a space man come
out of somewhere or another dimension or something,

and sort of landed straight back,
right in the middle of this kind of...

...in this pit in Wales.

It's a great shot you know, I've got I've got
it from a wall because it's really weird,

when you tell people like, you
know, when people say, "Who's that?"

I say, well that's my Dad
and my Grandad,

it's like you know. It certainly takes
some explaining I think that picture.

The first title that, that, that I held
was the European Middleweight Championship,

Then I actually won the World
Middleweight Championship,

I know that you don't have
middleweights in the, in the States,

and that's one reason why I gave
up the title to come here.

But as far as a heavyweight
titles are concerned,

I've held the the European Heavyweight
Championship on five different occasions

and I've never ever been
beaten for it.

When he was
asked where he would like a photograph taken

when his name became famous he said "I'd
like to go back to where I started off."

And there he is showing what he
managed to achieve.

Such an amazing shot of the juxtaposition between
this, gritty, Welsh, working-class, coal-miner,

with his mates who'd kinda,
kind of had his life set out before him

before he even knew it, and would have
said no this is your life your life is

to go down the mine and that was
probably planned for Adrian too

but then when you look at what Adrian did
and brought that crazy outfit down the mine

and stood with his dad and took that picture,
I think it really symbolized how insane

Adrian's dream was in the first place
to go out and try something like that

but also it shows the...

what was so significant about
him with wrestling fans,

because that, that insane character
versus the the working-class man,

which was the majority of wrestling fans
in that era, was kind of what made him

stand out and so different and so beloved
or so hated whatever the case may be.

It just shows how much Adrian
made an impact on popular culture,

to a stratospheric degree.
Particularly for his time.

There's a scene in "Zoolander"
where,

Ben Stiller's character does exactly the
same. He has a career as a male model

in that film and his father completely
disapproves, so he decides to take it to him

as a what, almost that rebellious nature
kept coming out on him to show him,

look at me I've done this,
you said I couldn't

and that's pretty much
inspired by Adrian.

Adrian did exactly that.

Anyway, I ran away
from home when I was 16 years of age.

I went to live in London, I
almost starved to death.

I've slept on park benches and
everything like that.

But if I'm determined to do something,
I'm gonna do it or die trying.

No matter what you do,

reach for the stars. If you land
on the moon, then you've gone f.

And that's what he's done.

He's basically, he reached for
the stars and he's got there.

What he would have become if he hadn't
moved away from that mining village,

who knows.

I think he would have been destined
to be in show business anyway,

That was his character.

That was what he was
determined to do,

you have to take your
hat off too him.

I was really working out hard
like two and a half three hour sessions...

on the mat wrestling, as well
as lifting weights.

With the result I was hoping to gain weight
because when I went to live in London

I weighed a hundred and
seventy six pounds...

But I ended up going down 144.

I'm mean ten stone four pounds.

But I was in such good shape
that a friend of mine

suggested I should try the
bodybuilding magazines,

and quite honestly I was earning
more money posing for Man's World,

Modern Man, some of the American
magazines and what have you,

than I was when I first
started wrestling.

He was clearly determined, he
clearly wanted it and

I think most wrestlers today think the
business is a little bit too easy to get into.

He was a tough guy and he went
through a part of wrestling

where you had to be a tough
guy to survive.

You people
might regard this moron as an idol.

But where I come from

the likes of Austin Idol they wouldn't
even make a good toilet cleaner. No way.

Are you a man or a coward?

You're already here. I've come over
3,000 miles to relieve you of that.

You're a coward Austin unless
you put that challenge up.

You're a coward.

Well he's
taken the challenge.

He's taking the challenge and...

- - before
the bell could even ring,

the Exotic Adrian Street
brought in from behind.

Some of those
in wrestling now,

wouldn't have even got a job
putting the ring up in our days.

Adrian stood out because he was
a very accomplished athlete.

As Idol answered the challenge.

Brings him up again.

Those are three slams in a row.

You know when he was on,
well, you know, World of Sport,

on Saturday afternoons, and you'd
go back into school on Monday, and

you know, everyone would like,

see your Dad on TV and sort of
take the piss and stuff.

It's kind of weird, I always,
you know, I just,

I thought...

I thought people were what they wanted
to be because they chose to do it.

Like Dad wanted to be a
wrestler, so that's what he was.

And other kids, you know,
if their kids, you know,

if their dads drove buses or whatever, it's
because their dads wanted to be bus drivers.

I didn't realise until years later that
people basically got whatever they could.

So I was quite proud of
the fact that

he's one of the few people I knew that
actually sort of did what they wanted to do.

A lot of people ask me, you know,
why don't you follow your Dad's footsteps.

I mean last time I had a fight I got
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for violence.

So...

So I think thats, you know,

I don't think that was the path for
me plus you get cold in pants man.

I had my first professional contest in
1950, August 1957, when I was 16 still 16 years of age.

I thought it in those days I was the best
thing that ever happened to wrestling,

I just didn't realise how I had to learn because,
you can't just be a professional wrestler,

you've got to want it
as bad as I did,

especially considering, that I never, I was never
blessed with the size a lot of these guys have got.

The business was protected...

You couldn't just go to it a
school as easy as you can today.

You can just Google it and
find somewhere.

The business is open right now.
It's totally, totally different.

So Adrian must of had a
tough time and,

you went to these schools they
weren't nice to you.

Their job was to break you and to
see if you would come back again.

You hear stories of people having
their legs broken, their arms broken,

to see if they'd come back.

So Adrian was doing it in a
very, very, tough time.

And then to do the
character which he did...

He really pushed the boat out.

I mean...

No one was doing what he was
doing back then.

I was so excited,

people cheering me when I walked out,
wasn't for me because I hated my opponent,

they didn't even know who I was.

But, I was so excited I couldn't
feel my feet touching the ground.

I got into the ring...

We were both introduced and
everything like that.

I was Kid Tarzan Jonathan and the
other corner with Gentleman Joff Moran.

I'll tell you now in a nutshell
exactly how the contest went.

The bell went. He dove out of his corner
and start rolling running around the ring.

