Chris Crowley

Chris Crowley is the New York Times bestselling co-author (with leading NY internist Henry S. Lodge M.D.) of the Younger Next Year books which have sold well over a million copies and have been translated into 20 languages worldwide. The Younger Next Year books have been called ‘The Boomers’ Bible’ and ‘The Best thing Ever Written’ about fitness and wellness. They have become “cult books” for that generation.

In 2013, Chris was the co-author (with Tufts professor of nutrition and muscle physiology, Jen Sacheck, Ph.D.) of Thinner This Year. Thinner This Year is an in-depth look at the key issues raised in Younger Next Year, with particular emphasis on nutrition and exercise.

These days, Chris spends most of his time as a keynote speaker on the Revolution in Behavior and Aging. Which, he says, is “one of the most important things in each of our lives and in the life of the Republic today. The combination of the slop we eat and our bone-idleness is wrecking our lives and ruining the economy. We have to change,” he says, “and we will.”

Chris was born in Salem Massachusetts, where they hanged the witches in the late 1600’s. (It was in Europe, by the way, where they burned them.) Chris says several of his ancestors were living in Salem at the time, but “none of them were caught.” He is a graduate of Exeter (1953), Harvard College (1957) and The University of Virginia Law School (1965). He spent his 25 year professional career at the New York City law firm, Davis Polk, most of it as a partner in litigation.

Career highlights include having led a team of 40 lawyers in the largest contested takeover case up to that time and bringing – and successfully arguing before The Supreme Court – a pro bono case to get more AfricanAmerican and Hispanic policemen hired and promoted in the New York City Police Department.

Chris considers himself that comparative rarity: a happy lawyer but he retired early, at 56, because he ‘wanted to live more than one life.’ After retirement Chris and his wife, the portrait painter Hilary Cooper, moved to Aspen Colorado for five years where she painted and he lived out his old dream of being a ski bum and leading the vigorous, outdoor life. During this period, he got the idea for what would become the Younger Next Year books.

Had a life-changing experience in 1996 when Hilary broke her neck, and very nearly died, in a fall down a steep staircase in an old Victorian house in Denver, where she was doing a portrait. She was expected to be a quadriplegic. Instead, she is ‘one in a thousand’ to walk away and have a normal life after such an accident. Copies of her X-rays appear in a medical text. Her recovery is the central miracle in their lives.

Today Hilary is back to full mobility and deep into her painting. She and Chris are both passionate about biking, skiing, rowing and generally trying to live the Younger/Thinner life. Chris and Hilary live in New York City and Lakeville Connecticut with Olive, a Havanese Mountain Dog… a designation created just for her remarkable self.