Few filmmakers can say their work has changed the real world, but Morgan Spurlock has a stronger claim than most: His 2004 documentary, Super Size Me, an expose on how the fast-food industry contributes to America’s obesity epidemic, seemed to have a direct impact on McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain.
Shortly before the film’s release in May of that year, the chain introduced the “Go Active!” menu, which included salad options, but dropped the super-sized menu items entirely six weeks after the film’s release.
McDonald’s claims the menu changes were coincidental, but the death of the president, who died at age 53 from complications from cancer, dealt the company a timely blow at a time of growing awareness of the harmful impact of fast food on public health.
Super Size Me’s high-concept premise – eating McDonald’s meals for 30 days in a row – was key to getting Spurlock’s message across. Spurlock gained 25 pounds, increased his body fat from 11 to 18 percent, and self-induced palpitations, impotence, and depression. His unorthodox approach put him at the forefront of the Michael Moore-initiated documentary boom of the early 2000s. “There’s real power in documentaries,” Spurlock later said.
Questions were raised about Spurlock’s exhaustion experiments after he refused to release his food logs from the time, and it was later revealed that he was an alcoholic and drank alcohol during filming.
A consummate attention-lover and twinkle-eyed showman, he wasn’t going to let such minutiae bleed into the purity of Super Size Me’s marketing line or his own development as a documentary star, the budding Moore of the Jackass generation. Though he consistently targeted symbols of modern capitalism and consumerism, none of his subsequent films had the same impact as his 2004 electrifying hit.
Spurlock was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and raised in Beckley in a Methodist household, with his father, Ben, who ran an auto repair shop, and his mother, Phyllis, an English teacher and high school counselor. Though his parents later divorced, Spurlock credits his mother, in particular, with instilling in him an activist mindset. “My mother was the type of person who would speak up if she didn’t agree with something. She was also great at bringing people together. If you had the power to help people, you should,” she told the International Documentary Association.
As a child he loved British humor such as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, and at the age of six or seven he was already demonstrating his talent as an entertainer by going on “funny walks” around the house.
After being rejected five times by the University of Southern California’s film school, he graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1993. “I wanted to be Spielberg, I wanted to write and direct scripted movies,” Spurlock told Interview magazine. He originally showed promise in this field, winning an award at the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 for his stage play “Phoenix.”
After roles as a personal assistant in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway and Luc Besson’s Léon (both 1994), Spurlock first appeared in front of the cameras as a promotional spokesman for Sony Electronics. But his big break came when he jumped on the reality TV bandwagon with his own Internet webcast and, later (in 2002), the MTV show I Bet You Will. As one of the hosts, Spurlock would provoke and humiliate audience members for money, performing stunts such as wedgieing and eating a worm burrito.
Super Size Me grossed $22 million on a budget of $65,000, making it one of the most profitable documentaries of all time. Spurlock credited his then-girlfriend, vegan chef Alex Jamison, with helping him lose the weight through a special diet, but he never fully recovered. (The two married in 2006 and had a son, Laken, before divorcing in 2011. Spurlock was previously married to Priscilla Sommer from 1996 to 2003.)
He also expressed doubts about the long-term impact of Super Size Me on fast-food companies, later reflecting: “People ask me, ‘So does it make food healthier?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, the marketing certainly does.'”
Despite tackling blockbuster subjects like terrorism (2008’s Where’s Osama Bin Laden?) and product placement and advertising (2011’s POM: The Greatest Movie Ever Made), Spurlock never managed to critique the zeitgeist again with a second “documentary buster.” Wearing his trademark moustache, he was a relatable, if sometimes silly, presence in front of the camera, exploring socio-cultural issues and vulnerabilities.
In total, he directed or produced around 70 films and series, including the 2013 One Direction biopic and the 2017 sequel to Super Size Me. But throughout this prolific body of work, he maintained a sharp business acumen and marketing nous: “He taught us that you have to be a CEO artist,” fellow documentary maker Ondi Timoner told Variety.
Towards the end of Spurlock’s life, he Blog Posts from 2017 The allegations of sexual abuse included accusations of being raped in college and paying bribes to production assistants who harassed him. “I’ve cheated on every single one of my wives and girlfriends,” he wrote, explaining that he was sexually abused when he was younger. He may have been disclosing all of this in advance, anticipating future allegations amid the rise of the #MeToo movement.
It’s true to his style to make himself the focus of the story, and his professed desire for self-improvement could certainly have made for a fascinating documentary.
But the apology turned into a de facto repudiation, and he resigned from Warrior Poets, the production company he founded in 2004, and was sued by Turner Entertainment Networks over canceled projects.
He divorced his third wife, producer Sarah Bernstein, in 2024, with whom he has two sons. His last documentary was a fake history mockumentary based on the 1992 classic The Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat.”
Spurlock is survived by his children Laken and Karen, his parents, and his brothers Craig and Barry.
