Business
George Foreman Turned a Home Grill Into a Culinary Heavyweight
The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine was the kitchen appliance America didn’t know it needed.
When it arrived in the mid-1990s, Food Network and food blogging had just been born. Martha Stewart was redefining home entertaining, and Richard Simmons had made low-fat fun. Salsa was outselling ketchup for the first time, a reflection of the country’s changing demographics and its surging interest in food and cooking.
Mr. Foreman, who had left boxing and became an evangelical preacher, was making money as a pitchman for Doritos and mufflers. He wasn’t an instant convert to the grill. An early model that the Salton company shipped him, as it searched for a spokesman, sat unused until his wife, Mary, pulled it out and made a couple of hamburgers.
Mr. Foreman agreed to let Salton, a manufacturer of juice extractors and pasta makers, slap his name on the grill, and by 1996 it had sold $5 million worth. The company would go on to sell more than 100 million of the appliances.
The George Foreman Grill infused itself into all layers of society. It became a dorm-room staple and a star on late-night television. Chefs at the sprawling Tavern on the Green in New York City set one up near the dining room to quickly grill tuna steaks for salade niçoise. Jimmy Breslin, the tough-talking newspaper columnist from Queens, kept one on the counter in his New York apartment and raved about it to visitors.
Mr. Foreman, who died on Friday at age 76, provided the magic that Salton needed to sell its recent acquisition, a countertop appliance with two nonstick metal grill plates held together with a floating hinge that could close over a beef patty and cook it in about two minutes.
And here was the real innovation: The grooved grilling surface was pitched 20 degrees so the fat would drain from the meat into a little plastic tray.
Low-fat food was wildly popular then, along with a newfound appreciation for cooking, especially for a generation that began toting the little grills to dorm rooms and first apartments.
Teri Anulewicz, a Georgia politician, was among them. Like countless young people just starting out on their own, she had received a George Foreman as a gift. In her first Atlanta apartment, which had no vent hood and no dishwasher, she pressed countless chicken breasts coated in Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic between those metal plates.
“I was a young woman,” she said, “who knew, thanks to always reading Cooking Light, that the boneless skinless chicken breast sat at the very top of the food pyramid for young women on a nonprofit salary.”
The George Foreman had a macho appeal, too. It played into the man-at-the-grill cliché, but was also a gateway appliance for young men looking to join a food revolution that was gaining traction.
The grill was also practical for vegetarians, who discovered that it kept 1990s-era vegetarian burgers from falling apart.
But its runaway success owed as much to its pitchman: a grinning former heavyweight champion of the world, dressed in an apron and a necktie. The infomercial was the perfect vehicle for Mr. Foreman, who mixed a preacher’s charisma and unabashed need to earn money with international fame to create a hit.
“You get all the flavor and you knock out the fat,” he’d say. “Tell them the king of the grill sent you.”
The celebrity chef Bobby Flay started watching boxing as a kid during the golden age of the heavyweight bout, when Mr. Foreman and Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were superstars. He remembers what a revelation it was that a boxing champion could be the face of grilling.
“It made no sense, except it made perfect sense,” Mr. Flay said in an interview on Saturday. “His personality was so unbelievably infectious.”
The grill itself was pretty ingenious, too. “It was really the first American version of the panini machine,” he said.
Line extensions followed, including a cookbook, a version just for quesadillas and a grill with a colorful plastic dome that served as a bun warmer.
Mr. Foreman earned a hefty cut of the royalties from grill sales. “There were months I was being paid $8 million per month,” he told the A.A.R.P. magazine in a 2014 interview. He and his partners sold their slice of the business in 1999 for an estimated $137.5 million.
The grill’s cultural cachet endures. The writer, actor and producer Mindy Kaling made it the star of a 2006 episode of “The Office.” The bumbling lead character, Michael Scott, burns his foot on one he kept next to his bed so he could make bacon for breakfast more efficiently.
Fancier appliance makers now sell versions that can cost nearly $200. And the George Foreman Grill company produces models that are smokeless, submersible or designed to grill 15 burgers outdoors.
But the 1995 model remains the classic. You can see one at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, near the first microwave, the Rival Crock-Pot and Julia Child’s complete kitchen.
Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison made his case directly to theater owners Thursday, pledging to release a minimum of 30 films a year from the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery company during a speech at the CinemaCon trade convention in Las Vegas.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison said in a brief on-stage speech, adding that Paramount has already nearly doubled its film lineup for this year with 15 planned releases, up from eight in 2025.
