Rod Taylor, "Body Beautiful"

An undeniable aspect of Rod Taylor's popularity rides on his broad shoulders. Square-jawed, muscle-bound and hairy-chested, Rod certainly has had his share of pinup-worthy scenes.

This appeal was noticed early. A reviewer of the1956 time-travel flick, "World Without End," noted that it contains the "best bit of beefcake in the entire genre." The images below come from a scene, during which a co-star remarks: "Body Beautiful here could run for president without his shirt and get elected."

So where did all those muscles come from? A variety of physical rigors, it seems, including lifeguarding, push-ups, weights and hard labor. Not to mention tennis, fishing and archery (click on images below):

As a teenager, Taylor was an amateur middleweight boxer and captain of a surf club. He once described himself as a withdrawn, spindly child who was picked on by other kids. "I got into amateur boxing in high school and it was strictly a defensive measure," Taylor said. "I used to get beat up pretty good."

In 1960, the pressbook for "The Time Machine" described Rod as a 5-foot-11, 175-pounder who had spent three years as a lifeguard on Australian beaches. Indeed, in a 1967 interview, Taylor said he had joined the Mona Vale Surf Lifesaving Club when he was16 and was made captain of a surfboat crew at 17.

In 1968, the pressbook for "The Hell With Heroes" noted that Rod did 500 push-ups a day, in bursts of 100 at a time. The results? Click the images below to see for yourself:

Marco Lopez, Rod's personal assistant, stand-in and friend during the 1960s described further physical fitness activities while they were in France for the making of "The Liquidator":

To keep ourselves trim, we would without fail, each evening after work, go to the hotel and jump into our tracksuits and have a workout with a pair of dumbbells and a barbell and then a medicine ball. Every now and then we'd take a five-mile run.

-- Rod-Lore fan club newsletter, October 1965