Laura Combes

Laura Combes was an American professional female bodybuilder who helped establish women's bodybuilding in its earliest years. Born in New York City on October 19, 1953, she moved to Tampa, Florida at the age of thirteen and played many sports as a teenager, among them fencing, sailing, archery, canoeing, horseback riding, water skiing, tennis and rugby. Knee injuries from rugby led her to lift weights as rehabilitation in the late 1970s, and she soon became involved in the new sport of women's bodybuilding. She won the first NPC Nationals in 1980 and the AAU Ms. America title in 1981, and drew wide attention that year when she lifted the host of the NBC series Real People onto the stage in front of a studio audience. Combes competed in three professional shows before retiring after a sixth-place finish at the 1982 Ms. Olympia, wrote the book Winning Women's Bodybuilding in 1983, and was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2002. She died on October 4, 1989, at the age of thirty-five.