So I lay back in my corner and just watched him
and thought well he's gonna stop sometime.

You know even if it's the end of the round,
I really wanted to come to grips you know.

Anyway, he looked puzzled at me
and everything like that,

because I wasn't reacting to
what he was doing at all.

So he stood up, we came up,

linked up with each other,

I ripped his arm across, through
my feet up in the air,

and drove his face into the
into the canvas.

He screamed out and submitted,

that was the end of the contest
I dislocated his shoulder.

I marched into the
dressing room.

When are you gonna give me a championship contest?
...You know I want a championship belt.

Promoter said, "You stupid bastard,
what the hell were you doing out there?!"

He said, "Do you think people are
going to pay good money", he said,

"to watch a main event", he said,
"that only last two minutes?"

The interesting thing
about Adrian was the fact that

when he was younger and he was doing
these crazy outfits and crazy characters,

British wrestling in particular,

was very dry and there weren't really the
insane characters that we're used these days,

that you'll see in American
wrestling and so,

he was really the first Brit to kind of take
that on board and make a success of it.

You see the insane characters that you get in British
wrestling on World of Sport, on WOS, these days,

are definitely in part
inspired by him.

He was
competing with the bare bones...

I'm a wrestler,
you're a wrestler.

Let's have a wrestling match and let's
leave all the character out of it.

I think he started
with a leather jacket,

and then he progressed to the

blonde, long blonde hair,

and, the pretty colours and the
glitter on his face,

and the paint on his face,

and that's what made him.

You could take
Adrian right now,

from when he was in the Golden Age
and plonk him now, and he'd fit in.

He might have to change a little bit
of style, but that flamboyancy and

that persona he had would work really
really well, especially on WWE.

But he could still do what he did then
today and would still get a reaction.

He would still get a
crowd going.

He would, whether he was heal,
whether he was face,

he could do what he wants,

and, not many guys could do that,
can transfer from a golden era...

to the present day.

♪ I could be a tulip, I
could be a man ♪

♪ The only way of knowing is to
catch me if you can ♪

♪ You can suppose what you
want to suppose ♪

♪ But I'm a sweet transvestite
with a broken nose ♪♪

I like to
think at the time,

that I got my break because I was such a
good wrestler they couldn't do without me.

But the only reason I got my
break really was,

the fact that they
needed the bodies.

Now when I first first start
wrestling for them...

I was wrestling on an average 40
times in one month.

I was wrestling in the morning
here, in the afternoon there.

I'd go to a show sometimes in wrestle
three or four times in the same arena.

I used to always, sort of,
loved going and stuff,

going to all these matches,
becuase you got to see these like

really wild exotic
places like...

Weston-super-Mare.

Adrian is
fascinating because,

he is a paradox.

He is an androgynous figure, who
is every bit a man.

And he is a creator who can also
destroy people in a hurry.

So he had enough confidence
to pull off a character that...

other wrestlers couldn't
dream of doing,

and would not have physically
been capable of pulling off,

because in order to act that...

feminine,

you had to be really, really,
manly.

Adrian's character in
the early days was very controversial.

I mean,

Adrian was Adrian,

he knew what he wanted,

and much to the surprise
of the promoters,

he went out there, and because of his
style of dress and he's flamboyant,

the way he'd dress.

He made a star of himself, and

Dale Martin's wasn't silly.

They knew that someone like Adrian,
if they promoted him correctly,

they could earn
money out of him.

Fans would love
to hate him for a start.

Back then with obviously, the...
the secret about wrestling

not being as out in the
open as it is now,

people would really viscerally
react to characters who,

particularly in a conservative
British and American environment,

they wouldn't like this flamboyant, long hair,
prancing around the ring, sort of character.

Look at those those
pale blue eyes.

Look at those long eyelashes
and that golden moustache.

I bet you're really cute underneath.
You're rather cute yourself dear.

When I wanted to be a wrestler,
it was his kind of character that I wanted

because he was so different
to everybody else.

It's probably the reason why he's
been so successful in America,

because back home in Britain
he was ahead of his time,

in just his character work,

on top of that he was a great
wrestler with great physique.

Adrian was one on his own,

with the feathers and the
flamboyancy and,

the blowing kisses, you know,

it just wound people up.

How
conservative and...

closed off it was
about that time,

he must been...

He must of had
audiences in shock.

To walk out the way he
walked out and,

we're talking way before anything like
this was, you know, lets be honest,

gay rights and all that kind of
stuff hadn't come around

and it was almost all
closed doors,

or laughed at, and then you have
someone like Adrian walking out

in, sequences and the gowns
with makeup and his hair done,

telling everybody that he's the best
thing that they've ever seen and,

basically prancing around,
but the same time clearly a tough guy.

If you watch Adrian walk to the
ring, and in the ring, he owns it.

End of story. And everybody in
that room knows it,

regardless of how they looked at
Adrian and what they thought of him...

he owned it.

It was quite, you know,

very unique and very
brave really,

you know, because it was a risk,
because,

back in that era he could have
done something like that,

and something like that could
have got him black bottled,

because back then we were less
politically correct

and people could have been like, do you know
what, we don't want nothing to do with that.

ADRIAN
STREET: If you wanted to be main event

virtually you had to be
a heavyweight,

or you had to be somebody like George kid who
was the lightweight champion of the world,

and even he wouldn't be main event sometimes if
it was like south of the border from Scotland.

But, I realised then that I was a good
wrestler, I got to be a very good wrestler,

but I was good wrestler in a
land of great wrestlers.

If I wanted to make a mark for myself
I needed to do something different.

And that's when I decided...

who do I admire in
the business...

but Don Leo Jonathan, they wouldn't
let me use that name anymore,

Kid Tarzan Jonathan they wouldn't
let me use that name anymore...

and they start calling me the Nature
Boy, Adrian Street the Nature Boy,

and that was by a
Canadian writer...

that actually knew who Nature Boy Buddy Rogers
was most people in Britain didn't know.

So I wanted to live up to Buddy Rogers
who I thought was absolutely fantastic,

with the fancy robes, the fancy
jackets, the blonde hair.

