Charles Gaines, Writer Who Co-Created Paintball, Dies at 84
The novelist behind "Stay Hungry" and the narrator of "Pumping Iron" turned an argument with a friend about wilderness survival into a sport now played by millions.
Charles Gaines, the writer, documentarian and outdoorsman who helped invent paintball after arguing with a friend about who would last longer in the woods, has died. He was 84.
Gaines was born January 6, 1942, and died July 21, 2026, according to CBS News' annual gallery of notable deaths.
He studied creative writing at the University of Iowa under Kurt Vonnegut and built a career across books, magazines and television. His 1972 novel "Stay Hungry," set in the world of bodybuilding, was adapted into a film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gaines also wrote and narrated the 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron," based on his bestselling photo book. Over his career he wrote 25 books and more than 300 magazine articles. An avid fisherman, he helped found the U.S. Fly Fishing Team and wrote and directed segments for ABC's "American Sportsman."
His most widely felt invention came out of a disagreement. Gaines, who grew up in the woods in the South, had long argued with his friend and tennis rival Hayes Noel, a New York City stockbroker, over which of them was more likely to survive in the wilderness. The dispute led to a cat-and-mouse hunt in the woods, each man carrying a paint gun of the kind farmers used to mark livestock.
On June 27, 1981, in Henniker, New Hampshire, Gaines and Noel, joined by local ski shop manager Bob Gurnsey, staged the first organized paintball game. A dozen camouflaged players, equipped with CO2-powered guns, paint pellets, goggles, a compass and a map, tried to capture colored flags across 100 acres of forest without being marked, with referees keeping score.
The field included hunters, a former Green Beret, a trauma surgeon, a venture capitalist, a film producer and an amateur boxer. "How people played the game reflected who they were," Gaines told NPR Boston in 2018. Ritchie White, a forester, quietly collected four flags and finished first in just over two hours without firing a shot.
Gaines, Noel and Gurnsey later commercialized the game as the National Survival Game. Paintball and its variations are now played by millions in amateur, professional and tournament competition, in a market valued at more than $1 billion.
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