THE GOLDEN YEARS

Joseph Pilates and his second wife Clara opened up a gym at 939 Eighth Ave. in New York in a building that housed a number of dance studios and rehearsal places.  Dancers were sent to Joseph Pilates’ gym to be “fixed”.    From 1939-1951 Joe and Clara when to Jacob’s Pillow a dance camp in Berkshire Mountains.  Joseph Pilates knew and taught many dancers and choreographers as well many dance teachers required their students to go to Joseph.  Joseph’s clients also included socialites, plumbers, doctors among many others.  While Pilates is good for keeping in shape and healthy, Joseph Pilates himself was renowned for liking cigars, whiskey and women.  He was the life of many parties and was known to run along the streets of Manhattan in winter in his “bikini bottom” training attire.  He believed in fitness supporting life’s richest goals.

Did Joseph Pilates die in a fire?  According to Mary Bowen, one of Joseph Pilates’ disciples, no he did not die in a fire.  There was a fire in the storage room at the back of the floor they, Joe and Clara and the studio were on.  Neither the studio nor their apartment was damaged.  This was in 1965. 

Two years in 1967 later he did die but of advanced emphysema from smoking cigars for too long, something he took up out of disappointment that he wasn’t taken more seriously by peers, especially physicians, during his lifetime.  Joe Pilates continued to develop and teach his method at his studio well into his 80’s.   He enjoyed great vitality and vigor provided by his method right up until the end and was proud that he had never taken aspirin nor had a sick day in his life. 

His wife Clara continued to teach and run the studio for another ten years after his death until the end of her life in 1977.   By many she was regarded as the more superb teacher. 

Many people and dancers went through Pilates’ studio.  Many of his clients became his students and went on to become Pilates instructors and studios owners of their own bringing their own flavor and interpretation to Joseph’s method.  These first generation instructors are referred to as the elders Ron Fletcher being one of the elders.  It is said that initially Hollywood celebrities discovered Pilates through Ron Fletcher’s studio in Beverly Hills.  And from here the Pilates craze blossomed.  Joseph called his method of exercise Contrology but the public called it Pilates.  It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when the Pilates fitness boom really started.  It was no longer exercise for the elite.  It had entered the mainstream of fitness and even established itself as a physiotherapeutic modality in its own right.  “I’m fifty years ahead of my time.” Joe claimed – and he was right.