There was only one woman who could control the mysterious Missing Link, and it was Sheena.
To wrestling fans in Texas or Mississippi, it was an odd act, even in pro wrestling. A jacked, unspeaking, Neanderthal grunting wrestler, accompanied by a well-dressed, reserved woman.
In reality, it was the husband and wife team of Dewey and Gail Robertson.
In some of Byron “Dewey” Robertson‘s unpublished notes, he explained her role:
My wife Gail, called “Sheena”, could do all the driving — never leaving my side — especially in AIRPORTS — most important every[thing] I knew in and out of ring — that if I made eye contact with anybody, they would know it wasn’t real. This is when I began non-speaking for 8 years.
Gail’s death on November 17, at the age of 80, at Emmanuel House Hospice-Good Shepherd in Hamilton, Ontario, was not unexpected, and the two sons of Gail and Dewey Robertson — Mark and Jason — had warned this writer that she was failing back in March.
But telling her story involves a lot outside of the ring, including family strife, nudist colonies, working out and steroids, and walking away from a marriage when Dewey would not / could not seek help for his addictions.
The tale starts December 29, 1943, with the Hamilton, Ontario, birth of Gail Marie Stirling, with her brother, Jim, six years her senior. It’s important to mention Jim because she was a doting aunt for the rest of her life — and she had her nephews alongside her at the Mountainside Pool in town when she met her future husband.
Dewey was the head lifeguard, and, picking up the story, he wrote, “I was sitting in the office and noticed a pretty, dark-haired, green-eyed girl in a bikini walking around the pool with two young kids. I guess she felt me watching her because she glanced up and I smiled at her, but she kept going towards the shallow end. I waited five minutes, then got up and went over to say hello and ask if the kids were having a good time.” As Gail told it, Dewey “strutted” around the pool.
Shy and with a slight stammer, Gail was soon dating Dewey — and he taught he to swim.
“I always took her home early from our dates because I had to be up for my morning workouts, which she didn’t believe at first — she thought I was going out with other girls after I dropped her off,” Dewey wrote. Soon, they expressed their love for each other and made plans to get married; she was 19, he was 24. “I found out years later that the day after our first date she had told a friend of hers at work she was going to marry me. Her friend laughed and asked how she could say that when she barely knew me, but she said she just felt it,” wrote Dewey. They loved to dance, go sailing, and more.
Dewey’s mother, Ethel Robertson, told her son’s biographer, Meredith Renwick [full disclosure, my wife], about her relationship with Gail. “When Byron married Gail, we were very close. His wife was very close, her and I, I used to be there all the time. They lived in Kitchener, I used to go over for a few days at a time. They lived on Richmond Road, I visited there. They lived at the beach, I visited all the time.”
Their first son, Mark, came along in 1964, followed by Jason, in 1967.
Unlike many pro wrestling families, the Robertsons stayed together. Initially, as the clean-cut Dewey Robertson, they stayed in and around Hamilton, with Dewey heading off to Detroit or Buffalo for shows. There was the tag team with Billy Red Lyons as the Crusaders too.
A workout fiend, Dewey kept in great shape, as did Gail. They owned two gyms, in Burlington, Ontario, from 1973 to 1978. There was the Athletic Club, when it closed, nearby they opened Dewey’s Gym.
Around 1980, Dewey found steroids could help his physique and that was just one of the many drugs that he put into his body through the years. Gail would help with the injections.
The best shape of Dewey’s life coincides with his transformation into the Missing Link character, the tufts of hair a result of a brief thought that he would be one of the many Mongols in pro wrestling.
It wasn’t planned for Gail to become Sheena, but it worked. She wasn’t on every card, wasn’t on television a ton, but it was her job to transport Link from the arena to the next stop, keeping kayfabe all the way.
“I became friends with Dewey and Gail almost immediately. It didn’t take long for me to feel like part of their family, along with their two sons, Mark and Jason,” Percy Pringle III (the future Paul Bearer) told Renwick. “We had so much fun on the road together, with Gail (Sheena) driving Dewey’s big Green Cadillac, and me and Dewey riding around like superstars.”
Betty Ann Stout in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes about the spectacle that was Sheena — and not the Link — in November 1987:
Now here was a crazy deal. See the Missing Link has got who we think is that wife of his bein’ his valet.
They call her Sheena. She’s got this short blunt-cut black hair and she comes out in this outfit that I can hardly describe. I mean it was this lilac felt cowboy hat with all these purple feathers and white lace hangin’ from it. And then she had on this tight black leather skirt with a black shirt and these “beat me, whip me, call me Anita Bryant” leather boots. I mean it was sorta Western and sorta country and sorta scary lookin’.
