Remembering George Foreman

Depending on when you were born you might remember George Foreman as the amiable big guy on your TV selling those neat cooking grills that allowed you to barbecue inside! The grills were electric and portable and could be used inside as an alternative to outdoor charcoal grilling. Foreman helped make the grills an American kitchen mainstay. They also promoted  a healthy way of eating, something that was just being introduced to the American public.

But before becoming a grill master and sitcom star, Foreman was an American professional boxer, a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist. He was also a businessman, minister, and author. In boxing, he competed between 1967 and 1997 and was nicknamed “Big George.” George Foreman passed away on Friday, March 21, in Houston at age 76. No cause of death was mentioned.

George Edward Foreman was born on Jan. 10, 1949, in Marshall, Texas. His father, J.D. Foreman, was a railroad construction worker. His mother was Nancy Ree (Nelson) Foreman. As an adult, he learned that his biological father was a man named Leroy Moorehead.

George Foreman was a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist. PHOTO: EL GRITO, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Foreman was honest about having been a bully and a petty criminal in his youth. After dropping out of school, he joined the Job Corps at 16.

At 17, he tried his hand at boxing. Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; just a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968. Foreman’s boxing career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the ’80s and Evander Holyfield in the ’90s. With his fellow heavyweights Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America.

“It was unbelievable,” the New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley wrote. “In little more than four and a half minutes, George Foreman destroyed Joe Frazier tonight, and the man who supposedly couldn’t lose never had even one ghost of a chance for victory. So, there is a new heavyweight champion of the world, and he won it with authority in an explosive demonstration of overpowering punching skills.”

Foreman defended the title twice before a match with Ali in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974 that would become known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” This time, Foreman was the favorite, but Ali reclaimed the title, dealing Foreman his first career loss.

The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio. He finished with a professional record of 76-5 and is widely regarded as one of the 10 best heavyweight fighters of all time; a Ring magazine survey in 2017 ranked him seventh. He was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003.

Foreman’s affability helped him transcend boxing and cross over into the media world. In 1999, Salton Inc. paid $137.5 million for worldwide rights to use Foreman’s name on grills; Foreman got about 75% of the payout. He also endorsed mufflers, fried chicken and chips. In 1993-94, he starred in “George,” a short-lived sitcom on ABC in which he played a retired boxer helping troubled youth, and he made guest appearances on several other shows over the years. He appeared in a Venus-flytrap costume on the reality competition show “The Masked Singer” in 2022. His performance of “Get Ready” by the Temptations was not enough to stave off elimination.

In addition to his brother, Foreman is survived by his wife, Mary Joan Martelly, whom he married in 1985. He had previously been married four times. He is also survived by six daughters, Natalie, Leola, Michi, Georgetta, Isabella and Courtney Foreman; five sons; 15 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Freeda Foreman, died in 2019. All of Foreman’s sons are named George: George Jr., George III, George IV, George V and George VI. In 2005, he collaborated with the author Fran Manushkin on a children’s book called “Let George Do It!” about a household full of Georges, like his own. We send condolences to the family of the giant of a man, “Big George” Foreman. May he rest in peace.