Biography

His father Albert Bonomo and brother Victor Bonomo were candy makers. Their best known product was Bonomo Turkish Taffy (the name was simply clever marketing, since the candy was not Turkish and was really a short nougat). After his retirement in 1970, the company changed hands several times and was eventually sold to Tootsie Roll Industries, which stopped manufacturing Bonomo Turkish Taffy in 1989 due to low sales and changing tastes. Candy aficionados proclaim that the brand "French Chew Taffy" comes closest to Bomomo's. In 2010 a new company started producing Bonomo Turkish Taffy again.

In honor of his exemplary life of physical fitness/bodybuilding, his many books and courses on bodybuilding, weightlifting, self-defense and general self-improvement, as well as his outstanding screen work as actor and premier stunt-man, Joe Bonomo was honored posthumously with his induction into the National Fitness Hall of Fame in 2009.

He nearly drowned during the filming of Island of Lost Souls (1932) when he fell into a water tank and the foam rubber in his costume soaked up water, causing him to sink.

His fame as a body builder led to his creating a line of books on health and physical fitness. This was later expanded into a series of 64-page pamphlets on such topics as self-esteem, using cosmetics, safety, dancing, simplifying housework, etc. A pamphlet he wrote about drugs was entitled "Don't Be A Dope", and one entitled "What I Know About Women" contained 64 blank pages.

Was a friend and contemporary of famous muscleman Charles Atlas. He and Atlas were running neck and neck in the "World's Most Perfectly Developed Man" contest when Bonomo was forced to bow out due to an injury he sustained while doing a movie stunt. Atlas went on to win the contest, and it was because of that contest that he gained most of his fame.