In the Marshall, Texas, News Messenger, in March 1988, Sheena — called Link’s “associate and translator” — even talks about taking the Link, now a babyface, around. “Everywhere we go, we try to visit kids’ hospitals and places like that. He loves children,” she said.
They were not always superstars.
The Missing Link was a hit in World Class and Mid-South, and his blink-and-you-missed it moment in the WWF. Given Bobby “The Brain” Heenan as a manager, Dewey wanted Heenan to do everything for him, like Gail had been doing. No way, said Heenan.
“It was all about Mom, she took care of all of us, did our laundry, drove us all the time. She may not have gotten back what she wanted, but she enjoyed the lifestyle, the nightlife, the nice people we met,” Jason Robertson told Renwick. “She was our backbone, Dad’s backbone, that’s one of the reason Dad quit WWF, he needed her there.”
The boys were active in hockey, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and in Dewey’s scribbled notes it mentions that that wouldn’t have been possible without her.
Gail’s obituary notes her ability to make friends. “Gail’s vibrant personality drew people in, and she was often the heart of any gathering. Alongside her best friend, Heather Abbott, she embraced life to the fullest, planning outings and ensuring every event was memorable,” it reads.
Not all the fun came with clothes on.
Ragan Davis was a long-time family friend and shared what he saw with Renwick.
“You looked at two people that had a lot of miles on them, that lived the party life,” Davis said. “Obviously they were nudists, they liked that kind of lifestyle. And I went out there a couple of times when I first met Jason. Even though I lived three or four miles from there, I’d never been there and boy, it was an eye-opening thing for me.”
The good times, with Dewey in prominent spots on the card, like in Charlotte for Jim Crockett Promotions, were wonderful times for the family. Other spots, like Kansas City for Bob Geigel meant near starvation.
Mom looked out for them, said Jason. “She always worked, if we didn’t have money she’d go get a job.”
Both of the Robertson boys wrestled, Mark Sterling not lasting anywhere near as long as “Jumping” Jason Sterling (and briefly, as “SOL” — Son of Link).
By 1988, the family was financially destitute, and found refuge in Gene Anderson’s house in Charlotte, North Carolina, for several months as they tried to get enough money together to return home to Canada. Just before Christmas 1988, they got back to Hamilton with $26 to their names.
Broke and strung out at the end of the 1980s, Dewey would wrestle occasionally but never got it out of his blood. He worked with Renwick on his autobiography, Bang Your Head!, which came out in 2006 from ECW Press.
Gail declined to be interviewed for the book, and, having missed the warm weather, had moved to Florida. She had moved on decidedly from Dewey — though they were still married at the time she left.
“After I was hospitalized again near the end of 1994, my wife was advised by health professionals that she should leave our marriage for her own good, so in January of 1995 she moved into her own apartment. It was supposed to be a trial separation, so I dealt with it by telling myself she would come back to me eventually and tried to carry on,” confessed Dewey. “If nothing else, please understand this: I am not angry at my wife for leaving me. I was never angry at her. I have a lot of guilt and remorse about how I took advantage of her in our relationship, but you can’t redo the past. She deserves a medal for putting up with me, taking care of me and standing by my side all those years. And she was good to everybody, not just me. Nobody had a bad word to say about Gail — everybody liked her — and I can’t begin to apologize for all the things I did. She was my co-dependent, she looked after me, took the blame for all the accusations I threw at her on a daily basis, until finally she’d had enough. And I can’t blame her for that, because most wrestling couples don’t stay together as long as we did, especially when there’s substance abuse in the marriage.”
The next 30 years of Gail’s life, without Dewey, were still about family. “Gail was known for making every moment count,” reads the obituary. “She took immense pride in her family and was a constant source of support and love for her sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. Her adventurous spirit shone through in the many journeys she shared with her nephews, Bobby and Steve, along with their wives, Julie and Lee. Together, they created lasting memories filled with laughter and love.”
One grandchild, Courtney Robertson, posted a caring memory to “Nana” on Facebook: “You were incredible. You lit up every room and always made everyone feel welcome. Your caring heart and incredible love for life was infectious. Anyone who met you was extremely lucky because you were it girl. Simply the freaking best,” she wrote. “I’m going to miss our weekly phone calls and FaceTimes but I’ll keep talking to you when I’m out with the dogs. I miss you, I love you.”
Gail Marie Blanco spent her last days Emmanuel House Hospice in Hamilton. There will be a celebration of her life in the spring.