So I did that because I... I
wanted to make...

I wanted to stand out as
something different.

I met Adrian in 1969, I
think it was in June,

and I was working in an aquarium
store in Croydon in London,

and I thought he looked
a bit strange.

Thing is back then people,

people didn't sort of...

sort of have... sort of,

were outlandish and stuff
like that like him.

It was something that he saw early
on as quite a good selling point.

A niche market.

A lot of promoters
said to me like,

in the beginning when I first
start doing like the glamour stuff

and what have you with
the blond hair,

and fancy robes.

"Ah you don't need to do that,

you know you're a good wrestler,"
and all the rest of it. I was like,

yeah well I'm gonna do
what I want to do.

They thought it was enough just
for me to wrestle,

but you know obviously I wouldn't...
go with that because

I really realised I was getting so much
attention and I'm a sucker for attention.

Instead of like sort of pulling back
a little bit like they suggested...

I went... sort of more
forward I'd start

putting like a little
bit of makeup on.

Sometimes I'd walk to the
ring people would go,

is he wearing makeup?

And then, I start getting a little bit more
daring with a makeup and all the rest of it,

and a lot of wrestlers said like, well why don't
you go the whole hog, why don't you wear lipstick?

World of Sport back then...

in the days of Kent
...Kent Walton,

it was massive. It was as big as the
football on Saturday afternoon TV.

He did have a big
impact on the fans,

the way he was, the way
he dressed and,

you know, the showmanship,
it was fantastic the way he done it.

I've wrestled Adrian many,
many times.

Sometimes he'd beat me, sometimes I'd beat
him. But no, definitely many many times.

First of all what I couldn't
get to grips with it because,

I've got in the ring
as a wrestler

and I found somebody
dancing towards me

blowing kisses with his hands.

And I'm...

It just...

Just amazed. I just couldn't
make... what to think.

I'm wrestling a wrestler and
he's acting feminine.

which he was far from.

I don't think
that anybody at the time,

if they'd went out there and,

the names he was getting called and everything,
I'm sure a lot of guys would have changed

the way they looked and
changed how they acted.

But, he had the guts to say, well
no, sod this I'm gonna use it.

He wants to get reaction,
okay I'm gonna prance around this ring.

Crowd would go crazy, okay
a bit more, do it again.

Then he'll blow a kiss to them,
and just keep going and going and going,

and he's got that
crowd like that.

Don't care where they are,

whether it's in Britain, whether it's
in America, he's got them like that.

And the thing is, I was used to
ridicule from the from the coal miners

and later on the bodybuilders
and everything like that,

when I was bodybuilder, ah like
they're all puffs.

Instead of getting upset about it, I'd say,
well not all of us dear, just some of us.

I think there's some of them
that are quite butch.

And I turned it back on them.

I'd even walk into the showers
and everything like that,

and instead of walking in like sort of manly like,
I'd put the towel right up around my chest,

as if I was like hiding my bust but
everything else would be showing,

which I was very proud of.

But I walk in the... into the shower
room look at the rest of the wrestlers,

I'd go, oh smokers board!

I'd have the showers for myself.

I would clear that damn shower
like nobody's business.

♪ I'll kiss you, or
I'll kick you ♪

♪ that's what I like the best ♪

♪ I'm as tough as Mossy Annum,
and as sexy as May West ♪

♪ As cute as Shirley Temple, as
fast as Bruce Lee ♪

♪ I could kill a man,
event-u-ally ♪♪

You know, he was basically
setting off a firework,

in a time when it was
all darkness.

I think
what he did do,

was make it acceptable or for a man to
dress like that in the wrestling ring.

Becuase the thing about Adrian
Street was everybody knew,

legitimately he was
tough as nails.

So if he could get away with... if he... was
willing to put himself in that position,

dressed like that and
playing that act,

then anyone could do it.

Aren't I simply gorgeous!

We used to go to the matches with
him sometimes, usually on school holidays and stuff.

And they used to stick us up in the bleechers
somewhere with an ice cream and Keira Orange.

And...

You'd sit there and
watch the matches,

and...

he'd end up getting the
crowd so riled up,

you know, when people talk about, you know,
the violence in the ring and everything,

the real violence was kind of outside of the ring.
And you just sit there watching and you think

how the hell is he gonna get
out of that ring.

And everyone in the place
was going mental.

It's like, there's no way you're gonna
get out of there, you know what I mean.

So that was always strange.
Kind of got used to that kind of tenson,

you know what I mean going to those matches. But
that was one of the things that sticks in my mind,

how kind of, how insane a lot
of the crowd were.

Back then you would have had the
grandmothers in the front row,

waving their handbags around and clonking the
wrestlers in the head if they came too close.

I didn't care at
all, you know, if people sort of...

people attacked me vocally.

It's was when they start
sticking hat pins and

try to stub cigarettes
out on you and,

hit you with walking sticks.

I had this ear split right in half when I
was wrestling but it wasn't from wrestling.

There was this guy who jumped
up on the... up on the apron,

and hit me with a heavy walking
stick and cut my ear right in half.

In actual fact, I put my hand up to my ear
there was pieces of it stuck to my face.

Blood everywhere.

As far as I was, concerned they're entitled to say
what they like I had their money in my pocket.

But when they started getting physical,
then I started getting physical back,

and there's one thing I
was very good at,

was

don't be cheeky.

They didn't realise
that I'd practice

drawing little
circles on a wall,

and hitting it with my finger.

And I've heard people saying, he
never touched you,

when somebody's screaming and
holding their... face,

but I would get my fingers out
far into their eyeball.

Don't be cheeky.

I was...

a little bit scared

of Adrian Street

and his flamboyancy, but I was
fascinated by it,

because he was so committed to what he was doing
he did not come across to me as an actor.

He came across as a
legitimately weird dude,

and...

and you combine that with the
legendary stories,

you know of,

what we in... the wrestling
business referred to as badassery,

and it really made for this
compelling character.

♪ Riots in the street ♪♪

He didn't wait for the promoter
to put him at the head of the card.

He was doing that himself.

He was making himself noticed,

before people knew how to do
this kind of stuff.

