Tag: Little Sampson

We managed to dig up more info on the fairly obscure strongman Captain Bob Anderson. Captain Bob got his first taste of fame as a Hollywood stuntman where he specialized in crashing planes. As as stuntman, his work appeared in a number of pictures in the early 1930’s including: Hell’s Angels (1930), Air Mail (1932), Night Flight (1933), Central Airport (1933), The White Sister (1933), and the serial, Rustlers of Red Dog (1935). It was said that Anderson crashed 32 planes during his film career — and walked away from all of them.

Looking for a little less dangerous work, after his Hollywood exploits, Captain Bob became a performing strongman where he was billed as “Little Sampson.” Captain Bob had a pretty standard repertoire of feats of strength: he pulled a car or fire truck with his teeth, broke a 1-inch rope in his hands, drove a 60-penny spike through a 2-inch plank with his fist, lifted a 250 pound man with his teeth, bent #6 horse shoes into an “S” shape, let audience members attempt to strangle him with a rope (to no avail, of course), blow up a heavy inner-tube until it burst, tear phone books in half, hung by his teeth from a 6th floor building, allowed a 400 pound boulder to be cracked on his chest, etc.

Captain Bob traveled around the country from gig to gig in the nifty small automobile with his name on it shown above. His signature feat eventually became to lift said automobile onto his back and carry it across the stage unaided.