Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta in 1944. He began studying yoga in 1969. He arrived in America in 1971, and soon began to teach yoga in health resorts in California. In 1974, two pupils, Shirley MacLaine and Anne Marie Bennstrom, helped him to open his own school at 9441 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. He attracted celebrity pupils including the Hollywood dancer Marge Champion and the actors Keir Dullea, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, and Raquel Welch. Yoga classes were initially free, with a donation box. Maclaine told Choudhury he could not run an American yoga school like one in India, and he began to charge $5 for classes; attendance started to grow at once.
Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta in 1944. He began studying yoga in 1969. He arrived in America in 1971 and soon began to teach yoga in health resorts in California. In 1974 two pupils, Shirley MacLaine and Anne Marie Bennstrom, helped him to open his own school at 9441 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. He attracted celebrity pupils including the Hollywood dancer Marge Champion and the actors Keir Dullea, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, and Raquel Welch. Yoga classes were initially free, with a donation box. Maclaine told Choudhury he could not run an American yoga school like one in India, and he began to charge $5 for classes; attendance started to grow at once.