Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting. Widely regarded to be the world’s strongest man, he established national, Olympic, and world records in the superheavyweight class of weightlifting in the 1950s and early 1960s. He won the gold medal in the Munich Olympics of 1955 and the Melbourne Olympics of 1956. In addition, he visited the Soviet Union during the cold war and defeated the Soviet lifters, resulting in a standing ovation from some 15,000 Soviet observers, who dubbed him a “wonder of nature.” He still holds several world lifting records including a back lift in 1957 of 6,270 pounds. He suffered from Brights’s disease, an autoimmune disease which attacks the kidneys. In spite of a kidney transplant from his sister which provided him with an additional eleven years of life, he succumbed to kidney failure at age 61. He was a devoutly religious man who, along with his wife Glenda, established in 1961 the Paul Anderson Youth Home in Vidalia, Georgia, for troubled youths ages 16 to 21. He is interred on the grounds of the youth home located in Vidalia, Georgia.