DAVIS, John Henry

(b. 12 January 1921 in Smithtown, New York; d. 13 July 1984 in Albuquerque, New Mexico), amateur weight lifter who, as an Olympic and world champion, was the world's premier heavyweight lifter from 1940 to 1953.

Davis, named after the legendary African-American strong-man John Henry, was brought up by his mother, Margaret Campbell Davis, and attended but did not graduate from public schools in Brooklyn, New York. He never knew his father, also named John Davis. An all-around athlete, he was especially proficient in handball and gymnastics (rings and horizontal bar) and once did a standing broad jump of nearly eleven feet. He started weight lifting in 1937 with a barbell owned by a friend and entered his first contest that November at the French Sporting Club in New York City. As a light heavyweight he displayed remarkable natural ability by pressing 220 pounds, snatching 215 pounds, and cleaning and jerking 260 pounds.

Endowed with great pulling strength, Davis quickly reached the heights of national and international competition. In 1938, at age seventeen, he captured the junior national title, took second at the senior nationals, and won the world championships in Vienna, Austria, with a world-record press of 258.5 pounds, a snatch of 264 pounds, and a clean and jerk of 330 pounds. Davis earned two more national titles as a light heavyweight, then took the heavyweight crown in the next three years. At the 1941 senior national championships he became the first man in history to exceed a 1,000-pound total with a 320-pound press, a 315-pound snatch, and a 370-pound clean and jerk. Although his lifting career was interrupted by military service in World War II (during which he saw a tour of duty in the South Pacific with the 717th Medical Sanitary Company) and a bout of hemolytic jaundice, Davis returned to win five more world championships and Olympic gold medals in 1948 (London) and 1952 (Helsinki). In 1951, at the first Pan-American Games in Buenos Aires, he made his best lifts with a 336.25-pound press, a 330.5-pound snatch, and a 396.75-pound clean and jerk for a world-record 1,063.5-pound total. He was the brightest star and most consistent performer of the U.S. international teams during the "golden age" of U.S. weight lifting in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

What was most intriguing to contemporaries was Davis's execution of magnificent feats of strength seemingly without effort and, at least until his later years, with much in reserve. Usually he lifted only enough to win and never tested his limits. Nevertheless he set nineteen world records in all four lifting categories at various times and became the first amateur to clean and jerk more than 400 pounds. Davis also lifted 500 pounds in the squat for ten repetitions and performed a 705-pound dead lift at a body weight of 193 pounds. Weighing even less, he bench pressed 310 pounds, one-hand snatched 215 pounds, and one-arm curled 103 pounds. Despite his small hand size, Davis possessed phenomenal gripping strength. In what was probably the greatest challenge of his career, he lifted the famous Apollon railway wheels in Paris, France, overhead in 1949. Although they weighed just 366 pounds, the wheels were mounted on a nonrevolving axle that was 1.93 inches in diameter. Because the axle was too wide to pull with a knuckles-forward grip, Davis had to use a reverse (dead lift) grip to get the weight off the floor and flip one hand in flight. After failing eight times, he became only the third man to master this challenge.

Coinciding with his great strength, Davis had one of the finest physiques of his era. At the 1942 Mr. America contest his weight-lifting coach thought his musculature was "as good as that of the winners," but Davis vowed never to enter such a contest because he believed "a Negro cannot win." Still, in 1941 he was the first African American to appear on the cover of a major bodybuilding magazine and, through the worldwide visibility he gained as a lifter, Davis did much to pave the way for other African Americans in the sport.

Davis possessed a deep, powerful baritone-bass voice and was especially fond of opera. He always brought sheet music on international trips and sang operatic duets with his teammate Pete George, a tenor-baritone, in their room. At the 1953 world championships in Stockholm, Sweden, a local reporter was so impressed with the quality of their singing that he secured a week's engagement for them at the China International Variety Theater. They received good reviews and the Swedish subsidiary of RCA recorded their performance. Davis also sang on the soundtrack for The Strongest Man in the World (1953), a film about his lifting career that was produced by Bud Greenspan. A chronic case of hiccups prevented him from pursuing an operatic career.

Modest, pleasant, and relaxed, Davis could be seen chewing gum as he prepared to lift record weights. His 1946 marriage to Louise Morton was childless and eventually resulted in separation and divorce. The real love of his life was Alyce Stagg Yarick, an early female weight lifter and the wife of a prominent gym operator in Oakland, California, with whom he had a son in 1954. They never married, but Davis bequeathed all his worldly possessions to her.

For twenty-five years Davis worked as a prison guard for the New York City Department of Corrections, including an assignment on Riker's Island, until his retirement in 1979. He moved first to Modesto, California, where he lived briefly, then to Albuquerque. A heavy smoker in later years, he developed lung cancer, which eventually spread to his entire body. He died at age sixty-three at the Saint Francis Gardens Nursing Home in Albuquerque and is buried in the Santa Fe National Cemetery in New Mexico.

For most of his lifting career Davis was regarded as invincible. He remained undefeated for fifteen of his nineteen competitive years. He was the first African American to win an Olympic weight-lifting title and the only one to become both an Olympic and world champion. By Hoffman formula body weight calculations, he often was rated as the world's best lifter. Davis became a member of both the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and the Weightlifting Hall of Fame.

The most extensive coverage of Davis's personal life and lifting career is available in Osmo Kiiha, "John Henry Davis, Jr.," Iron Master 11 (Apr. 1993). See also Bob Hoffman, "John Davis: World's Greatest Weightlifter," Strength and Health 19 (Oct. 1951); Jim Murray, "John Davis: Iron Game Immortal," Strength and Health 22 (June 1954); Charlie Shields, "John Davis: Portrait of a Champion," Strength and Health 42 (Jan. 1974); and Arthur Drechsler, "John Davis: Hero and Legend," Weightlifting USA 19 (winter 2000–2001).

John D. Fair