Jack La Lanne, Pretty Cool/Crazy Dude

(This is a finger tips push up by Jack La Lanne. At 90 years old...)


Jack La Lanne Tidbits:

-Jack La Lanne was a juvenile delinquent, once attacking his brother with an axe, and setting his family's house on fire. In adulthood, he blamed his youthful misbehavior on being fed too many high-sugar foods.

-At 15, his mother dragged him to hear a speech by a nutritionist. Inspired, La Lanne reformed his eating habits, eliminating everything made with white flour or white sugar, and instead ate almost nothing but fruits, vegetables, and fish for the rest of his life. He opened a health food bakery at age 18.

-At 21, he opened his first gym in Oakland, California. It was 1936, and most doctors at the time warned against working out with weights, believing it could cause a heart attack or ruin a man's sex drive. Considered a crackpot at the time, La Lanne eventually became America's foremost authority on fitness.


After his TV show ended (beginning in 1951, La Lanne hosted and produced The Jack La Lanne Show, TV's first workout program), La Lanne remained in the public eye with a series of fitness stunts, usually performed on his birthday. In 1955, he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, while wearing handcuffs. In 1991, for his 70th birthday, he swam a mile while shackled to 70 boats carrying 70 people. Now in his 90s, La Lanne is still in excellent health, and works out two hours every day -- an hour in the gym, and an hour in the pool. He says he has not missed a day of workouts -- or had a sugary dessert -- since 1930. He still appears on television, selling his Jack La Lanne Power Juicers. "I don't care how old I live", he says, "I just want to be living while I am living!" In a 2004 interview, at the age of 90, he said he has "an active sex life".

Read Some Jack La Lanne Quotes



Recent News:

LaLanne's publicist, Ariel Hankin, said Tuesday that the 95-year-old underwent heart valve surgery at a Los Angeles hospital on Dec. 8.

Hankin says that before the surgery LaLanne told his family that dying would wreck his image.

The weightlifting guru is doing fine and expected to make a full recovery.