• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, April 9, 2018

What an unlikely, extraordinary story this is -- the story of Andre the Giant told in a 90-minute documentary.

The principal aim of a documentary like this one -- titled simply “Andre the Giant” and premiering on HBO on Tuesday night (April 10) -- is to justify taking up its subject in the first place.

Directed by Jason Hehir, this documentary accomplishes this in spades. What a fascinating, moving story this is. It is a pop culture tale, a TV time capsule, an in-depth biography, a story of a star’s rise, his fall, his redemption, his private pain, and his legacy.

In short, “Andre the Giant” has it all. One doesn’t have to care one whit about Andre the Giant in particular or the wacky world of professional wrestling in general to come away from the experience of watching this feeling as if you have been transported to another world.

Where does one begin to describe what you will see if you watch “Andre the Giant”? Well, one thing is the testimony from those who knew him -- including wrestling impresario Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan (whose career was intertwined with Andre’s), fellow wrestler Ric Flair, Tim White, Andre’s right-hand man and “handler” in his peak years, long-time World Wrestling Federation (later World Wrestling Entertainment) announcer Gene Okerlund, erstwhile king of Memphis wrestling Jerry Lawler and others -- each one more colorful than the next.

Also on hand are Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes and Robin Wright, director and stars (respectively) of the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride,” in which Andre also starred.

Andre the Giant was born Andre Roussimoff in a village 40 miles from Paris in 1946. He had a condition known as acromegaly, sometimes known as gigantism and caused by an excess of growth hormone.

At his physical peak, he stood a few inches over 7 feet tall and weighed anywhere from just under 400 pounds to nearly 500. His height and weight were both formidable, but as McMahon admits in the documentary, no one really knew what they were for sure (except for maybe Andre himself).

Exaggeration was part of Andre’s world -- which for most of his life was professional wrestling. “I used to say to people that Andre has 82 teeth and people would believe it,” McMahon says.

Inevitably, much of the testimony in “Andre the Giant” has to do with his larger-than-life physique, behaviors and appetites. One sportswriter says Andre drank 7,000 calories of alcohol every night.

Others bear witness to Andre consuming bottles of wine by the case nearly all day long. Ric Flair recounts a night on the town with Andre when the two of them consumed 106 beers.

At one point in the documentary, multiple sources describe the nature and outlandish proportions of Andre's flatulence, which he evidently enjoyed. While one might question the value of this section of the documentary, it is undeniably unabashed and funny. “Andre so enjoyed flatulence,” McMahon says. “When he passed gas, it was an event.”

One of the documentary's best features is its trove of footage from the 1970s through the ’80s that serves as a history of pro wrestling on television -- and in some ways, the TV business in general -- during an era when cable TV was finally establishing itself as a rival to traditional broadcast television.

The documentary describes how wrestling evolved from a regional TV attraction -- with more than 30 local wrestling organizations emanating from local TV stations to a national attraction spearheaded by Vince McMahon in the 1980s in partnership with USA Network, one of the new national cable channels that had come on the scene.

In the documentary, Andre is seen in the wrestling ring, guest-starring as a Sasquatch on “The Six Million Dollar Man” in 1976, appearing on “Letterman” in 1984 and endorsing Labatt's beer in a commercial in which Andre appears to seriously mispronounce the company’s name.

The business of pro wrestling had many stars, but the documentary makes the case that Andre was a key figure in the industry's growth at that time.

Mercifully, the cliché of “gentle giant” is used sparingly in the documentary, but the point is made that Andre had a charisma and a gentleness that endeared him to fans.

He endured a great deal of private pain too. For reasons which are not made entirely clear, he refused to seek or undergo medical treatment for his acromegaly that might have prolonged his life or at the very least have eased his pain. He died in 1993 at age 46.

The final portion of the documentary, in which the decline in Andre’s health and physical capabilities is described, is particularly poignant.

When one feels genuine sorrow for a documentary subject when the end is near, it is as good a sign as any that the documentary you have been watching was doing what it was supposed to do -- in this case, making you care about Andre the Giant.

“Andre the Giant” premieres Tuesday (April 10) at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO.