50 Years Ago Today: Jerome Rodale Dies on The Dick Cavett Show

And the title of this post isn’t show biz hyperbole. I don’t mean his jokes didn’t go over. I mean that Jerome Rodale (Jerome Cohen, 1898-1971) keeled over and drew his last breath while he was a guest onThe Dick Cavett Show.

Heft is added to the anecdote when you include the fact that Rodale was one of the nation’s premiere health food activists. He was the founder of Prevention magazine (still extant), as well as the Rodale Institute, and the author of several books. Like all such American characters, Rodale was given to hyperbole, although he seemed genuine in his convictions. He preached on the evils of sugar, carbs, and soda. He was one of the principal architects of a kind of semi-revolution in American dietary habits, helping to take us from the time of universal bacon-and-egg breakfasts and steak-and-potatoes dinners to one where a portion of the population at least began to practice better judgment and strive for moderation and balance. (I say “a portion” because, in case it’s not obvious to you, the nation has been experiencing an epidemic of obesity for quite some time now, thanks to the corn lobby and the proliferation of fast food). Rodale’s core message made sense, but he stooped to quackery a lot of the time, recommending all sorts of unproven and untested dietary supplements and making wild claims such as “happy people rarely get cancer”. He was also an anti-vaxxer, back when that was an even more controversial stance than it is now. He was neither a doctor nor a scientist, however. Prior to his health food conversion he had been an accountant and a factory owner.

Rodale was a seemingly hale and hearty 72 when he went on Cavett’s show. As though he were tempting the Gods, his last words were a series of boasts, such as “I have never felt better in my life!”, “I’m in such good health that I fell down a long flight of stairs yesterday and I laughed all the way”, and most ominously, “I’ve decided to live to be a hundred!”

Then he uttered a strange noise, his dead drooped, and he stopped moving. Cavett initially assumed it was a stunt or joke of some kind, and tried to play off it, but guest Pete Hamill thought otherwise, and it quickly became obvious that the man was in trouble. Two audience members happened to be doctors and they rushed onstage to attempt CPR. First responders arrived and took him to Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced DOA. The episode they were taping obviously never aired.

I just noticed that Rodale lived and died the same years as my maternal grandfather (1898-1971). My grandfather looked a good 10 or 20 years older than Rodale towards the end of his life. But his favorite breakfast was hot shredded wheat. My survey sample could be larger but based on this data, I’m going to have to conclude that healthy food kills you at age 72, so go ahead and eat bacon and eggs. After all, that will make you happy, and happiness cures cancer!

For more on show biz history,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.