He also said all films will remain in theaters exclusively for 45 days, starting Thursday. Films will then go to streaming platforms in 90 days. The amount of time that films stay in theaters — known as windowing — has been a controversial topic for theater owners, as some studios reduced that period during the pandemic. Theater operators have said the shortened window has trained audiences to wait to watch films at home and cuts into theater revenues.
“I have dedicated the last 20 years of my life to elevating and preserving film,” said Ellison, clad in a dark jacket and shirt with blue jeans. “And at Paramount, we want to tell even more great stories on the big screen — stories that make people think, laugh, dream, wonder and feel — and we want to share them with as broad an audience as possible.”
Ellison’s CinemaCon appearance comes as more than 1,000 Hollywood actors and creatives have signed a letter opposing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Supporters of the letter have said the deal would reduce competition in the industry and “further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape.”
Some theater operators have also questioned whether the combined company could achieve its goal of releasing 30 films a year, particularly after the cost cuts that are expected after the merger closes.
“People can speculate all they want — but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment,” Ellison said. “And we’ll show you we mean it.”
The speech came after a star-studded video directed by “Wicked: For Good” director Jon M. Chu that was shot on the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue and showcased directors and actors including Issa Rae, Will Smith, Chris Pratt, James Cameron and Timothée Chalamet that are working with the company.
The video closed with “Top Gun” actor Tom Cruise perched atop the Paramount water tower.
“As you saw, the Paramount lot is alive again,” Ellison said after the video. “And we could not be more excited.”
new video loaded: Why Your Paycheck Feels Smaller
By Ben Casselman, Nour Idriss, Sutton Raphael and Stephanie Swart
April 18, 2026
Nearly two years after actor Alec Baldwin was cleared of criminal charges in the “Rust” movie shooting death, a long simmering civil negligence case is inching toward a trial this fall.
On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a summary judgment motion requested by the film producers Rust Movie Productions LLC, as well as actor-producer Baldwin and his firm El Dorado Pictures to dismiss the case.
During a hearing, Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter set an Oct. 12 trial date.
The negligence suit was brought more than four years ago by Serge Svetnoy, who served as the chief lighting technician on the problem-plagued western film. Svetnoy was close friends with cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and held her in his arms as she lay dying on the floor of the New Mexico movie set. Baldwin’s firearm had discharged, launching a .45 caliber bullet, which struck and killed her.
The Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M. in 2021.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
Svetnoy was the first crew member of the ill-fated western to bring a lawsuit against the producers, alleging they were negligent in Hutchins’ October 2021 death. He maintains he has suffered trauma in the years since. In addition to negligence, his lawsuit also accuses the producers of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against Baldwin, who has long maintained he was not responsible for Hutchins’ death.
“We are pleased with the Court’s decision denying the motions for summary judgment filed by Rust Movie Productions and Mr. Baldwin,” lawyers Gary Dordick and John Upton, who represent Svetnoy, said in a statement following the hearing. “He looks forward to finally having his day in court on this long-pending matter.”
The judge denied the defendants’ request to dismiss the negligence, emotional distress and punitive damages claims. One count directed at Baldwin, alleging assault, was dropped.
Svetnoy has said the bullet whizzed past his head and “narrowly missed him,” according to the gaffer’s suit.
Attorneys representing Baldwin and the producers were not immediately available for comment.
Svetnoy and Hutchins had been friends for more than five years and worked together on nine film productions. Both were immigrants from Ukraine, and they spent holidays together with their families.
On Oct. 21, 2021, he was helping prepare for an afternoon of filming in a wooden church on Bonanza Creek Ranch. Hutchins was conversing with Baldwin to set up a camera angle that Hutchins wanted to depict: a close-up image of the barrel of Baldwin’s revolver.
The day had been chaotic because Hutchins’ union camera crew had walked off the set to protest the lack of nearby housing and previous alleged safety violations with the firearms on the set.
Instead of postponing filming to resolve the labor dispute, producers pushed forward, crew members alleged.
New Mexico prosecutors prevailed in a criminal case against the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, in March 2024. She served more than a year in a state women’s prison for her involuntary manslaughter conviction before being released last year.
Baldwin faced a similar charge, but the case against him unraveled spectacularly.
On the second day of his July 2024 trial, his criminal defense attorneys — Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro — presented evidence that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies withheld evidence that may have helped his defense . The judge was furious, setting Baldwin free.
Variety first reported on Friday’s court action.
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