Lisa Lyon, bodybuilding pioneer and Marvel inspiration, dead at 70

Lisa Lyon, a pioneer in professional women’s bodybuilding and Playboy model, has died. She was 70.

A friend of Lyon reportedly told TMZ that Lyon died Friday at her home in the San Fernando Valley where she was in hospice care.

The cause of death was stomach cancer, the source claimed.

A rep for Lyon could not immediately be reached by The Post. We have contacted Playboy for comment.

Fellow bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger honored Lyon in a statement to TMZ, raving, “She is the best. I love her.”

Lyon put women’s bodybuilding on the map in 1980 when she won the first International Federation of Bodybuilders Woman’s World Pro Bodybuilding Championship.

She also posed for Playboy that year and would go on to be featured in lots of health and fitness magazines. 

Lyon even posed for famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1982, who was known for his stunning black-and-white portraits.

Comic book writer Frank Miller also modeled the Marvel Comics character Elektra off of Lyon.

Her book “Lisa Lyon’s Body Magic,” which served as a guide to at-home bodybuilding, was published in 1981.

She also had a short acting career in “Three Crowns of the Sailor” in 1983, the bodybuilding movie “Getting Physical” in 1984, and in “Vamp” alongside Grace Jones in 1986.

She was inducted into the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federal Hall of Fame in 2000 for elevating bodybuilding to an art form.