Sad times for all of us at Les Mills with the recent death of Les’ wife Colleen from illness at the age of 71. Colleen was simply amazing. Larger than life, a straight shooter and famous for those enormous, all encompassing embraces that left you breathless. Everyone has a famous Colleen story – she was memorable and saw through everything! She left her dent on the world!
Like Les, Colleen was an outstanding athlete, representing New Zealand in her specialist event, the 400m. She also worked closely with Les on the gym business they started in 1968 and was brilliant as Mayoress of Auckland in the eight years Les was Mayor – colorful, spirited and strong.
Colleen was also very much involved in the creation of the Les Mills group fitness programs. She worked closely with Phillip on developing the “jazzercise” program he introduced in the early 1980s and made a huge contribution in discovering and training our first instructors. She was responsible for talent spotting a promising young instructor by the name of Mike McSweeney (our BODYPUMP Program Director) in the Wellington gym in 1987. Colleen was always prepared to roll her sleeves up for the donkey work too – she’d spend hours drawing figures for the first choreography manuals – no fancy graphics packages in those days!!!
Colleen was a down-to-earth person who called it as she saw it. She was kind to a fault and shined a special light into all our lives. She’ll be sadly missed and our love goes out to Les, Phillip, Donna and family XXXXX.
Em