In 1991, when Morjorie Newlin was 72, her neighborhood supermarket had 50-pound bags of kitty litter
on sale. Without anyone to help her carry the bags back to her house, she struggled mightily under the
load. Never a particularly athletic woman, but staunchly independent, she decided that she had to do
something about her deteriorating physical capabilities.
'Though osteoporosis was also on her mind, the septuagenarian began lifting weights - for her cat.
'I want to be as independent as I can be, for as long as I can, "says Newlin, a great-grandmother and
retired nurse who turns 86 tomorrow. "I just want to do things for myself."
"I chuckled when I saw this little old lady walk inside the gym," says Richard Brown, a personal trainer at
Rivers Gym in Mt. Airy, where Newlin began her training. "I was a little leery. I was just training young
athletes at the time."
The little old lady quickly showed him what an older athlete could do.
"She kept coming in day after day, week after week, and month after month," Brown remembers. "She
didn't want to do 'girly' workouts. She wanted to train with us fellows."
"After a few months of training, I looked at her physique and knew she was ready for a [bodybuilding]
show," he continues. "She definitely had something to show."
Newlin was bench-pressing 65 pounds when she was 73 years old. A year later she was throwing up
85. Prior to her death, Newlin, while retired from body building, was still training at least three days a
week,and could still throw down with the best of them. She could bench-press 90 pounds with a spotter
and dead lift 95 pounds. She was able to squat 135 pounds.
The bodybuilding competitions are broken into two divisions. Newlin's first competition was in the
Amateur Athletic Union, which is open to the public.
Newlin recalls being a little reluctant when she saw the string bikini she'd have to wear in front of the
bodybuilding audience.
"I knew the contest meant a lot to my trainer so I went along with it," she says. To everyone's surprise,
Newlin won. The crowd went crazy on hearing she was 74 years old.
Newlin began her competition career in that AAU's Master's Division, which splits contestants into two
categories: under and over a certain age limit, usually 35 or 45 years old. Newlin obviously fell way over
the dividing line, wherever it was set, but was competing and winning against women half her age.
"I was always the oldest in all my competitions," says Newlin.
She won her first trophy in 1992, placing first in the Mid-Atlantic USA competition and winning two other
top spots that same year. She went on to make the top three in competitions across the United States,
including winning third place in the masters’ category of the World Physique Federation’s International
competition, which took place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in 2004, drawing contestants from
130 countries.
Her success as an octogenarian body builder champion earned her local and national recognition from
the Philadelphia press to the Oprah Winfrey, Today Show, The View, and Tyra Banks shows. She also
was a highly requested guest speaker throughout the country.
'She's won more than 40 trophies in her late-blooming career. "There are so many, I don't know what to
do with all of them," she says.' Philadelphia Citypaper.net
While always petite and never overweight — she said in a 2006 article that her mother sent her cod liver
oil capsules to keep her weight up while she was in college — her will to remain independent prompted
her to start lifting weights.
Personal trainer Kimberly Garrison learned about her from a 1990s story in The Philadelphia Inquirer
and was so impressed that she cut out the article and laminated it for inspiration. When Garrison began
writing for the Daily News in 2004, Newlin was the subject of her first column.
Garrison described Newlin as a "very down-to-earth lady. ... She always said she didn't know why people
were making such a big fuss out of her — we're supposed to take care of ourselves."
Newlin was more than just an exceptionally fit woman: "She was stylish, too," said Garrison. "Not only did
she look great, but she had great personal style. Whenever we were out or I'd pick her up, she'd have
on her leather pants and her little Nine West pumps.
"Here she was, a mother of four, in better shape than women a quarter of her age and she could rock a
bikini. The only thing she had you would ever associate with being an elderly person is a hearing aid."
MORJORIE NEWLIN