Haystacks, they had their gimmick,
they walked in, they were big guys.

They didn't need the PR.

So they never thought about it,
where,

he was thinking about it.

I want to be noticed what can
I do to be noticed.

If wrestlers could do what he was doing,
today we are different, we've got backing,

we've got people we know we can look
back and see how other things worked.

He didn't. He invented all that.

He was the one that created a way of doing
that. He created PR for wrestlers on himself.

So guys now like me will
look at him and go,

right how can I... stand out.
How can I be different.

He was able to do it,
how can I do it?

He could teach so much to people in
this business about that, you know,

you could literally, I'd love to sit
there and pick his brain all day about it.

How... how did you realise to do this
kind of stuff, before it was even a thing.

What stands out from me with Adrian
Street was the kind of flamboyancy really.

It was that homoerotic vision.
You weren't sure what his sexuality was.

And this just,
amazing character.

Blond, long haired, flowing
locks, he's coming into the ring,

and... and that edge
of violence.

You know as a child you didn't know
quite what to make of it, you know.

Was he a nice man, was he...
was he a nasty man,

And...

doing those impressions of Adrian to my
Grandmother and my Mother in the living room

tweaking the titties with the
arms moving, you know,

that was what made people laugh,
you know,

and as a child emulating that and
to wanting to be like Adrian Street.

Adrian Street find himself
once again in an unnatural position.

I was disgusted.

I warn you her Majesty
was not amused.

The crowd would go like, ooo Mary, like, you
know, oh isn't she cute, oh give us a kiss.

Who'd want to kiss you. I like my men
more manly, you're too effeminate for me.

And the same thing to
my opponent.

When I walked into ring the first
time my opponent give it this,

like to get like a cheers
from the crowd.

He was sorry he did that because
I rushed over and give him a kiss.

Everything he did was just fun you
know, because the people didn't like it,

and it was just fun to watch.

It wasn't just the other wrestlers that he
played up, he played the referees as well.

And, be honest it was all
extremely good banter,

And it was very
entertaining even for us.

The reaction he got,

you could hear the crowd
shouting out, you know,

"Get your hair cut you puff!"

You know, all of these
kind of things.

Totally non PC now,

nobody would dare do that.

But he,

he just oozed this persona that
he created for himself

and he drew that

reaction from everyone that
ever saw him I think.

He knew how to
wind the crowd up.

You know, from the second
he walked out,

to the second he left.

You know, he just wind
the crowd up.

He did his job

and he used what he had and how
the crowd were against him

to play the character well.

What used to really
annoy me I think,

later on, is because your dad was on
telly everyone thought we were rich.

And we weren't, you know.

We just live around the corner just
like everybody else, that was it.

You know, I don't... I think people definitely
overestimated how much money these guys used to make.

You know, they didn't realise that
they wrestled everyday you know,

just because they saw him on TV they thought
they probably, you know, made a million a fight,

you know, like boxers, yeah... boxers, they
kind of like make millions for a fight.

I think they kind of had that idea
that wrestlers were sort of the same,

and it was like,

you know, what are you going
to our school for?

It's like, well I live around the corner.
What do you mean you mean?

You know, you didn't really, you
know, didn't really get it.

But...

that was kind of a bit
weird becuase

kids thought you were sort of different
and you just kind of weren't, you know,

it's just,

your dad did, you know, earned a
living in his underpants and

other kids dad's didn't, that I
know about anyway.

He, he came to be the glam rock
star of wrestling throughout the whole of Europe.

Adrian should definitely be credited
more as a pop culture icon than just a wrestler.

Was he the start of glam rock.

Look at that character,
look at time period,

who come first, glam
rock or Adrian.

He was doing something...

like that well before your David
Bowie, you know, Elton John and,

many other things that are
still around now,

could be credited to Adrian,
but...

as far as most people see it,
Adrian was a wrestler.

Maybe there's a huge ammount of people
who don't even know who Adrian Street is,

Especially in Wales,

which is quite a sad
thing really,

seeing the impact he probably had on
the entertainment industry as a whole.

He was wearing makeup before,

he was sort of doing glam rock
before glam rock happened I think.

I'm not exactly sure what the
roots of glam rock was musically,

it was like, sort of, hyped up
fifties rock and roll really.

But, it's funny because a lot of
people used to think that...

my Dad was the lead
singer of The Sweet.

So I should imagine that Brian Connolly
probably got asked a lot if he wrestled.

I don't know, I don't know how much
notice, you know, sort of rock and roll

was taking of wrestling in particular. But,
apparently, yeah, think Marc Bolan was in a

radio interview and he said something along
those lines about he got a lot of his...

make up tips from... from Pater.

You know we got
to be fans of each other.

I liked T-Rex and and Marc Bolan really liked
me and emulated a lot of the stuff that I did.

Where do you think David Bowie
got the idea for Ziggy Stardust?

The lightning down his face was
exactly the kind of makeup that I wore.

You can look at old photographs
of him on the stage

and you can even see a photograph of him
wearing tights and red wrestling boots.

Come on you know, I
can't get any,

any more than that.

Now... in "Granny Takes a Trip",
I designed myself

a suit, a black velvet.

And I had birds-of-paradise down the sleeves
and down the outside legs of the trousers,

made out of sequins and rhinestones
and all that kind of stuff.

The guy in the store said, "My god" he
said "we had Elton John in here," he said,

"when he saw that suit he
wanted to buy it."

And he said, "I said to Elton
John, do you know who's that is?"

Elton John said, "Okay forget it,
he said but make me one like it."

Now he had one made
very similar,

but instead of
birds-of-paradise,

he had like musical notes which
was more appropriate to,

to what he actually did.

And, that was the way, you know a lot of
people say, a lot of people have said,

since I've been living in the States,
did I invent British glam rock.

And my response to that was,

no I didn't invent it,

but we sure borrowed a lot
from each other.

I always remember him singing
his entrance music

as he walked to the ring.

That for me I always just
thought that was so cool,

I thought how cocky is that,
that you walk into the ring

and you're singing to the camera

the own words of your lyrics
that you're singing anyway.

