21-03-2025
Tallest man in America has died in Durham. He was a Globetrotter and a Wake deputy.
George Bell used to joke that he couldn't hide anywhere, standing 7-foot-8, so tall he could dunk a basketball without jumping.
So of course the scouts picked him up, first for small colleges, then for the Harlem Wizards and their comedy-style companions the Globetrotters, whose owner confessed, 'He's an attraction.'
When he tried out for the LA Clippers in 1988, he briefly qualified as the tallest man on an NBA roster. That dream fizzled. But later on, he wore another crown: Tallest Man in America.
'They told me I was blessed,' Bell said in 1994, interviewed by The News & Observer. 'Basically, they told me I should accept it, that I should love myself. I didn't feel ashamed.'
Bell died in Durham Wednesday at 67, having stood two feet taller than the average man for his entire life — a stand-out quality that had him constantly catching eyes.
In 1984, at the end of the summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he performed an act as an alien visitor for the closing ceremonies.
'I was looking to get into the movies and hoped it would open doors for me,' he told the Associated Press in 1988. 'But it didn't work out that way.'
His turn as an actor would bear fruit much later when he landed a role on 'American Horror Story,' in which he played 'Tall Man Ghost' for three episodes.
But for much of his life, he worked in law enforcement, in Virginia, in Durham and in Wake County, where he dwarfed former NFL defensive lineman and Sheriff John Baker Jr.
'I never heard him speak above a whisper,' Durham Sheriff Roland Leary told The N&O in 1994. 'But I always felt he was able to do whatever he wanted to do.'
Born in Virginia, the oldest of six children, Bell shot up to 6 feet tall by the time he reached sixth grade. He suffered a tumor on his pituitary gland, which ruptured, causing temporary blindness, joint pain and a host of related health problems.
His mother, Earline, told The N&O she punished George more than his siblings, even though he was 'never a bad boy,' because she knew 'I would kill myself beating him.'
By 2007, he finally earned official recognition as America's tallest man on 'Good Morning America,' where he told the Associated Press, 'I've been dealing with a small man's world since I was a kid.'
And in his passing, he leaves even larger footprints than he did inside size 19 shoes.
