Fans of 1970s hit classic, The Incredible Hulk, weren’t scared of the green-skinned giant who thumped across TV screens and dotted the pages of comic books. To the contrary, the Incredible Hulk was the ultimate iconic representation of justice, of fighting back. He was invincible, Herculean, green-skinned, supernatural even.
But Lou Ferrigno, the actor who played the Hulk, is all man. In fact, he’s lived with hearing loss since a very young age, never letting the disability interfere with his careers as an actor, a professional bodybuilder or a sheriff. “I believe I had fairly bad ear infections very soon after birth, and at that time I lost some 75 or 80 percent of my hearing,” Ferrigno told healthyhearing.com. “We're not quite clear on what happened in those early days.” Ferrigno’s condition went undiagnosed until he was about three.
Once doctors had learned of Ferrigno’s hearing loss, when he was four, he was fit with his first hearing aids. Today, he says he wears them while working out, relaxing, and on and off the set. “In fact, when I work out I wear two in-the-ear hearing aids for comfort, and then I wear the behind-the-ears for my day-to-day non-physical activities, when I need maximum hearing and to communicate with people and do interviews.”
Ferrigno says his hearing loss hasn’t held him back in his career. “I think that if I wasn't hard of hearing I wouldn't be where I am now. Early on, as a youngster it was difficult, but I’m not ashamed to talk about it because many people have misconceptions about hearing loss; like who has hearing loss and what it’s like not to hear, so I do talk about it,” he says. “I think my hearing loss helped create a determination within me to be all that I can be, and gave me a certain strength of character too. Anytime I do a movie or a TV show, I make them aware of my hearing loss at the beginning, and that makes it much easier for all of us to communicate and get the job done.”
Ferrigno’s decision to become a bodybuilder led to his career as an actor. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the reason he so seriously began lifting weights in the first place. He took up the sport as a teenager, mostly for reasons familiar to many hearing impaired young adults: his parents were unsure of what sort of encouragement to provide him and kids growing up in his neighborhood teased him mercilessly, calling him “Deaf Louie.”
But at age 21, Ferrigno’s perseverance paid off when he became the youngest athlete to become Mr. Universe. His bodybuilding led to his memorable role as the Hulk. His hearing loss also made him ideal for the part. “It’s natural for me to show emotions without speaking,” Ferrigno says. So his ability to act out emotions non-verbally benefited him in the role.
But Ferrigno’s acting experience includes far more than just his role as the Hulk. He began what would be many years of speech therapy to correct his diction and vastly improve his lip-reading skills, leading to roles in several stage productions and more than 30 TV and film roles. After The Incredible Hulk ended, Ferrigno went onto other roles that allowed him to put his acting chops and muscles to work. These include his role as Hercules in Hercules and Sinbad in Sinbad of the Seven Seas. Recently, he took on a recurring role on The King of Queens playing himself as a neighbor to the show's main characters.
Today, Lou Ferrigno focuses on bodybuilding education instead of acting. Through his Web site, he offers booklets on bodybuilding and his own book on bodybuilding: Lou Ferrigno's Guide to Personal Power, Bodybuilding and Fitness for Everyone. In addition, both he and his wife Carla offer personal fitness training services to residents of the Los Angeles, California region.
“It takes time to overcome a handicap. There are ups and downs and you can never be a quitter. I believe the maxim that you only get out of life what you put into it,” Ferrigno says.
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