Ben Weider:HIS BROTHER Joe transformed himself from the archetypal seven-stone weakling into a strong man, but it was Ben Weider who transformed Joe's bodybuilding business into a worldwide empire.
Ben Weider, who has died aged 85, formed the International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB), created competitions such as Mr Olympia, through which he propelled Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom, and brought bodybuilding to the brink of acceptance by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
In his spare time, Weider became a respected authority on Napoleon, and the leading proponent of the thesis that the French emperor was assassinated by arsenic poisoning while imprisoned on St Helena.
Born in Montreal to immigrant Jews from Poland, Weider left school at 13. After serving in intelligence with the Canadian army during the second World War, he joined his brother, who had started a magazine, Your Fitness, to promote weightlifting and sell exercise equipment. The brothers created a new sport, bodybuilding, and their sales of equipment and nutritional supplements boomed.
Their magazines expanded along with their business, eventually including Flex, Muscle & Fitness, Men's Fitness, and even Fit Pregnancy.
In 1965 the brothers created a professional alternative to the Mr Universe competition and staged the first Mr Olympia contest in New York. The 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, about their discovery of "the Austrian Oak", Schwarzenegger, took bodybuilding on to a world stage. Weider worked tirelessly for its acceptance as a legitimate sport, expanding his federation into 178 countries; finally, in 1998, the IOC recognised it as an associate sport.
The success of his bodybuilding enterprise made Weider rich, and provided him with many opportunities for philanthropy. He was attracted to projects that promised to bring opposing sides together; in 1978 he had insisted that an IFBB tournament in South Africa be integrated. He built a gym for the Knesset in Israel, and another for Palestinians in Ramallah. A Jewish Anglophone, he helped finance the rebuilding of the Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, in Old Montreal.
But his great obsession was Napoleon. In 1978, he and poison expert Sten Forshufvud published Assassination at St Helena, and he followed up with the best-selling The Murder of Napoleon (with David Hapgood) in 1982.
Though his principal thesis has not been not universally accepted, his tenacious approach to research and his investigative skills won him many plaudits. In 1998 he was made an honorary chief inspector of the Montreal police department; the former police chief Jacques Duchesneau called him "the greatest detective I ever met", and in 2000 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur for his research into Napoleon.
Weider stepped down as head of the IFBB in 2006, and he and his brother published a joint autobiography, Brothers of Iron. Earlier this year, he received a lifetime achievement award at the Arnold Classic bodybuilding tournament, sponsored by Schwarzenegger. The governor of California called Ben Weider "one of the most amazing men I have ever known" and said the Weiders were like "fathers to me".
His wife Huguette survives him, as do Joe, a sister and three sons.
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Ben Weider, bodybuilding entrepreneur and author: born February 1st, 1923; died October 17th, 2008