Vintage Viking

Andreas Cahling (aka'The Golden Viking') turns sixty the week after next. Born in Uddevalla, Sweden, November 19, 1952, he moved to Oceanside, California in 1976 and embarked on a bodybuilding career that lasted two decades. Soon after getting to the States, he did an 8mm posing film for David Carter, an oddball photographer and wannabe Iron Game bigshot who failed to tell him it would be sold through his gay-erotica publishing venture, David Carter Enterprises. That folded quickly, but the Cahling movie (where he's credited as 'Alex Rodstand') took on a life of its own, and stills from it circulate to this day. Seen here in a woefully faded copy, the footage (particularly from about 02:30 on) shows Cahling as a typically Scandinavian golden boy who, at 5' 9'/ 190 lb, was notable for his symmetry and a well articulated 'belt of Hercules.' (Most of the muscle connoisseurs who bought the film may, however, have been more interested his lovely chunk of uncut meat and the graceful turn of his close-to-perfect derriere.) In 1980 Cahling's physique was immortalized by a far greater photographer than Carter, and I'm going to post the result of that collaboration in the Pictures section.