Former Norfolk Virginia Deputy George Bell—Once Tallest Man in U.S.—Dies

By Colin Warren-Hicks

Source The Virginian-Pilot

Dawnié Bell always knew her father was special.

When he visited her kindergarten at lunchtime, the playing at recess came to a sudden standstill before her “star struck” classmates then ran toward her dad, asking questions. People gravitated toward him in stores and on the street or in parks. She didn’t always realize they were “fans.”

Her daddy, she said, was in fact a “giant.”

George Bell, a Hampton Roads native and former Harlem Globetrotter, was 7-foot-8 and, at one point, held the record as the tallest living man in the U.S. and third-tallest living human in the world. He died this week at 67.

He was found Wednesday in his home in Durham, North Carolina, where he lived on and off after retiring from a career in law enforcement. His last job was as a Norfolk Sheriff’s Office deputy from 2000-14.

Bell was born on June 12, 1957, in Portsmouth. Starting in elementary school, he was considered tall for his age but didn’t reach unusual heights until later in life. Even in high school, he never felt out of place.

However, he kept inching up long after his peers’ growth spurts had come and gone. He reached and exceeded the 7-0 mark in his early 20s and was eventually diagnosed with gigantism: a medical condition characterized by the overproduction of growth hormone during childhood.

And while he did not suffer from some of the common health complications linked with the gigantism, such as an enlarged heart, the condition did strain his daily health.

“He just overcame so much in life, and I’m grateful that he was able to meet his grandchildren and live long enough to embrace them, love them, love me,” Dawnié Bell said.

And he was a gentle man.

“My father loved people,” she said. “He loved any shape, any size, any color, any — he didn’t care who you were. He just loved people. He loved life. He was just a bag full of love.”

Bell raised his only child in Durham. His daughter, now 37, remembers how he’d get up every morning when she was a little girl and put on workout shorts and weights around his ankles to ride a bike to stay in shape.

On mornings her mom got up early for work, her dad would fix her hair and get her dressed. Together, they’d walk out the door and toward the hill that led down the road to her school.

“He was my transportation,” Dawnié Bell said.

On every one of those morning walks, he’d let her ride on his shoulders.

“I would hold on to his neck. He would hold on to my feet. That’s how we’d walk around until I got too big,” she said. Just imagine: “You’re on top of this man’s neck — your father’s neck — and he just touches the sky.”

She remembers seeing him make TV appearances in the early 1990s. One time, she went on a talk show with him.

In 2007, George appeared on “Good Morning America” after his ex-wife and Dawnié’s mother, Joyce Bell, entered him into a nationwide search for the tallest people in the country, and Guinness World Records confirmed him that year as the tallest man in America.

In 2010, he appeared on “The Dr. Oz Show” after a younger man, Igor Vovkovinskiy, from Rochester, Minnesota, edged past him, by one-third of an inch, to claim the title as America’s tallest.

“I knew,” George said, at the time, “that there was someone taller than me in this country.”

And neither titles nor height mattered to his family either.

He is remembered for his love of jazz, old-school R&B, bread pudding, sweet potato pie and warm energy, his daughter said.

“He made me feel like I was on top of the world,” Dawnié said.

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