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 1980s, 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 preached in his hometown of Houston.

In recent years, Foreman has 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.

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 knock-outs 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.

More to come