Women’s bodybuilding pioneer Lisa Lyon has passed away at 70 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, according to TMZ.
Lyon, who also posed for Playboy in 1980, had been treated in a hospice in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
While being best known as a bodybuilder, she is also believed to have inspired Frank Miller to create the Marvel Comics character Elektra. In 2005, Jennifer Garner starred in ‘Elektra’ action film.
But Lyon’s impact stretched wider than the comic book world. She wrote a book on bodybuilding – ‘Lisa Lyon’s Body Magic’ – in 1980 and struck up a friendship with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He is even quoted by TMZ as saying that Lyon ‘is the best – I love her’.
Women’s bodybuilding pioneer Lisa Lyon has passed away at age 70 after battling cancer
Lyon believed to have inspired Frank Miller to create the Marvel Comics character Elektra
In 2000, she entered the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Hall of Fame and was, according to GreatestPhysiques.Com, described as ‘a one-woman media-relations activist on behalf of the sport and Elevating bodybuilding to the level of fine art’.
Lyon also modeled for Robert Mapplethorpe – a photographer who is best known for photographing the artist Andy Warhol – as well as Helmut Newton and Joel-Peter Witkin.
But it was Mapplethorpe’s 1983 book ‘Lady, Lisa Lyon’ that may be her most remembered work.
‘It was as if she sought to bring herself to the edge that partitions the sexes without altogether crossing it,’ critic Arthur C. Danto is quoted as saying in the book, ‘Robert Mapplethorpe.’
‘Female body-building has come a long way since Lisa Lyon, and, what with the use of steroids, there are women whose female attributes seem relics of a prior existence,’ Danto continued.
Women’s bodybuilding pioneer Lisa Lyon has passed away at age 70 after battling cancer
‘Lyon, by contrast, is startlingly feminine in Mapplethorpe’s photographs, and it is difficult for us to see her masculinity. Mapplethorpe photographed her in certain costumes that were perhaps meant to put her masculine identity into relief—lacy lingerie, bridal veil, and so on—but these seem to have the reverse effect of that intended.’
According to numerous bodybuilding websites, Lyon was born in 1953 – meaning she is around 70 years old – but the exact date is not given.
She was born and raised in Los Angeles and also appeared in three films in the 80s, after her profile increased following her Playboy work.
In 1983, she was in Thee Crowns of the Sailor and a year later was seen in Getting Physical. Her last appearance, in 1986, was in Vamp.