I thought, you know, I thought
that was incredible.

The first time I ever thought
I'd like to do any music

they had all the big-name
wrestlers, myself included,

sing a song, called, it was Tiny Tim's
song like "Tiptoe Through the Tulips",

and on the other side

when we all go in the ring to the tune
of like "When The Saints Go Marching In".

And they had all the big-name
wrestlers doing it

on a, I think it was
on a Pi label.

And...

I thought to myself then I'd
like to do this on my own.

I think it just
shows Adrian's initiative.

He would have realised that he needed
those things to make him stand out

in an age where music and
wrestling weren't quite paired.

I don't think they really were
paired until the mid-1980s

when Wrestlemania came along and it
became the rock and wrestling movement

with people like Cyndi Lauper, Liberace and
so on, appearing in those wrestling spheres.

The records he made later on
in the 80's are...

are pretty funny though.

My particular favorite
I think is...

There's something very strange about a cowboy,
that makes me wonder how the West was won.

There's something very strange about a
cowboy, something I can't put my finger on.

Although you've got to see the video really for
that one really make sense. It's kind of like...

Benny Hill meets For A
Few Dollars More.

♪ The Deputy would stroll
round the dance hall ♪

♪ when he had an hour to spend ♪

♪ The dancing girls would
never ever worry ♪

♪ 'cuz they knew he had his own
four-legged friend ♪

♪ There's something very strange about a cowboy,
which makes me wonder how the West was won ♪

♪ There's something very
strange about a cowboy ♪

♪ something I can't put
my finger on ♪

♪ Something I can't put
my finger on ♪

♪ Somthing I can't put
my finger on ♪

♪ Bang bang ♪♪

In about 1980, I knew who he was before
then from his films and stuff, you know,

and saw him on the television
with his wrestling attributes.

And I wrote a song... I used to write
songs and send them out to various studios

to try and get them
off the ground

because I had a recording studio and a
publishing company company at the time.

And one of the songs went to a
place in Chester,

a studio in Chester,

and they rang me up,

and they said,

We've got Adrian Street the wrestler in he wants
to make a record and he likes one of your songs.

Which was called a "Mighty Big
Girl", that was the name of the song,

which was,

it was about a chap goes to a discotheque
and meets this girl and dances with him,

she throws him all over the place,
and he thought it suited his style.

So I'm listening to it and changing
the words myself as I'm going along,

to sort of give it
more wrestling...

lyrics more like...

more wrestling content.

And that's how we came
up with that.

I said I'd like to meet a
guy that wrote this,

like between us,

you know, we can sort of kick this
around maybe that can be like a track.

So I went round to the studio,
to see him, to meet him,

and it was great we hit it off straight away,
same sense of humor I met lovely Linda,

she was with him,

and I just suggested that I had another
song, we'd have a b-side to this,

and I'd written a song called,
I'm "Only Happy When I'm Stoned",

So he said, "Well I'm only happy breaking bones."
I said exactly. I said that's exactly it!

♪ I don't know why, but I'm only happy breaking bones ♪♪

The magic moment

was when we did that
actual song,

recorded it,

because I used to play all the
instruments on the record,

get it ready with me
singing on it,

and then just replace my voice
with his, that's how we did it.

And he was in tune which helps,

and I think the magic moment,

I think,

I would say was when
that came out,

got played on the radio,

and the response was incredible,
both ways.

People were deeply offended,

and other people were delighted. It was,
it was in the non PC days, you know,

a lot of his stuff certainly
wouldn't work these days.

But it... think that was it.

I think when I heard the
finished job on

"Breakin' Bones" the one I did
in my studio. It was great.

It's still a good song, still
stands up now, you know.

That I think, that was the magic moment,
and I knew we were going somewhere.

I used to play,

insist on them playing,

"A Mighty Big Girl"

when I went in the ring,

because I'd sell the singles and
everything like that round the arenas.

But to me it just didn't
have enough oomph.

It's okay like I'm only happy breaking
bones and all that kind of stuff,

but I wanted something more...

more volume.

So...

I suggested like, imagine what I could
do to you, like you know what I mean,

something like that.

It needs to be
something like that.

So we wrote, "Imagine What I
Could Do To You"

and on the back of that I wanted a
complete contrast, "I'm In Le With Me."

Imagine what I could do to you,

Bam! That's it.

And when people listen to it they're
waiting for the end, there isn't one.

You know, and it's, I think that was
the one, because when you wath it

and you watch him coming into
the ring to it playing...

it's great. And course

it takes him two minutes to
get into the ring

so it doesn't carry on,
as he gets to the ring the song finishes.

That was the idea, that's why it was
so short. That's why I did it so short.

And...

I think that one, I think
that one really...

will stand out with me.

So here comes this
androgynous character,

coming out to the music that he
is singing himself,

he can tear a telephone
directory in two,

so imagine what I can do to you.

And he blows a kiss to the crowd
and they loose their mind.

And I'm like, I get goose bumps
thinking about it because I had no idea,

I only knew that he was at times
one of the most hated villains

in all of wrestling. I didn't
realise at that time,

that the better you were at being bad
the more loved you would ultimately be.

And they loved Adrian Street.

♪ I can break a door down with
one hand behind my back ♪

♪ I can crush
a grizzly til its bones begin to crack ♪

♪ I eat a dozen t-bones for my
early morning snack ♪

♪ So imagine what I
could do to you? ♪

♪ I can tear a telephone
directory in two ♪

♪ Bending iron bars is something
else that I can do ♪

♪ I always pick my teeth with
the nearest billard cue ♪

♪ So imagine what I
could do to you? ♪♪

He used to get people geed up, I mean
they'd all get excited and stuff like that.

And especially when we were
good guys, I mean,

People used to dance around the
ring with with Adrian.

And you know it was
...it was fun,

you know, people that people,
people used to really enjoy that.

♪ I don't need to search for someone to adore ♪

♪ I've already given
up my heart ♪

♪ And the love I have, is
all accounted for ♪

♪ I've fallen for a
gorgeous work of art ♪

I'm in love with me it's
perfect for him you know,

'cause, you know, because he is
in love with him in theory.

