One of the stories that the legendary wrestler Giant Haystacks used to love to tell his fellow wrestlers was about his time spent with Paul McCartney.
This retelling would often be met with annoyed groans. Haystacks would often tell and retell this tale on the long car journeys around Britain, with it taking longer and longer each time.
Wrestlers like Big Daddy, William Regal and Robbie Brookside often complained about the lengths he would go to talk about his various celebrity friends and fans.
However, as much as Giant Haystacks enjoyed mentioning how much the Queen Mother and Frank Sinatra were such big fans of his, it was his stories about Paul McCartney which were told most often.
If you want to learn about how Frank Sinatra came to meet Giant Haystacks, click here
Giant Haystacks Was Cast In Paul McCartney’s “Give My Regards To Broad Street”
Giant Haystacks and Paul McCartney will strike you as quite an unlikely friendship.
One was a legend in his field, a trailblazer and an entertainer who will never be forgotten. The other sang a few songs with a couple of bands like The Beatles and Wings.
Obviously, I’m being facetious. Paul McCartney is also generally considered to be quite good on the bass guitar. However, writing films was not his forte, as he proved with his 1984 disasterclass titled Give Me Regards To Broad Street.
The movie was a financial and critical failure, although in recent years it has remained remarkably consistent in that area in the decades since.
It made just $1.4 million out of its $9 million budget and was the end of the Liverpool native’s film career which began with A Hard Day’s Night in 1964.
The movie covers a day in the life (unrelated to the Beatles tune) of a fictional McCartney, who stars as himself as the film’s protagonist. His ex-wife Linda and ex-drummer Ringo Starr also appear in the movie that was described by critics as “about as close as you can get to a nonmovie”
This dreadful film would also be the last movie appearance for Martin Ruane, better known as the menacing Giant Haystacks. He had a previous acting credit in the Oscar-winning A Quest For Fire and hoped to launch a career in film with a fairly prominent role in Give My Regards To Broad Street.
Clearly impressed by his acting in a Skips crisp advert, the wrestler was handed the role of Big Bob in the musical, although fans weren’t treated to any musical performance by the fifty-stone monster.
How Giant Haystacks and Paul McCartney Became Friends
Giant Haystacks spoke about his friendship with Paul McCartney in an interview with Simon Garfield, which was published in his book “The Wrestling”.
The former British Heavyweight Champion revealed that McCartney was an avid wrestling fan and had Haystacks had inspired one of the characters he had drawn for a music video, which later became the movie in question.
He ended up playing “Big Bob”, an antagonist for McCartney during the movie. This was inspired by a man the Beatle had met in the United States. During filming the pair became firm friends and Paul McCartney would take his son to watch Giant Haystacks wrestle numerous times after that.
“When Paul was in the Mull of Kintyre, he was quite an enthusiastic artist. He’d watch me on TV, and drew me in as one of the main characters for a video.” Giant Haystacks revealed.
“Then, 20th Century Fox wanted to get involved and made a full-length film, and Paul approached me himself and said he wanted me to play a part in the movie. In the end, I played two parts. The main character was called Big Bob, a character that Paul had met in the States years before, a shady record dealer, a living-on-your-wits kind of character.”
“I played a Dickensian scene and a modern day. We were quote close, Paul and I. He would sit with me on and off the set. He used to watch the wrestling regularly. He came to see me many times when I wrestled In Sussex. He used to bring his son.”
Haystacks’ Film and Wrestling Career Would Go Downhill Soon After
Despite his appearance in what many have described as “a film”, Giant Haystacks would not appear in another movie.
He performed well in the film and his acting wasn’t bad for a wrestler. He had no illusions of his ability though and quickly returned to the ring, albeit not on Sundays (he was a devout Christian, after all).
Haystacks continued to lumber around the ring, butting bellies with Big Daddy until the plug was pulled on British wrestling on ITV in 1988. Greg Dyke, who preferred sports like football and darts to silly old wrestling, ended ITV’s association with wrestling, one that would not return until 2016 with the disastrous World of Sport reboot.
Haystacks kept wrestling, however, mainly for Brian Dixon’s All Star Wrestling. In 1996 he even got a call from America and signed a contract with World Championship Wrestling.
He joined the Dungeon of Doom but was way past his best. Giant Haystacks name was incredibly apt as he weighed in at nearly fifty stone and was barely mobile as he entered his late forties and early 50s.
Hulk Hogan was originally slated to face Haystacks in his final match, although you can learn why he pulled the plug on that one here. Illness forced the Englishman out of WCW and he died just two years later from cancer.
