Some sad news for baby boomers who have seen one face as a constant since they were kids, to fitness buffs who owe some of what they do today to him, to fitness center store owners whose businesses are descended from him, from those who were entranced by his infomercials on juicing — and for me personally after an incident a few years ago; fitness guru Jack LaLanne has died at 96:
American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96.
The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia. LaLanne had been ill for the past week. His wife, Elaine, was at his side, along with his family and friends, Hersh said. No funeral arrangements were announced, but his agent said plans were being made.
LaLanne spent decades talking about the healthful benefits of exercise and fitness. He opened his own health spa in California in 1936, years before the fitness craze swept the United States. LaLanne even designed the world’s first leg-extension machine, along with several other pieces of fitness equipment now standard in the fitness industry.
He was born in San Francisco on September 26, 1914. A self-confessed sugar- and junk-food addict as a child, he went on to study bodybuilding and weight-lifting by the time he was in his late teens.
From the 1950s through the 1980s, LaLanne performed multiple feats of strength and endurance. His first such stunt was an underwater swim the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, loaded with 140 pounds of equipment, in 1954. He went on to stage many attention-getting events, including completing over a thousand pushups in a little over 20 minutes, and towing 65 boats filled with thousands of pounds of wood pulp in Japan.
La LaLanne started a fitness show, “The Jack LaLanne Show,” in 1959 and it ran three decades.
Those of us who were baby boomers can still remember LaLanne’s show where he invite the audience to follow him in exercise. But in recent years, he became well known via his infomercials with him and his wife Elaine talking about the health glories of juicing. On The Huffington Post’s John Robbins writes:
Jack LaLanne died on Sunday, at the age of 96. He was a mentor to me, as he was to many. He was a great man, more so than most people realize.
His wife of 51 years, Elaine LaLanne, knew. “I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon,” she said, “but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for.”
And he puts LaLanne into perspective:
Jack set out to see what he could accomplish with a good diet and exercise. He found a set of weights and began to use them. He ate only the most healthful of foods. He developed exercise equipment that evolved into what has become standard in many health spas today. In 1936, he opened the first modern health club, paying $45 a month for rent in downtown Oakland.
Jack LaLanne touted the value of exercise and nutrition long before it became fashionable. Many people thought he was a charlatan and a nut. When he encouraged the elderly to lift weights, doctors said this was terrible advice. They said it was a good way for the elderly to break bones. But now, of course, we know that weight-bearing exercise is precisely what is needed to build bone strength and prevent elderly bones from breaking. He was among the first to advocate weight training for women. Doctors said women who tried it would not be able to bear children. Now we know that regular exercise is one of the best preparations for childbirth. Over the years, he’s been vindicated a thousandfold. His television programs have brought his ideas to hundreds of millions of people and helped change the way we all view health and fitness.
It has been said that without eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress. Jack LaLanne was most certainly an eccentric. On his 60th birthday, he swam from the notorious Alcatraz Island prison to San Francisco while handcuffed, towing a thousand-pound boat. “Why did you do that?” people asked. Jack’s response: “To give the prisoners hope.” (The prison has since closed, and today Alcatraz Island is a U.S. National Park Service attraction.)
On his 65th birthday, Jack LaLanne towed 65 hundred pounds of wood pulp across a lake in Japan. On his 70th birthday, he celebrated by towing 70 rowboats with seventy people on board for a mile and a half across Long Beach Harbor, all while handcuffed and with his feet shackled.He said his purpose in these phenomenal performances was to demonstrate that a healthful lifestyle can work wonders.
I had a frustrating experience which turned out to be a wonderful one that I have told many people about over the years, involving LaLanne and his wife.
Some years ago I ordered LaLanne’s juicer, since I had always wanted one and seen the infomercial and, to me, the name Jack LaLanne meant instant credibility. The one I got had a glitch in it and did not work properly. When I phoned the company that made it, I got someone who wasn’t interested in my exchanging it and the more we discussed it the colder and more uncooperative this person got. I finally said life was too short and I’d throw it in the trash.
But I made one more call.
I tracked down LaLanne’s office and left a voicemail about the incident, explaining that I got this for myself as a birthday present and part of the reason was the LaLanne name on it. I said I was disappointed that I had wasted my money but was leaving the message to let them know the problems at the delivery end since I knew the LaLannes cared about their customers and probably had no idea of this happening at a lower level.
I got a call back within minutes...from Elaine LaLanne.
She said this should not have happened and that she and Jack valued the people who called in to order and those who watched Jack over the years. She and told me to call the company number back within a few minutes, gave me the number to someone to talk to and give them my info since a new one would be sent out to me immediately. It arrived within days.
And so I “juiced” with the new machine — which worked just as they said it would — for many years.
And so my image of Jack LaLanne and his wife as people on a mission of health but also goodwill to those who followed them remained.
And remains.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.