Chris Crowley is the co-author (with leading New York internist, Harry Lodge M.D.) of Younger Next Year, a New York Times best selling guide to “living like fifty until you’re eighty and beyond.” And of the successful, follow-on book, Younger Next Year for Women. With over a quarter of a million copies sold – all in hard-cover –the books have become the “Boomer’s Bible”, on matters of fitness, fun and the committed life. They have a passionate following. A Washington Post review called the first book “brain rattling, irresistible and hilarious,” and predicted, “it could change your life.” That turns out to be quite true, as a good many hundreds of letters and e-mails attest.
Chris Crowley was born in 1934 in Salem Massachusetts (where they hanged the witches, by the way…didn't burn them. It was in Europe that they burned them.) He graduated from 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 & Wardwell, most of it as a partner in litigation. He did the usual run of big securities and antitrust cases and investigations. He headed a team of 40 lawyers in what was the largest contested take-over up to that time. He initiated – and successfully argued in the U.S. Supreme Court – a case to get more African-American and Hispanic policemen hired and promoted on the New York City Police Department. He was that comparative rarity, a very happy lawyer, he says, and adds that he may have retired a little too soon. But the idea was to lead more than one life.
He retired in 1991 and moved, with his wife, the portrait painter Hilary Cooper, to Aspen Colorado to put in some time as an aging ski-bum. He also worked on various writing projects and came up with the idea for what would be the Younger Next Year books. He and Hilary are passionate skiers, bikers, hikers and sailors. Recently, they have both taken up single sculling.
They moved back east when Hilary broke her neck ten years ago. She is almost fully recovered…a major miracle in their lives. Hilary has a book of her portraits (and the story of her fall) coming out in the spring called Divided Portraits. Chris is at work on a proposal for a book of “kedges”…motivational trips like rowing the Head of the Charles in Massachusetts , biking the “Triple By-pass” in the Colorado Rockies and so on. He says he has created the perfect job for himself: it is his duty to have a terrific time in his 70's…then write and talk about it. To pump up the spirits of the Baby Boom generation about their future. There is also the inevitable novel in the works. They have three children (Chris, Tim and Ranie) some of whom are older than some of them. They also have five (soon to be six) grandchildren. Chris and Hilary live in Lakeville Connecticut and New York City with the excellent dog, Olive, a Havanese of sturdy character.
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