André the Giant acknowledges the cheers of the crowd for his celebrated post-bout rendition of Lucky's speech
Beckett fact no. 65.
André René Roussimoff, otherwise André the Giant, professional wrestler and man mountain who weighed anything up to 540 pounds in his prime, was born in Ussy-sur-Marne in 1946, round about the time that Beckett was settling in for the 'siege in the room' back in Rue des Favorites, on the proceeds of which he later bought his small house in the same village.
André suffered from pituitary gigantism, which left him too big to fit on the Ussy-sur-Marne school bus, so Beckett would drive him to and from school every day. Their conversations on these occasions have sadly not been preserved.
As reported by Cary Elwes in his video diary of The Princess Bride.
Among the celebrity funerals Troy McClure pitches in The Simpsons is 'André the Giant: We Hardly Knew Ye.' Maybe because he would have been two feet shorter than the wrestler and didn't fancy trying to scale his stomach to have a conversation with him.
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