♪ So in love with me ♪

♪ It isn't hard to see ♪

♪ why I'm so in love with me ♪♪

He had a
video made of it.

It must of cost a few bob.

And it's him in the bath
blowing bubbles.

And the video was spectacular.

It... was brilliant the video

and he is in his bed with all
this finery, all these furs.

I'm in love with me.

And the records
playing over this.

And when it went on to MTV...

it was in that state, in
that said state.

How he got it on MTV
I don't know.

They must have seen it on
the TV perhaps

becuase it was
spectacular the video,

it was brilliant,
absolutely brilliant,

and for the time as
well the actual...

style of filming with everything
was moving around,

it was brilliant.

The thing about...

most people's recollection of British
Wrestling is what they saw on World of Sport.

You got to remember this is,
this is like...

primetime afternoon television. Grannies
and children used to watch this show,

So you couldn't afford to have
anybody get too hurt or nosebleeds,

you know, even a nose bleed
would get them taken off the air.

So they had to go easy,

and that's why you've got a
lot of accusations,

people saying, oh well it's false and
it's fake or it's this and it's that.

And it's like, what they saw and
Saturday afternoon

was a watered down version of what,
you know, what you could see if you

actually saw a real live
wrestling match.

A real life wrestling match was a completely
different situation all together.

And like I say, a lot the violence
used to take place outside of the ring.

If you look back the, the heyday of
British wrestling was reallyn the 70s.

And after that I think the public's interest
started to wane, investment was declining,

and ultimately got taken
off TV in the UK.

But in contrast to that

at the same time British wrestling was declining,
the American scene was exploding which ulimately,

you know, the WWF as it was back
then nowadays WWE,

came on the scene and these amazing,
huge, muscular, long-haired, good looking,

bodybuilder types were were coming on the scene
from America with their crazy characters,

and it really put British wrestling
at that time in the shade.

And went from looking at
some guys who,

who didn't look like
stars anymore,

and compared them to the
Americans like,

Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate
Warrior and Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

These guys look like real-life
cartoon characters so...

I think Adrian's decision to
move over to the U.S.,

was a very, very smart because that's where the
wrestling scene was happening in the world.

I was really really proud...

to be a British
professional wrestler

until they made a star

out of Big Daddy...

becuase he couldn't wrestle his
way out of a wet paper bag.

Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy,

it became such a
caricature of itself and,

became so ridiculous...

that it wasn't even... he couldn't even
really call it any kind of a sport,

you know, and the whole thing
started to, you know,

the whole thing deteriorated
from then onwards,

it became so, sort of,
cartoonish

that the game was up anyway, it
was over, you know.

So...

Dad really I think was
the only one that

had the sense to actually sort of try
and take it somewhere else, you know,

where it was still a big deal and it still
on the up and up really, in the early 80s...

and thats exactly what he did, and he gave
himself another 20 odd years doing it.

You know, I mean it's no where
now, I mean, its seems to be,

wrestling seems to be having a
resurgence now in England,

but this is like, you know,
40 years later.

Big Daddy just used to
use his weight

and it was the same
with Haystacks.

But, Adrian he just stood out...

from everybody else...

as the...

well...

the showman really.

♪ The mutilation mambo can do ♪♪

He could jump up in the air he could throw
people, he could land if he was thrown.

Far more classical, far
more entertaining.

People talk
about the WWE Hall of Fame

I always say he
should be in there.

His character has been copied by
the WWE so many times

that's a legacy in itself.

So, you know, I think to me,

when I think of World of Sport

I always think Adrian Street
before I think of anyone else.

I think
Adrian felt...

very limited by the
potential for growth...

as a wrestler in the U.K.

That you were kind of limited to
what World of Sports saw as...

the way that World of Sports
chose to present

professional wrestling and I think in
Adrian's mind if you weren't Big Daddy...

or Giant Haystacks,

that...

your potential was limited.

And I think he saw that in the United
States, you had I think at one time 37

thriving territories and the sky was the limit,
because in the United States if you were willing...

to put in the work and if you
had the commitment to the craft

there was no such thing as too much,
too big, too bold, too colorful.

Bad guys measured their performance by
how often they were attacked by fans.

Like being stabbed was a
badge of honor.

You know, having your tyre
slashed was seen as growth.

And if you were willing to take the blows, and you
were willing to fight your way out of arenas,

which make no mistake about
it he needed to,

especially with that character,

if you could draw money,

then you had places to go.

And I don't think he
felt similarly

about the United Kingdom
wrestling scene.

When all of a sudden instead of being
proud to be a British wrestler...

I was getting embarrassed to be
a professional wrestler

when people actually thought...

that Big Daddy was a wrestler.

I mean he could push him
on his backside,

he'd rock himself to sleep
trying to get up.

So anyway I had enough of that, so I
decided I was going to go to the States.

Well when we
left England in 1981,

we thought it would be a
really good idea

for me to be his valet because,

they didn't particularly want a
girl, another girl wrestler,

and also...

if I did wrestle they'd want me
to go to other different places,

and we wanted to be together
rather than sort of...

me go one place and
him go another.

So we decided that I'd be his
valet and work with him,

which turned out to
be really good

because we've been all over
the place together,

and that's how we wanted to,
wanted to be.

Since I've been in the States
I've had lots and lots of titles.

The American Junior
Heavyweight title.

The American heavyweight title.

I took the TV title off Terry Taylor
on television with that big kiss.

And I took off...

Austin Idol's title, I took from
from him in Birmingham Alabama.

And I've upset the wrestling
world apparently because

when I took the Southeastern title off Austin
Idol I painted it pink to match one of my gowns,

and it really caused a ruckus.

♪ I'm king and queen of
the U.S.A. ♪♪

All of a sudden it was the
same thing again.

I started getting the same calls
I had from the coal miners,

and from wrestlers when I first started, your
too small you can't be a professional wrestler.

That's where I heard in
the beginning.

Now it is...

You cant wrestle in the States.

thats the land of giants.

They're Giants over there,
you're too small to wrestle in the States.

