'Princess Bride' Actor Cary Elwes Details Andre the Giant's 'Extraordinary' Drinking Ability
"He never even slurred his words" after 40 ounces of liquor, Elwes said.
— -- Much has been written about wrestler André the Giant's ability to consume copious amounts of liquor.
It's true, his "Princess Bride" co-star Cary Elwes said.
"The man was extraordinary. He was absolutely a man who could consume vast amounts of alcohol and not have it affect him at all. I’ve never seen anything like it," Elwes, who played Westley in the film, told the Daily Beast.
"I went drinking with him after our first screening in New York, and I was sipping a beer all night—which he thought was very funny. There was no way I was going to compete with that, because I knew he could consume 100 beers in one sitting."
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André the Giant, who died of heart failure in 1993, weighed more than 500 pounds and was 7-foot-4. Because of his size and his physically strenuous job as a wrestler, the late star was in great pain, Elwes said, and drinking was a way to numb it.
"He was due to have an operation right after the shoot, and his doctor didn’t know what kind of pain medication to give him because of his size, so the only way that he could deal with the pain was to drink alcohol," he explained. "It didn’t affect him at all. He didn’t flub a line or miss a day. The guy could handle his liquor, let me tell ya."
His drink of choice? A concoction called "The American": 40 ounces of different liquors poured into a pitcher.
Elwes said that the actor would consume several of these throughout the course of an evening.
"I’ve never tasted airplane fuel, but I imagine it’s very close to what that must taste like. It’s very potent indeed," Elwes recalled. "But to him, it was like chugging water."
