Profile of Captain Lou Albano

Louis Vincent Albano was born on July 29, 1933 in Carmel, New York. After serving with the US Army, Lou got into wrestling and had his first match in 1953. As a wrestler, he found his greatest success as part of a tag team known as "The Sicilians" with Tony Altamore. The team won several regional titles including the WWWF United States Tag Team which they won from Arnold Skaaland and Spiros Arion in 1967.

In the early '70s, Lou made the transition from wrestler to manager. In 1971, he became the manager of the WWE Champion when Ivan Koloff beat Bruno Sammartino for the title. Despite the early success as a singles manager, Albano's claim to fame would come as being the manager of tag teams. He managed 15 different teams to the World Tag Team Championship.

When Captain Lou Albano appeared in Cyndi Lauper's music video for Girls Just Want To Have Fun, he set in motion the birth of the Rock-n-Wrestling Connection. This led to the WWE to becoming a major part of '80s pop culture. Problems arose between Lou and Cyndi when he claimes to be the reason for her success. To prove she could do his job even better, she challenged him to a match where she would be the manager for Wendi Richter in a title match against his wrestler, the Fabulous Moolah. That match became the first wrestling match to be televised live on MTV.

Captain Lou would eventually see the light and become friends with Cyndi Lauper in her feud with Roddy Piper. As a fan favorite, Lou was able to use his fame to help raise money and awareness to fight multiple sclerosis. His time as a fan favorite would be short-lived as he retired from the business in 1986 to seek out fame in Hollywood. At the time, Lou was the manager of the then-current World Tag Team Champions, The British Bulldogs.

Captain Lou found some success in Hollywood on both the siver screen and on television. His biggest movie role was as Frank 'The Fixer' Acavano in the Danny Devitio/Joe Piscopo film Wise Guys. His biggest success on the small screen was playing the part of Mario on the children's television show The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

For most of Captain Lou's tenure as a manager, every heel in the WWE seemed to be managed by either him, Freddie Blassie, or the Grand Wizard. The Grand Wizard passed away in 1983 while Freddie Blassie passed away in 2003. On October 14, 2009, Captain Lou Albano joined his fellow Hall of Fame managers in the great wrestling ring in the sky. Lou was under hospice care at his home for an undisclosed medical issue. He was 76 years old.

Even though he is gone, he will never be forgotten by those that saw him. His crazy persona included wearing wild Hawaiian shirts and having rubber bands hanging from his face. Wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and the Rock followed in his footsteps and used their wrestling fame to open doors for them in Hollywood. Most importantly, if he didn't appear in Cyndi Lauper's music video, wrestling as we know it now might not exist.

_{Sources used include Onlineworldofwrestling.com, Slam Sports, and wwe.com}