But like I say I've never listened to people I've
always, I've always gone on my own judgment,

Listened to my own self.

So I came to the States and
they were right,

they were great big
guys out here.

So I'd be wrestling with a guy
one night and he come up to me,

the guy be like...

12 inches taller than me,

and like doubled my body weight

and he looked down at me
and say like...

"Hey...

We're wrestling each
other tonight."

Yeah thats right.

"Hey how can a big guy like me you
lose to a little guy like you?"

Don't worry about it when we
get in the ring I'll show you.

And that was my answer to them.

♪ I'm the Merchant of Menace,
purveyor of pain ♪

♪ No quality or mercy is the
name of my game ♪

♪ I get my pound of flesh, with
every strangle hold ♪

♪ With me all that glitters,
is definitely gold ♪

He was able to be around people
like Dusty Rhodes, Randy Savage.

He got the business,

got into the business

at that point of a time where...

just before this,

this boom was about to happen,

and he fitted right into it.

He could have fitted
into the later on.

He could of gone over there...

now and still made an impact.

Adrian was someone
who dedicated himself to his character.

Obviously characters were quite a big
basis of the wrestling in the 1980's,

But Adrian coming along...

just sightly before that

almost preceded them really.

You could see there's quite a
lot of inspiration taken...

in these big named wrestlers
of the eighties.

I will never forget
the first time I saw Adrian...

come to the ring when I was...

brand new in
Continental Wrestling.

I'd been in the wrestling
business about four years,

I was a New York guy,

who was not treated particularly well when
I went to my first territoryn Tennessee.

Partially because I was
from the north,

and there was a
little bit of that,

felt there was a
little bit of a,

a bias...

reigonally.

But the deep southern part of
the United States has some,

has reputations, not
altogether undeserved

and it was like Adrian took

what you would think the southern part
of the United States would be like,

in terms of their...

level of tolerance,

and turned it upside down.

In professional wrestling it's
great to be one of two things.

You can either be really loved, or really hated,
and anything in the middle is not very good.

So the fact that he had this
outragous character,

which to a bunch of southern Americans, in
that period, would have been highly offensive,

would absolutely have done wonders
for his wrestling career out there.

I think we've
inspired an awful lot of wrestlers,

from the time we started wearing
fancy, fancy clothes,

because...

at one time, I mean, we were about the only
ones that were wearing really fancy gear,

and everybody else was wearing
just more or less plain stuff.

Nothing, nothing like what
we were wearing.

They all wear the...

pretty colors and the ones with
the rips in and tassels and

whereas...

in my time,

there were only Adrian done it.

We bought a
sewing machine for Linda,

and whenever we go to a new town we look for
fabric stores and we'd find different fabrics

and even if we could
only find remnants

of any like bright color spandex
and things like that,

I'd say like well I'm
having the cont...

you know, I'm going to have a like
a pair of tights made of this,

and I was actually
cutting stuff out,

and Linda was putting them
together and everything,

while we were traveling on road
like from one town to the next.

It looked a bit rough at
the time you know

becuase it wasn't, it wasn't
professionally done

and I wasn't exactly doing stuff
as professionally as I do now.

But it looked good anyway

and we, we'd have different costumes
for different shows we go to,

and as we, as we sort of
progressed with that

we just get a bit more
odder and odder.

We'd, really we'd... make
costumes to match each other.

So we're always wearing sort of

new gear stuff that people have
never seen before,

and doing the same thing with the gowns
and costumes and all that kind of stuff.

But...

eventually, I mean, other wrestlers
start asking if we'd make stuff for them,

and initially I wouldn't because
they didn't want rivals...

you know, I mean, I wouldn't wear, I
wouldn't make shabby stuff for somebody else

but we wouldn't make anything
for anybody else initially.

But anyway

like eventually...

Linda would make a plain pair of
trunks and things like that

for some of the other wrestlers
that we particularly,

that we particularly liked.

And...

eventually we found it was
becoming a lucrative business

and what have you.

We had a...

a stripy costume
actually that was

my absolute favorite one.

I don't know... really, it was
it was just colorful,

and it just looked nice.

It was all different
set of stripes,

and I think that was one
of my favorites.

It always struck me as
strange that Adrian could be so beloved

in the deep southern part of
the United States...

because...

on the surface the people
there might seem

less than accepting of that
androgynous character.

But Adrian...

he was like part of the fabric
people they loved him.

He'd been there so long, had been so good
at being bad that he'd become embraced.

But on one particular evening a
guy was in the ring,

he mentioned, he didn't even
seem to be out of hand,

mentioned something about

Alabama rednecks,

and the next thing I know

the ring filled up with fans.

Really angry fans.

Adrian was the second person
to hit the ring.

First person, was Miss Linda.

I'll never forget it.

It was like not even a
moment's hesitation,

they're good guys,

babyfaces...

actively helping the heals,

but you know what we
refer to as kayfabe

that flies out the window and
one of our own is under attack.

Never seen, you know,
a guy his age,

move so quickly, or a woman of
Miss Linda's age...

move even quicker.

Like they were all about,
you know,

all about helping out the boys.

You know, the thing is,

all the decisions I've made in
my life have been for myself.

I've always gone
against the grain,

not because I want to,

it's because everybody tells me I
can't do what I say I'm gonna do.

I'll be the first to admit I've
made some awful mistakes in my life,

but you learn from mistakes,

and I console myself,

with the fact

that...

some of the worst mistakes I
ever made in my life

might have been the best choices
I had at the time.

So I can live with it so why
can't everybody else.

For a guy to have lasted as long as
he had and to keep an audience engaged with him,

he had to keep
changing things up,

making things different,

and made people want to see
what he will do next.

And I think the fact
that he was...

not only willing but able to do
that to such a high degree,

has enabled him to have such
an amazing career.

There's a gentleman by the
name of Dalton Castle

who is wrestling

I believe, in Japan and
in Ring of Honor,

which is one of
America's biggest,

biggest wrestling companies
outside of the WWE.

And Dalton is... a
man who wrestles

with pretty much that same
sort of flamboyance.

