LOS ANGELES – At 65, Frank White was in dire health. A four-pack- a-day cigarette habit for nearly 50 years, a bad diet and a heavy dependence on alcohol had left him with severe respiratory problems, high blood pressure and a leaky heart valve. He was also battling rheumatoid arthritis and was more than 50 pounds overweight. He was, he later admitted, “headed for the cemetery.”
But he changed his life: He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and gave up drinking, then smoking – and not long after that, he found himself in a yoga class. He would later say that “AA gave me my life … but yoga gave me a new life to live.”
Mr. White, who died of throat cancer on Aug. 13 at 85, became a committed yogi and an inspirational figure to many as a model of healthy, energetic living in one’s senior years. He was also a leading teacher of the discipline with a large, diverse and loyal following. He taught hundreds of students over a 17-year period.
His transformation was recorded as part of the 2003 documentary film “The Fire of Yoga,” narrated by Ali MacGraw. In the film, Mr. White – then 83 – talked candidly about his lost years and his awakening, and credited his yoga practice with helping him repair his relationships with his family.
Mr. White grew up in Chicago during the Depression. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he came to Los Angeles to study acting. He married Selma Browner in the late 1940s and eventually found work as a character actor in films and later television.
He and his wife socialized with Browner’s sister Juliet and her husband, artist Man Ray, who lived in Los Angeles during the 1940s.
As film and television careers go, Mr. White’s apparently was steady but not spectacular. His credits included “Rosemary’s Baby,””Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere.” When there was no acting work, he made his living in interior design and furniture sales.
By the time he was in his mid-40s, Mr. White said, his life was in a downward spiral. He started drinking and developed a serious problem over the next 20 years before he bottomed out, reached AA and quit.
He found yoga by accident. A gifted jazz and classical pianist as a young man, he went to Los Angeles City College for a guitar class and found it had been canceled. But there was a yoga class going on and he stopped in. He would later say he felt like he was finally home.
He embraced the discipline and its spiritual, mental and physical aspects with the fervor of the converted. After two years of study, as a practitioner and as a budding instructor, Mr. White was on his way to fitness and looked a decade younger. He was able to stop taking much of the medication he had been using to treat his maladies. And he became a vegetarian.
After earning his teaching certification, he took his practice to the downtown Los Angeles Athletic Club and, at the age of 68, started teaching classes. He is credited with developing the program there, and the club’s yoga studio was named in his honor.
His mantra to his followers was basically that if he could do it at his age, they could at least give it a try.
“Life is soft and supple,” he said in an L.A. Athletic Club publication. “Death is hard and brittle. So choose one.”
Over the years, Mr. White believed he was able to reverse the aging process and control many of his health issues through yoga and holistic medicine, but he still had to contend with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His health declined further with cancer over the last six months but, his friends say, he was optimistic that there might be a reversal so he could get back to yoga.
His wife died in 1975. He is survived by two sons, Kevin and Rick; a grandson, Austin, and a brother, Jerry.
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