The Curious Story of Greek Strongman Gust Lessis

Greek strongman Gust Lessis first found fame after moving to the US in 1919. There, he performed feats of incredible strength before audiences at Brighton Beach and was soon discovered by two New York photographers. Unfortunately, Lessis met a sad end.

Lessis’ fame and popularity grew from then on, and even prompted then ultra-famous strongman Sandow the Magnificent to tell a group of reporters that the young Greek will “surpass others in his strength when he reaches the age of thirty,” as per “The Courier-News” of Bridgewater on April 29, 1926.

Lessis, the Greek strongman’s rise in fame

The Greek strongman astonished Americans in the early 1900s right through World War II, and via surviving photographs and newsreels of the 1920s and 1930s, he even sparked a new generation of admirers.

Most sources point to Lessis as having been born in Livadia, Greece sometime around 1891 to William Lessis and Panagian Lessis. The young strongman arrived in the US around the year 1919 and moved in with his two uncles then living in Omaha, Nebraska.

Not long after this, Lessis started working in the Pittsburgh Bethlehem Steel Works while trying to establish himself as a professional strongman but breaking into the realm of public life proved a difficult feat. He was eventually discovered at Brighton Beach by Jack Sussman and Bill McGrath, two New York photographers who pictured Lessis easily wrapping a one-inch bar around his wrist. “The sensational new strongman, whose feats have astounded all who have seen him, is but 22 years old and weighs only 185 pounds,” read a “New-York Tribune” article in 1922.

Lessis gains the attention of the media

This performance, which caught the attention of the media, firmly established the young Greek’s future career as a strongman.

“On a recent afternoon in a quiet corner of Brighton Beach Park, he held a one-ton boulder on his chest while a workman pounded it to pieces with a giant sledgehammer. Lessis supported himself on the ground with his hands and feet (like a table) as ten workmen put the stone on him. He didn’t quiver as the huge hammer pounded with terrific blows, sending sparks and fragments into his face and eyes. It took nearly ten minutes to shatter the stone, but Lessis stood under the terrific weight without a sign of exhaustion. Furthermore, there was nothing between Lessis’ skin, which is unnaturally tough, and the sharp, jagged rock,” reported “The Evening World” of New York in September 1922.

From that moment on, and once Lessis had been dubbed the “Human Anvil,” photographs of the breaking of large pavement stones across his chest, along with other feats of strength, began appearing on front pages and in the entertainment sections of newspapers all across the nation.

The young Greek’s abilities can be viewed by searching for YouTube footage titled “Strongmen, costauds, fakirs 1922-1931.”

Lessis’ breakthrough

However, things didn’t really pick up until “after weeks during which he almost starved, Gust attracted the attention of theatrical promoters. At one time he was giving exhibitions in Greek restaurants in New York. He further demonstrated his strength by lifting an office safe bodily from the floor. In the end, he signed a vaudeville contract to appear for $600 a week,” reported the Pittsburgh “Daily Post” on July 18, 1923.

Following his breakthrough performance at Brighton Beach, Lessis started to exhibit his feats of strength in theaters, circuses, and other public venues.

What is less clear about Lessis at this time is his apparent attempts to also establish himself as both a professional wrestler and boxer. In his theater shows, he was celebrated for his ability to “break a railroad spike with his teeth.”

Another demonstration of Greek Lessis’ great power was his ability to stretch a rubber spring to 1,200 pounds. Another was his placement of a several-feet-long, inch-and-a-half iron bar in his mouth while three individuals on each side bent the bar as he stood on a rock.

The October 1923 issue of “Popular Science Monthly” shows a photo of Lessis bending and breaking a thick iron spike with his teeth, with the spike embedded eight inches into a wooden beam.

At his many performances, Greek strongman Lessis would offer $5,000 to anyone who was able to duplicate his feats of strength, but according to public records, nobody ever did. he toured the country “winning many medals for his wonderful feats of strength,” according to “Central New Jersey Home News.”

The Greek strongman’s personal life

In 1921, Lessis met and fell in love with an 18-year-old American woman from Rawlings, Wyoming. Most news accounts cite this young lady’s name as Lola, and some other sources state her surname was Gottschalk.

In 1922, when the newlywed couple arrived in New York City, “the strong man saw that his wife could not resist the lure of the bright lights. He liked the simple life; she wanted always to be ‘on the go,’ it is said. He wanted children; she disliked them. At length Lessis saw that, although he loved Lola, they could never get along together,” reported the “Pittsburgh Daily Post” on July 18, 1923.

Sadly, by 1923, the same newspaper reported that Lessis had “filed suit for divorce. Lola, his wife, hasn’t been true to him…Lola won’t stay at home, it is said. She left him four times, but always came back. He was glad to see her and always made her welcome, no matter how long she had been away. Even now that his suit is filed Lessis says maybe he’ll give her another chance—if she will promise to be good and stay with him. But he fears it wouldn’t do much good.” The couple was officially divorced in 1923.

Although his love life suffered, the Greek strongman’s professional life continued to flourish. For the next ten years, Lessis made his way back and forth across performance types. As a wrestler, boxer, and circus strongman, Lessis’ fame grew and grew. Even today, websites devoted to wrestling and bodybuilding have rediscovered Lessis.

The murder of Greek strongman Gust Lessis

A newspaper clipping from “The Tampa Times” on May 7, 1932 discusses how, within a few hours after the Pinellas County grand jury’s indictment of Tom Kappas, a Tampa musician, for first-degree murder in the death of Gust Lessis, a man by the name of Tony Kappas was arrested at Pensacola and held as the “slayer of Lessis.”

“The man arrested at Pensacola denied any connection with the crime, however,” it was reported. “Officers there said he answered the description of the man wanted and also said he lived at Tarpon Springs (where Lessis lived at this point) and knew Tom Kappas.”