700-pound NC twins rode minibikes, wrestled with Andre the Giant. They’d be 74 today

The birth and early childhood of identical twins Billy and Benny McCrary in the mountains of North Carolina was by all accounts average until a bad bout of the measles struck at age 4.

They recovered — but their pituitary glands did not, according to historical record.

“The twins’ weights quickly ballooned,” the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources says of the years after their brush with the virus. “By age 10, they each weighed 200 pounds, and by 16, each tipped the scales at more than 600 pounds.”

Billy and Benny went on to become the world’s heaviest set of male twins. They were crowned in 1978 by the Guinness Book of World Records, weighing in at 743 pounds and 723 pounds, respectively.

The McCrary twins were born Dec. 7, 1946 in Hendersonville, just south of Asheville. Guinness World Records reported they were premature, weighing just 5 pounds at birth. Historians believe their “enormous size” later in life was in-part caused by damage to their pituitary glands after contracting the measles, for which there wasn’t a vaccine until the 1960s.

The pituitary gland is responsible for producing growth hormones, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Rise to fame

Billy and Benny’s parents bought a farm when they were young in the hopes that “the boys would burn up calories while working,” according to the N.C. DCR. But nothing stopped the weight gain, and the twins reportedly dropped out of high school before taking off for Texas.

Their media exploits started early.

In the 1970s, Guinness reported the pair adopted the “McGuire Twins” as a stage name and began wrestling and performing carnival stunts. They went undefeated, appearing at shows such as the National Wrestling Alliance and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

The twins later brokered a deal with Honda and Holiday Inn to ride minibikes — small motorcycles — across the United States, the N.C. DCR said.

It was a 3,000-mile journey from New York to Los Angeles, including stops at Myrtle Beach — home to one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the country — and the Tonight Show, according to Henderson County Heritage and History.

During that trip, Guinness reported the twins met wrestling coach Gory Guerrero in El Paso, Texas, who offered to train them as professional wrestlers and “transformed into international ring superstars.”

“Of course, we didn’t take bumps like the average wrestler,” Benny said in a 1998 interview for Inside Wrestling magazine, according to Henderson Heritage. “So he worked out a routine for us. Guys run against us and fall down. They come in and try to give us a body slam, we turn around and give them one.”

The twins reportedly led active lives and ate “normal-sized meals.” They were both married, able to fly on planes as long as they bought two seats each and liked to swim.

“We can’t drown,” Benny said, according to Guinness World Records. “We pop right up like a cork.”

It wasn’t until a Life magazine photographer took a picture of Billy and Benny riding mini-bikes at the North Carolina Apple Festival, an annual Labor Day tradition in Hendersonville, that someone at Guinness took notice.

An early end

Billy and Benny were christened as the world’s heaviest twins in November 1978.

A year later, Billy died after an accident during a minibike stunt at Niagara Falls. He was on his way to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum in Ontario, Canada, at the time, Guinness reported.

Benny lived for another 22 years. He continued to wrestle, even taking Andre the Giant — who weighed roughly 520 pounds — as a partner after 14 years as an undefeated tag team with his brother, according to Henderson Heritage.

He eventually moved back to Henderson County and opened a pawn shop before settling down in his wife’s hometown of Walkertown, northeast of Winston-Salem, in 1998. There, Henderson Heritage reported Benny worked for the Christian Golfer’s Ministry at Pine Knolls Golf Course.

He reportedly died from heart failure at age 54 in 2001.

The twins are buried at Crab Creek Baptist Church Cemetery near Hendersonville. According to Roadside America, their 13-foot granite gravestone — the world’s largest — is inscribed with two Honda minibikes and the words “World’s Largest Twins.”