Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who gained fame along with his Oscar-nominated 2004 movie “Tremendous Dimension Me,” which adopted him as he ate nothing however McDonald’s for 30 days — however who later stepped again from the general public eye after admitting to sexual misconduct — died on Thursday in upstate New York. He was 53.
His brother Craig Spurlock and stated the trigger was issues of most cancers. He declined to specify the place he died.
Mr. Spurlock was a playwright and a tv producer when, throughout a Thanksgiving go to to his mother and father in 2002, he noticed a TV information report about two ladies who had sued McDonald’s, claiming it had misled them concerning the dietary worth of its hamburgers, fries and sodas, which prompted them to realize important weight.
“A spokesman for McDonald’s got here on and stated, you may’t hyperlink their weight problems to our meals — our meals is wholesome, it’s nutritious,” he instructed The New York Instances in 2004. “I assumed, ‘If it’s so good for me, I ought to be capable of eat it daily, proper?’”
A self-described consideration hound with a eager eye for the absurd, Mr. Spurlock hit on an thought for a documentary. He would eat nothing however McDonald’s meals for a month, and if a server provided to “supersize” the meal — that’s, give him the biggest parts out there for every merchandise — he would settle for.
“Tremendous Dimension Me” follows Mr. Spurlock, and his ever-patient girlfriend, by his 30-day odyssey, splicing in interviews with well being consultants and visits to his more and more disturbed doctor. On the finish of the month, he was 25 kilos heavier, depressed, puffy-faced and experiencing liver dysfunction.
The movie, which debuted on the Sundance Movie Competition, blended Michael Moore’s David-versus-Goliath confrontational type with actuality TV and the incipient health-and-wellness craze.
It grossed over $22 million, made Mr. Spurlock a family identify and helped spur a sweeping backlash in opposition to the fast-food trade — although solely briefly; at the moment, McDonald’s has 42,000 places worldwide, its inventory is close to an all-time excessive, and 36 p.c of Individuals eat quick meals at the least as soon as a day.
However the movie additionally got here in for important criticism. Some identified that Mr. Spurlock refused to launch the day by day logs monitoring his meals consumption. Well being researchers had been unable to duplicate his ends in managed research.
And in 2017, he admitted that he had not been sober for greater than per week at a time in 30 years — that means that, along with his “McDonald’s solely” eating regimen, he was additionally consuming, a indisputable fact that he hid from his docs and the viewers, and that most probably skewed his outcomes.
The admission got here in a press release wherein he additionally revealed a collection of incidents of sexual misconduct, together with an encounter in school that he described as rape, in addition to repeated infidelity and the sexual harassment of an assistant at his manufacturing firm, Warrior Poets.
The announcement, which Mr. Spurlock posted on Twitter, got here as he was gearing up for the discharge of a sequel to his 2004 movie, “Tremendous Dimension Me 2: Holy Hen!” on YouTube Crimson.
He stepped down from his manufacturing firm, and YouTube dropped the movie. It was launched in 2019 by Samuel Goldwyn Movies.
A full obituary will comply with.
