George Foreman, the charismatic boxer turned infomercial star who had a retail hit with his Foreman Grill product line, died Friday. He was 76.
The Texas-born Foreman became Heavyweight Champion of the World, and segued into a TV staple and pop culture icon. He was swept up in the swirl of decade-defining events surrounding Muhammad Ali as well as Joe Frazier and other high-wattage pugilists of the 1970s. In the 1990s, Foreman took advantage of the availablity of low-cost TV time to launch his Foreman Grill home grill product through a series of infomercials that he hosted.
Foreman famously had a close call in the ring in 1977 that drove him to quit boxing and declare himself a born-again Christian. He became an ordained minister in 1978 and began preaching in his hometown of Houston. He shocked the sports world when he returned to boxing in 1987 and wound up reclaiming his Heavyweight Champion title in 1994. Foreman retired from the sweet science for good in 1997.
In addition to his business ventures, Foreman led Houston’s Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, where he preached four times a week.
In recent years, Foreman had been involved with numerous documentary projects about his life, boxing and the era of his greatest fame. He was also the subject of the 2023 biopic “Big George Foreman,” from director George Tillman Jr. Khris Davis played Foreman in the Mandalay Pictures drama that focused on his improbable return to the ring in the 1980s and ’90s.
Foreman’s family confirmed his death in an Instagram post on Friday.
Born Jan. 10, 1949, Foreman grew up in extreme poverity in the east Texas city of Marshall, about 40 miles west of Shreveport, La. He first gained national fame after winning an Olympic gold medal in boxing at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City.
“Foreman often bullied younger children and didn’t like getting up early for school. Foreman became a mugger and brawler on the hard streets of Houston’s Fifth Ward by age 15,” according to Foreman’s official website.
He was eventually steered into boxing through the Lone Star state’s Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps program. Foreman gained stature in the late 1960s and ultimately secured the Heavyweight Championship in January 1973 by defeating Frazier with six knockouts in a bout held in Kingston, Jamaica. The event also had the distinction of being the first boxing broadcast to air on the then-fledgling pay TV service HBO.
The following year, Foreman faced a resurgent Ali in the event that received worldwide attention as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” held in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ali pummelled Foreman in the ring and dominated him on the PR front as well. Foreman went on to went his next five fights by knockout.
After his triumph of becoming the world’s oldest Heavyweight Champion, Foreman became a boldface name staple on TV, from daytime talk shows to “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman.” He was known for his folksy charm and for having a sprawling family of children and grandchildren. And his low-cost cooking device that allowed for easy indoor grilling — the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine — became a retail and direct response sales juggernaut starting in the early 1990s.
Foreman also starred in the short-lived 1993 ABC family comedy “George,” playing a retired boxer who runs an after-school program for troubled students. He hosted NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in 1994.
Foreman had cameos and small roles in a host of TV shows and movies over the years, playing himself or a similar character, including “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” “The Fighter,” “The Masked Singer,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Home Improvement” and “King of the Hill.”
