Jack LaLanne dies at 96

This is one of the saddest things to have to report. Jack Lalanne has been such an inspiration to millions over the years in the pursuit of health and fitness goals.

LaLanne died Sunday at his home in Morro Bay on California’s central coast, longtime agent Rick Hersh said. The cause was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

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.

He first gained national fame on his fitness TV show that started in the 1950's. On the show he demonstrated how one could do exercises using nothing more than a chair or a towel. He also shared encouraging words about diet and exercise.

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.

“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.”

“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.”

His family is quoted as saying he made it his mission to eat right and exercise and get everyone else to do the same, up until the very end.

Lalanne, who had heart valve surgery two years ago, maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that “I can’t afford to die. It would wreck my image.”

Jack Lalanne  said, “The only way you can hurt the body is not use it,” and that  “Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it’s never too late.”

“He was amazing,” said 87-year-old former “Price is Right” host Bob Barker, who credited LaLanne’s encouragement with helping him to start exercising often.

“He never lost enthusiasm for life and physical fitness,” Barker told The Associated Press on Sunday. “I saw him in about 2007 and he still looked remarkably good. He still looked like the same enthusiastic guy that he always was.”

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.

source: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ap-obit-jacklalanne 

Jack Lalanne's Early Life

LaLanne was born in San Francisco, California, to Jennie (née Garaig) and Jean LaLanne. His parents were immigrants from Oloron-Sainte-Marie in southwest France. LaLanne had an older brother, Norman (1908–2005), who nicknamed him "Jack".

LaLanne wrote that as a boy he was addicted to sugar and junk food. He attacked his brother, attempted suicide, and tried to burn down his house. LaLanne later described himself as "a miserable kid... It was like hell." At age 15, he heard health food pioneer Paul Bragg give a talk on health and nutrition. Bragg's message had a powerful influence on LaLanne, who decided to focus on his diet and exercise habits. He studied Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body and concentrated on bodybuilding and weightlifting.

LaLanne blamed overly processed foods for many health problems. He advocated a vegetarian diet, though he ate some fish himself. He was not a fan of organic food which he described as "a bunch of bull."

LaLanne presented fitness and exercise advice on television for 34 years. "The Jack LaLanne Show" was the longest running television exercise program. It began in 1951 as a local program on San Francisco's ABC television station, KGO-TV, and was carried on the ABC network nationwide starting in 1959. Also in 1959, LaLanne recorded Glamour Stretcher Time, a workout album which provided phonograph-based instruction for exercising with an elastic cord called the Glamour Stretcher.

Later Years

LaLanne published several books and videos on fitness and nutrition, appeared in movies, and recorded a song with Connie Haines. He marketed exercise equipment, a range of vitamin supplements, and two models of electric juicers. These include the "Juice Tiger", as seen on Amazing Discoveries with Mike Levey, and "Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer". It was on the show that LaLanne introduced the phrase "That's the power of the juice!"

LaLanne celebrated his 95th birthday with the release of a new book titled, Live Young Forever. In the book, he discussed how he kept healthy and active well into his advanced age.

Despite advanced age, LaLanne continued to work out every morning for two hours. He spent 1½ hours in the weight room and half an hour swimming or walking. When interviewed by Katie Couric on NBC's Today show, LaLanne said his two simple rules of nutrition are: "if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out." He often said, "I can't die, it would ruin my image."

In 2004, LaLanne emphatically told an interviewer, "Would you give your dog a cigarette and a doughnut for breakfast every morning? People think nothing of giving themselves that for breakfast, and they wonder why they don't feel good."

On December 8, 2009, the 95-year-old LaLanne underwent heart valve surgery at a Los Angeles Hospital.

LaLanne was an Inaugural Inductee into the National Fitness Hall of Fame in 2005.

On December 15, 2008, in a ceremony presided over by California Governor (and fellow 2005 inductee of the National Fitness Hall of Fame) Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, Jack LaLanne was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts along with 11 other Californians inducted that year.

Timeline: Jack LaLanne's feats

(As reported on Jack LaLanne's web site)

* 1954 (age 40): swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, underwater, with 140 pounds (64 kg; 10 st) of equipment, including two air tanks. A world record.
* 1955 (age 41): swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while handcuffed. When interviewed afterwards he was quoted as saying that the worst thing about the ordeal was being handcuffed, which reduced his chance to Star Jump significantly.
* 1956 (age 42): set a world record of 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes on You Asked For It, a television program with Art Baker.
* 1957 (age 43): swam the Golden Gate channel while towing a 2,500-pound (1,100 kg; 180 st) cabin cruiser. The swift ocean currents turned this one-mile (1.6 km) swim into a swimming distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km).
* 1958 (age 44): maneuvered a paddleboard nonstop from Farallon Islands to the San Francisco shore. The 30-mile (48 km) trip took 9.5 hours.
* 1959 (age 45): did 1,000 star jumps and 1,000 chin-ups in 1 hour, 22 minutes and The Jack LaLanne Show went nationwide.
* 1974 (age 60): For the second time, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf. Again, he was handcuffed, but this time he was also shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
* 1975 (age 61): Repeating his performance of 21 years earlier, he again swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater and handcuffed, but this time he was shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
* 1976 (age 62): To commemorate the "Spirit of '76", United States Bicentennial, he swam one mile (1.6 km) in Long Beach Harbor. He was handcuffed and shackled, and he towed 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people.
* 1979 (age 65): towed 65 boats in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan. He was handcuffed and shackled, and the boats were filled with 6,500 pounds (2,900 kg; 460 st) of Louisiana Pacific wood pulp.[19]
* 1980 (age 66): towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida. The boats carried 77 people, and he towed them for over one mile (1.6 km) in less than one hour.
* 1984 (age 70): Handcuffed, shackled and fighting strong winds and currents, towed 70 rowboats, one with several guests, from the Queen’s Way Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary, 1 mile.

Timeline: Jack LaLanne's awards

* 1992 (age 78): Jack received the Academy of Body Building and Fitness Award.
* 1994 (age 80): Jack received the State of California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness Lifetime Achievement Award.
* 1996 (age 82): Jack received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fitness Award.
* 1999 (age 85): Jack received the Spirit of Muscle Beach Award.
* 2002 (age 88): Jack received a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame.
* 2004 (age 90): Jack celebrated his 90th birthday in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. ESPN Classic ran a 24-hour marathon of the original Jack LaLanne television shows.
* 2004 (age 90): Jack became the official spokesperson for Covenant Reliance Producers, LLC, a Financial Marketing Organization based in Nashville, Tennessee
* 2005 (age 91): Jack received the Jack Webb Award from the Los Angeles Police Department Historical Society, the Arnold Classic Lifetime Achievement Award, Interglobal's International Infomercial Award, the Freddie Award, and the Medical Media Public Service Award, and he was a Free Spirit honoree at Al Neuharth's Freedom Forum.

Classic TV show guest shots

# Batman (man on roof with girls, uncredited cameo) (1966)
# The Addams Family (Season 2, 1966), episode "Fester Goes on a Diet"
# Peter Gunn, Lalanne appeared in an episode with Craig Stevens.

source of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lalanne

Related pages

Video: Jack Lalanne Dateline Interview at age 80
See the type of workout Jack did to stay super fit at age 80.

Related Sites

Jack LaLanne classic video clips at TVcrazy.net