Unsung hero behind hula hoop invention dies aged 101

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Rachel Hagan

BBC News

Chris Riess and Amy Hill Photo shows Joan Anderson in a bright pink button down shirt holding a wooden hoola hoop. She is glancing up at the sky and wearing pink lipstick with brown coiffed hair. She is stood in a room with curtains drawn and a striped sofa in the background. Chris Riess and Amy Hill

Joan Anderson, who coined the name for the hula hoop and played an unsung role in its rise, has died age 101.

The former model was visiting her native Australia from her home in the US when she spotted groups of people swivelling wooden hoops around their waists.

She was so mesmerised by the growing craze in Australia that she had one of the strange new toys shipped to the US.

The 2018 documentary Hula Girl retold Ms Anderson’s story of dubbing it the hula hoop after the hip-swivelling Hawaiian dance, and how it was she and her husband who first showed it to a toy company boss.

It went on to sell millions and become a global sensation – but the couple went uncredited for their role in its rise.

Chris Riess and Amy Hill Photo shows Joan Anderson in a bright pink button down shirt and pink trousers holding a wooden hoola hoop. She smiling while sat on a striped sofa in a yellow room with flowers and glass ornaments on a coffee table and paintings on the wallChris Riess and Amy Hill

Recounting meeting the boss of American toy conglomerate Wham-O in the early 1960s, Ms Anderson told documentary makers: “We told him, ‘we’ve called it the hula hoop,’.

“He said, ‘looks like it has some merit, if it makes money for us, it’s going to make money for you’.”

Ms Anderson claimed the deal was sealed with a “gentleman’s handshake” and it began to fly off the shelves in the US.

Chris Riess and Amy Hill A black and white photo of Joan Anderson in a gingham two piece swimwear, standing with one foot cocked in a large pot and with her hands to her side Chris Riess and Amy Hill

But in the year’s that followed, the firm’s boss “kept putting us” off, Ms Anderson said, and the pair eventually filed a lawsuit which resulted in a modest financial settlement – but crucially, no formal recognition of their role in its rise.

Later accounts of its invention mentioned how an “Australian friend” brought an early version to the US.

She told documentary makers: “I think that bugged me more than anything. It was never reported correctly at all. I was not a ‘friend’.”

Chris Riess and Amy Hill Joan in a pair of dark denim jeans in an aztec shirt while spinning with a hoola hoop around her waist in a lounge with brown sofa, a grey carpet and a mirror above a mantlepieceChris Riess and Amy Hill

Born Joan Constance Manning in Sydney on 28 December 1923, she worked as a swimsuit model and met Wayne Anderson, a US Army pilot, on Bondi Beach and married him soon after.

Speaking to the BBC, the filmmaker behind the story of Ms Anderson’s life said: “Telling Joan’s story was such a rewarding experience.

“She was 94 when we met and even with everything she’d been through, she had lived an amazing, full life.

“Seeing her finally get the recognition she deserved after all those years was incredible.”

Ms Anderson died on 14 July at a nursing home in Carlsbad, California, having lived “a wonderful life”, her family said.

She is survived by two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren. Another son, Carl, died in 2023.

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