I just read that Jack LaLanne died. He was 96. I guess the healthy lifestyle he preached worked for him. Thing is, I don't think George Burns was never seen without a cigar and he lived to be 100. Did any of your parents watch his show?

Sad, although 96 is a good life. Saw him a few years ago on tv & he looked pretty good. Still talking about eating healthy & exercising.

He had a thorough life indeed.

Quote :

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, 96, dies at Calif. home

(AP) – 49 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. He was 96.

LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, his longtime agent Rick Hersh said.

Lalanne ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end, Hersh said.

"I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine LaLanne, Lalanne's wife of 51 years and a frequent partner in his television appearances, said in a written statement.

Just before he had heart valve surgery in 2009 at age 95, Jack Lalanne told his family that dying would wreck his image, his publicist Ariel Hankin said at the time.

LaLanne (pronounced lah-LAYN') credited a sudden interest in fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked tirelessly over the next eight decades to transform others' lives, too.

"The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne said. "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."

His workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to the '70s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set. He developed exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.

He also founded a chain of fitness studios that bore his name and in recent years touted the value of raw fruit and vegetables as he helped market a machine called Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer.

When he turned 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes on the "You Asked For It" television show. At 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco — handcuffed, shackled and towing a boat. Ten years later, he performed a similar feat in Long Beach harbor.

He maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that "I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image."

"I never think of my age, never," LaLanne said in 1990. "I could be 20 or 100. I never think about it, I'm just me. Look at Bob Hope, George Burns. They're more productive than they've ever been in their whole lives right now."

Fellow bodybuilder and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger credited LaLanne with taking exercise out of the gymnasium and into living rooms.

"He laid the groundwork for others to have exercise programs, and now it has bloomed from that black and white program into a very colorful enterprise," Schwarzenegger said in 1990.

In 1936 in his native Oakland, LaLanne opened a health studio that included weight-training for women and athletes. Those were revolutionary notions at the time, because of the theory that weight training made an athlete slow and "muscle bound" and made a woman look masculine.

"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights," he once said. "It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out.

"It was the same with women. Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer," LaLanne said.

The son of poor French immigrants, he was born in 1914 and grew up to become a sugar addict, he said.

The turning point occurred one night when he heard a lecture by pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, who advocated the benefits of brown rice, whole wheat and a vegetarian diet.

"He got me so enthused," LaLanne said. "After the lecture I went to his dressing room and spent an hour and a half with him. He said, 'Jack, you're a walking garbage can.'"

Soon after, LaLanne constructed a makeshift gym in his back yard. "I had all these firemen and police working out there and I kind of used them as guinea pigs," he said.

He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.

"It's a lifestyle, it's something you do the rest of your life," LaLanne said. "How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it."

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Dan and Jon, and a daughter, Yvonne.

Associated Press writer Polly Anderson contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I don't think they did. The name isn't familiar. Good, long life he lead.

Saw him as a little kid on tv every morning before the I Love Lucy reruns. The first time I ever saw a man wear spandex. Odd thing to remember

He was on an episode of The Addams Family once when Fester was trying to go on a diet.


It's really odd because I was just thinking about him the other day...now me, I was never sold on his ideas of 'would you give your dog a donut? A cup of coffee? A cigarette? Then why do you take them?' I wouldn't put a dog in funny clothes and send him to go work in a cubicle at an office building either, but plenty of people do that too.

And I'm always glad to hear of people who live to a nice ripe old age and in good health, and I know there's more to look at than just that, that he led an amazing healthy life for so many years, but in the end I still think about that a lot more people have seen 96 and even older and a lot of them have done it in good health and they didn't have to cut out sugar for 70 years to do it either.

I admire anyone who can live to the ripe old age of ninety-six. Safe to say that the end of the sentence was dotted.

CeCe wrote:

The first time I ever saw a man wear spandex. Odd thing to remember

LOL, I know what you mean. Spandex may have been invented by then (although I think his show began before that), but I don't think he was wearing Spandex or even a leotard as I think his wife did. It did look like he was wearing ballet slippers or something. Remember his dog Happy?

alan smithee wrote:

CeCe wrote:

The first time I ever saw a man wear spandex. Odd thing to remember

LOL, I know what you mean. Spandex may have been invented by then (although I think his show began before that), but I don't think he was wearing Spandex or even a leotard as I think his wife did. It did look like he was wearing ballet slippers or something. Remember his dog Happy?

I remember his pants were weird for that time (it was b&w tv but they looked stretchy-ish lol) & the shirt was very...form fitting. He was really in shape. And yes those slippers

I hadn't heard of him until this morning. Seems like a guy who lived a very full life.

I'd forgotten about his pep talks.


And here's Happy

He lived a long, healthy and active life and it would've been even longer had he not been stricken with pneumonia. That's a condition that can and WILL take out perfectly healthy individuals, young and old.

Saw him on the news and I do recognize him - just didn't remember the name.