The bodybuilding community lost one of the greats today.
Former professional bodybuilder and registered nurse Stacey Bentley has died, sources report. Long respected as one of the champions of bodybuilding’s Muscle Beach golden era, Bentley was also one of the first women to succeed professionally in the male-dominated sport. Her death was announced in a Facebook post from friend and former employer Roger Schwab. She was 63.
Stacey Bentley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1956. She was an active child who took part in many school sports teams and after school athletic activities. She was an active diver before breaking into bodybuilding in the mid-1970s, when it was just starting to open up to women. In an interview with IFBB Pro, Bentley disclosed her initial embarrassment at joining a sport that was not seen as traditionally feminine. “At first, I was a little embarrassed about my physique. I’d tell a lot of people I was a gymnast or a swimmer, not a bodybuilder,” she said of her time starting out in the sport.
However, it was exactly that attitude that drew fans and supporters to Bentley during her career as a bodybuilder. She never trash talked her opponents or boasted about having the best physique — she simply tried her best and that was that. In a sport that was new to women, Bentley’s approach helped cement her position in the industry, and she showed other women who maybe felt that they didn’t have the aggressive/macho characteristics necessary to compete that it was possible for women to be competitors on their own terms.
Together with Lisa Lyon and Claudia Wilbourn, Bentley is considered one of the foundational members of women’s bodybuilding. The 1970s were the first crop of women bodybuilders to be in competition in much the same way as the men were. Bentley won the Robby Robinson Classic in 1979 and the Frank Zane Invitational in 1980. She was inducted into the bodybuilding Hall of Fame in 2005.
