Fitness studio and Stop the Insanity! infomercial With the money she inherited after the death of her mother in 1988, Powter opened her own fitness studio in Dallas, the Susan Powter Wellness Center. In 1990, Powter approached Dallas publicity representative Rusty Robertson to promote her studio, and Robertson booked her on local radio shows.
Gerald Frankel (known as Jerry) and his brother Richard Frankel proposed a business partnership with Powter after hearing her on the radio and visiting her studio. At the time, Gerald owned Jerell Inc., a $60 million women's apparel manufacturer. The company had been embroiled in lawsuits with clothing designer Sandra Garratt (creator of
Multiples and
Units) for failing to pay royalties. These were charges he denied in court; similar to Powter, the designer was driven into bankruptcy fighting the legal case. Together, Susan and the Frankels created the Susan Powter Corporation. The Frankels invested about $800,000 in the corporation, and Gerald was the president. The corporation paid Susan a salary based on profits, which started at $4,000 a month and later increased to $30,000 a month. Net profits were split, with Susan receiving 42.5%, the Frankel brothers splitting another 42.5%, and Robertson as Powter's personal manager, receiving the remaining 15%. a subsidiary of
Fingerhut, selling an $80 kit developed by Robertson and Susan, which included motivational audiotapes, low-fat recipes, and calipers to measure body fat. At its peak, they were selling about 15,000 kits per week. Powter and her infomercial would go on to win three awards at the National Infomercial Marketing Association convention.
Other ventures under the Susan Powter Corporation The aerobics studio in Dallas continued, and the corporation added a line of exercise clothes for larger sizes. Susan became a national celebrity and published her first book,
Stop the Insanity!, which became a national bestseller in the first week. This was quickly followed by
Pocket Powter, a paperback book for which she got a $2 million advance, and a third book titled
Food. She also released four exercise videos under a contract with
A*Vision, a unit of Atlantic Recording. On television, she had a two-year contract as a health consultant on
Home. She began her own talk show,
The Susan Powter Show, which ran for one season and was carried by almost 200 television stations. It was syndicated by
Multimedia Entertainment and produced by
Woody Fraser, who produced
Richard Simmons's first fitness show,
The Richard Simmons Show in 1980. She was also a special guest on the first episode of
Space Ghost Coast to Coast, titled "Spanish Translation." The creators of the television sitcom
Women of the House planned to include Powter as a cast member in their show that first aired in 1995. The series was cancelled after just one season, with Powter appearing in one episode. Powter said in 2025 that she had declined an offer to star in
Kevin Costner's 1995 film
Waterworld after receiving a personal phone call from Costner. "My manager was livid," Powter said. She reportedly told Costner she didn't see herself in the character she was being asked to portray. In 1994, the corporation's gross revenues were over $50 million. During this time, she continued to publish books. In 1996 and 1997, she published two cookbooks, and in 1997 she also published
Sober... and Staying That Way. In 1998, Powter hosted a syndicated radio talk show. It was short-lived: For example,
WSAR added her show to their line-up on April 1 in part because the station's programming had no females and Powter planned to discuss serious issues affecting women; when she said the word "vagina" in her program that same month, they labelled her a "
shock jock" and abruptly pulled her off the air. That same year, Powter released
Susan Powter Live!, a set of 12 audio cassettes and CDs with content from her radio show.
The Susan Powter Online platform and other ventures of the 2000s In 2002, Powter published
The Politics of Stupid, a book that encouraged women to take control of their minds and bodies from food manufacturers, corrupt governments, and fitness/diet industries. The book was similar in content to other popular media of that time, such as the book
Fast Food Nation and the film
Super Size Me. While her motto in her early years was, "Eat, breathe, and move", by 2002 it had evolved to, "Eat, breathe, move, and think". She also launched an online platform with message boards to foster an online community, free articles and other content; it also served as a vehicle to sell her book, videos, and subscription-based multimedia
e-zine. In 2004, while on the book tour for
The Politics of Stupid, she filmed
Trailer Park Yoga in her
Winnebago motorhome to show exercise workouts that can be done in small spaces, and released it on DVD. From 2005 to at least 2008, Powter also offered yoga and fitness classes for Rosie O'Donnell's
R Family Vacations. During this time, she also started adding a series of videos, sold in DVD packages, styled as the "Lifestyle Exchange Program". She would later include in the packages additional options such as private consultations, online cooking classes, self-esteem seminars, and recipes. In 2008, she was living in Seattle. She started the year by remaking her website to remove the community discussion boards. She also released a revised edition of
The Politics of Stupid, and prepared to release a new set of workout videos for download. She signed with a new management company:
Rosie O'Donnell's KidRo Productions.
Current activities In October 2024, Powter released her memoir,
And Then Em Died... Stop the Insanity! A Memoir. == Personal life ==