George Foreman has died. Although he came to international prominence as a boxer—twice securing the world heavyweight championship, and an Olympic gold medal, to boot—Foreman eventually evolved into a larger-than-life media figure whose other titles included “minister,” “author,” and, of course, “one of the planet’s most massively successful grill salesmen.” Per The New York Times, Foreman died on Friday, with no cause of death revealed; he was 76.
Born in Texas, and—per his own autobiography, a “troubled youth” who sometimes operated as a mugger—Foreman turned his life around when he was 16, applying to the U.S. government’s Job Corps program. After getting his GED and undergoing vocational training, he also began training as an amateur boxer, foregoing a football career in favor of the ring. By the time he was 27, Foreman achieved a feat that, for many people in his position, might have represented “peaking”: Winning the gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Instead of stopping there, though, Foreman went pro, developing a reputation for meanness (and victory), cultivating rivalries with Muhammad Ali—who he battled, and lost to, in the famed “Rumble In The Jungle”—and ultimately retiring (for the final time, after several stints away from the sport) with a 76-5 record in the late ’90s, having transformed himself from boxing’s hard-faced young striver into the smiling elder statesman of the sport.
A gifted self-promoter, Foreman’s knack for marketing extended outside of the ring, of course: Besides regular gigs as a ringside analyst—and his lifelong devotion to ministerial work—he also became one of the most effective pitchmen of his era, most notably with the George Foreman Grill. Produced by Salton Inc., the grill leveraged Foreman’s reputation for toughness and fitness to help install itself in more than 100 million homes, and to make Foreman an extremely wealthy man; although it’s never been revealed exactly how much Foreman ended up making from the endorsement deal, it’s believed that his earnings from the grill far out-stripped his winnings from his boxing career. And all of it tied into the genial pleasantness projected by his late-phase career, whether joking about his quirks—like naming all five of his sons George, and one of his daughters Georgetta—or simply appearing on TV with the soft smile of a man who knew, as definitively as a human being probably could, that he could out-punch every person he was in a room with 99.9 percent of the time.
Foreman’s death, on Friday, March 21, was reported by his family on his official Instagram account. Family members wrote that Foreman was “A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose. A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two time heavyweight champion of the world, He was deeply respected—a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name—for his family.”