You can see the inspiration
has been taken,

whether it's... from Adrian, whether it's
from those who have been inspired by Adrian.

The cape...

The spinning around,
the pirouetting.

Doing things which are likely
to rile up fans...

slightly hinting at that
homogeneous sort of feel which

obviously might rub quite a lot of
fans in wrestling the wrong way.

Many people will imitate him from now and I
think for many years to come will try and imitate him.

Maybe you can take a bit of that flamboyancy, I'll
borrow this, I'll take a bit of that from this guy.

It's just how wrestling is.

Everything's evolves but you will
always refer back to it's original.

Adrian was that original. You,
you can't...

be that person and no one else
could be that person,

and it's just not
going to happen.

But he has so much respect in
the business anyway...

and he is kind of like...

in a way of benchmark so
people can look at.

Loads of people try to copy
what he's done,

and it's never been as good.

You know, and... that's, that's a character
that's lived on for 40 years so...

Yeah, no totally, I think he's one of the
greatest of all time to come out of UK.

Dear Adrian, I recently saw
Austin Idol on TV

and he seemed to be trying
to impersonate you.

Well, Austin Idol may have
had a lot of fun

trying to impersonate
my mannerisms.

But if you ever step in the ring
with me Austin Idol,

you'd better try to impersonate
some of my wrestling skills.

Well, Adrian you've
wrestled Austin Idol,

how do I rate him.

How do I rate him. Well he's certainly
capable of talking me to death.

But when he stepped in
the ring with me,

he found he was not the man
he thought he was.

Adrian's impact on
American wrestling has been immense.

Had he been four or five
inches taller...

he would have been a
huge star in WWE.

An international superstar.

I think his size
worked against him.

And so we took things from him.

You know, we took
that flamboyancy.

We, we took the walk, you know,
we took some of the maneuvers.

We took the whole idea that somebody could
sing their own entrance music, you know,

or write a novel.

He's a pioneer and we
we kind of took

those things that worked for him and you
can see it to this day and we took the

idea I think that you could be an
androgynous performer and be embraced by

everywhere you went. You know I
remember saying out loud at a certain

point when WWE had a couple of
androgynous performers and it came time

to pull the trigger on it and we didn't
do it, and the idea that I heard was,

our fans would never accept gay characters and
I was like they never saw a Adrian Street

in the deep south this is the deep
southern part of the United States.

Still kind of backwards in certain ways
and they loved him because he was so

well respected and because the
commitment to the craft was there

and people accept quality. It may take
them a while to come around to it.

But the same things that made Adrian
so reprehensible to certain audiences

made him so endearing once
they got to know him.

In my opinion we were set apart from every

all the other wrestlers because we were
doing something completely different

than anybody else was doing.
I mean I was, I was his valet in the ring.

He was, he was the macho,
you could say,

transvestite, macho type image,
sort of person.

And, there was nobody, nobody else that
would do that... sort of stuff at the time.

Adrian's little pet
who has so graciously served this...

this, whatever, for six years is usually
quiet and reserved, stays in her place,

until she lets herself
go in the ring.

It really got over with the fans and stuff.
I mean they used to hate us.

I mean they would hate him more
than they hate me really because...

he's be the sort of person that
would put me down all the time.

He would even get me to go down
on all fours outside the ring

and he'd step on my back and
get up into the ring.

I mean that's absolutely blew the
people's minds, they couldn't believe

that I would actually do that and he would
actually do that to get into the ring

I mean it really got over like anything, they
hated him, they absolutely hated him like mad.

You know, I mean, I thought it was
really funny because, you know,

the reaction from me from the
audience really, yeah really got me

it made me laugh.

I just I had no idea I
would connect with with him so quickly

and find you know in some ways like a kindred
spirit like I don't think I ever accepted that...

we could be artists, that
wrestling was a performing art.

It was always the argument is it
a sport is it not.

And it's like, you know what,
it can be anything you want it to be.

And there are some alpha
male personalities,

and there are some dreamers and
there are artists.

And I think I bonded with Adrian
because he was an artist.

And he was so committed to what he did
and he didn't... have to live by labels.

You didn't have to be
tough guy as...

we and the United States grew up
believing that tough guys should be.

You know, the John Wayne mystique, you know, you
find your toughness in really strange places.

And, it showed me there's
room for everybody.

So I don't know if I would have dared journey
out and tried so many different things,

you know, whether it be writing
or whether it be...

or whether it just be
something just

completely off-center, you know,
as far as something I wanted to try.

And they didn't always work what
I was always trying

and I think being exposed to
Adrian and Miss Linda

and riding in the car and
listening to Adrian's psychology

about professional wrestling and
the psychology the bad guy which was

completely at odds with what the Southern
perspective was, cheat always cheat,

almost like the wrestlers credo, win if I
can and lose if I must, but always cheat.

Like, you had to cheat to be bad and
Adrian would sit me down in te car

over the course of 300, 400 mile drives and
explain to me why that was not necessarily so.

That there wasn't one way, you know, that it
didn't matter how you got to the finish line,

just as long as you got there.

Oh Adrian is a one-off. Definitely. Adrian was a
one-off, and there will never be another Adrian.

Don't matter how many people try to
impersonate him, there's only one Adrian.

I could maybe shed a tear and I
was just a thought of a lifetime of

growing up with somebody that is unique,
somebody that's been reluctantly admired

to think that what he has achieved, but
he is still my Brother he is my Brother.

And that tender part of him is,
well he's my heart, I love him so much.

I've got a colliflower ear here,

I didn't get on a beauty salon.

I can get my fingers
between my ribs.

I've had my knee cap, my knee, at the
bottom of my knee cap ended up there.

I've had my Achilles tendon ripped in half,
I've been told by doctors and surgeons...

more times than I care to remember, your
career is over, you can't wrestle again

that injury is too bad.

But the thing is nobody is going
to rain on my parade.

Nobody's gonna spoil my dream.

My dream was to be the best professional
wrestler that I could possibly be,

and believe me I was.

Imitation is supposed
to be the best form of flattery.

They look like two little ducks
trying to imitate a swan.

They may be pretty but I am
beautiful, I mean beautiful.