The 75-Year-Old Behind Jazzercise Keeps Dancing on Her Own

As the program continued to grow, Missett decided to seek a new line of credit at a bank. She didn't really need it—the business was booming. But she thought it would be smart to have, just in case. Their local bank referred the couple to its main location in Los Angeles. In L.A., she says, "We laid out our story, facts, and figures, and [the banker] looked at us and said, 'Well, I just don't think this would be a good investment for us. Yes, you're growing quickly, but that's going to be a fad. It's great that you're having fun and dancing around, but I just don't see it as something that will grow.' I said to my friend, 'He thinks of me as the little exercise girl, [without] any respect for the knowledge we have to do this and the lives we're transforming.' [Ultimately] we never, ever had to get a loan. That bank went out of business maybe five or six years later, and we're still thriving."

Missett credits her rapid, pre-social-media expansion to army wives and military women. San Diego was and is a military town, and a lot of her first clients were only temporarily deployed in the area. When those women would get transferred to other parts of the country, they'd want to bring Jazzercise with them. "I think the first military wife moved to Texas, and started a whole revelation in the state," Missett says. "Video recorders had also come out on the market, and that made it easier to learn the choreography because they could do it through videotape. That really helped us grow on a national level."

By 1982 there were more than 1,000 certified instructors teaching Jazzercise in almost all 50 states, plus some other countries. Missett's lawyers advised her that it was time to franchise the company, a decision she was at first unsure of but now counts as one of her best bets. Financially, it paid off fast. For a time Jazzercise was the number-two most profitable franchise in the nation, right behind Domino's Pizza. But the model also elped other women like Missett build their own businesses—women, Massett says, "who never thought they would do that, but discovered they had a talent for it." According to Missett, in 1983 a successful Jazzercise franchise could sustain for its owner a net annual income of $75,000, the equivalent of $187,496 in 2019.

Jazzercise is now in its fifth decade and helped give rise to the boutique fitness revolution, one of the fastest-growing segments of the exercise industry today. There are 8,500 Jazzercise franchises, across 25 countries. Together they hold approximately 32,000 classes per week, worldwide. Their global cumulative sales top $2 billion, according to the company. And their C-suite is made up of all women. Missett's daughter, Shanna—who grew up in the studio with her mother—is its president. Yet Missett is as involved as ever. She still teaches three classes a week, and still shapes the moves. But as dances have changed to incorporate more hip-hop, techno, and modern influences, how does Missett keep up? "I have two granddaughters who dance, and they're really good dancers. I get a lot of ideas from watching them, and I go to their competitions, so that's very inspiring. I also watch a lot of videos, not that I steal movements, but it [helps me] see what's going on now," she says. Recent songs she's used to choreograph routines include "We Need Love" by John Legend and "Steady Love" by India.Arie.