Glenn Morris
Glenn Morris and Leni Riefenstahl in 1936
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
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| Born | June 18, 1912 Simla, Colorado, United States |
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| Died | January 31, 1974 (aged 61) Palo Alto, California, United States |
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| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | |||||||||
| Weight | 84 kg (185 lb) | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||
| Event(s) | Decathlon | |||||||||
| Club | Denver Athletic Club | |||||||||
| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | 100 m – 10.6 (1936) 400 m – 49.4 (1936) 110 mH – 14.6 (1936) 400 mH – 544 (1934) LJ – 6.97 m (1936) SP – 14.45 m (1936) DT – 43.10 m (1936) JT – 56.06 m (1936) Decathlon – 7254 (1936) |
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Medal record
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Glenn Edgar Morris (June 18, 1912 – January 31, 1974) was a U.S. track and field athlete. He won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon in 1936, setting new world and Olympic records. He was also an occasional actor, he portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan's Revenge.
Morris was born on his family's homestead farm near Simla, Colorado, the second of seven children. A natural athlete whose record in the 220 hurdles stood for forty years at his high school, Morris entered Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State University) in 1930. He became a star athlete for the school, excelling in several sports and being named All-American in track and field. Working as an assistant coach and automobile salesman after graduation in 1934 (with degrees in Economics and Sociology), Morris began training as a decathlon athlete in hopes of competing in the 1936 Olympics.
In the U.S. Olympic track and field trials for 1936, Morris scored a new world record of 7,880 points, earning him Newsweek's sobriquet "the nation's new Iron Man." Morris broke his own world record, and the Olympic record, in the Berlin games, with a decathlon score of 7,900 points. It was said that Adolf Hitler never left his seat while Morris was competing, and that the Germans thereafter offered Morris $50,000 to stay in Germany and appear in sports films, an offer Morris refused.
German filmmaker and documentarian Leni Riefenstahl claimed in her memoirs that during and after the 1936 Olympics, she had an affair with Morris, which she ended because of a very disparaging report about him that was given to her by a graphologist. Riefenstahl also claimed that the affair began when, after winning the gold medal, he tore off her blouse and kissed her breasts, in front of the audience of 100,000 people. In reality, Morris merely received his medal and laurel from Hitler's mistress Eva Braun in an otherwise standard ceremony.
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