Fitness icon and Guinness World Record holder, Paul Gaudino, 80, of Butler is retiring after 44 years on television.

The “Paul Gaudino Family Fitness Show” first aired on April 5, 1971. The show appeared daily throughout the nation via satellite broadcast and appears on cable companies.

Gaudino said he even receives fan mail from people outside the United States.

Gaudino’s show incorporates an average person’s daily lifestyle into workout routines. He made it possible for a person of any age to perform his exercises.

He even showed workouts for people in wheelchairs and with other physical issues.

He finished filming his latest episode in December, and he is considering a finale episode in August that will air at the end of September.

Gaudino earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the longest running television fitness show in the world. Gaudino said Guinness officials took two years to validate his claim, but now after 44 years, there is no questioning his achievement.

Some people doubted his ability when he started back in 1971.

“They told me I wouldn’t last 13 weeks when I started,” Gaudino said of his friends.

Gaudino’s began earning a living as a shoemaker and serving in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959. He married his late wife, Barbara, while based in Germany.

She died Aug. 10, 2010, but she played a pivotal role in Gaudino’s show as a director and appears in workouts.

Gaudino said he enjoyed his wife working on the show, and said she complemented his work ethic.

“I was married 51 years,” he said. “She’d know my movements, knowing exactly what I’m going to do.”

Gaudino made a habit of including his family in his shows. He has five children: Debbie, Renae, Troy, John and Corey.

After his wife’s death, Dale Rongous began directing his program.

“Without him, I wouldn’t have made the 44 years,” Gaudino said.

Now Gaudino plans to move to St. Petersburg, Fla., near his son, Jon.

“It’s bittersweet,” he said. “I’m born and raised here.”

While in Florida, Gaudino said he will continue promoting the Freedom Towel. He said he made the first towel by hand in Butler, and he has raised $15,000 for veterans since then.

Gaudino said he wants the towel to be nationally known like the Pittsburgh Steelers Terrible Towel. He said he also wants to promote Butler County and veterans everywhere with the towel.

“This is going to be the home of the Freedom Towel,” he said. “Without our veterans, we wouldn’t have the freedom we have today.”

Gaudino hopes to move by September.

In the meantime, he continues to visit friends and the places in Butler County he will miss, carrying a suitcase with a sign taped to it saying: “The Exercise Man is on the move.”