Joe Clark, N.J. Principal Who Inspired Film Lean on Me Starring Morgan Freeman, Dies at 82 People 12/30/2020
Joe Clark, a high school principal who served as the inspiration for the film
Lean On Me, has died. He was 82.
According to a statement from Clark s family, the retired New Jersey principal died on Tuesday in his Gainesville, Florida home after a long battle with illness. The family did not specify the illness.
Clark was the principal of Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey, where his quest to improve the school from within earned him national attention. As the statement from his family recalled, he once expelled 300 students for fighting, vandalism, abusing teachers, and drug possession in a single day.