Jack LaLanne, known as the “Godfather of Fitness,” died yesterday at the age of 96 from complications of pneumonia. LaLanne hosted his own TV show about fitness for 34 years, and he’s often credited with laying the cornerstone of the modern fitness movement (his teachings about exercise and nutrition can be seen in everything from the paleo diet to P90X).
“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut,” he remembered. “The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.” But Mr. LaLanne persevered, and he found a national pulpit in the age of television.
“The Jack LaLanne Show” made its debut in 1951 as a local program in the San Francisco area, then went nationwide on daytime television in 1959. [New York Times]
Even though LaLanne found success through the medium of television, that didn’t make him soft and weak like everyone in Hollywood. Check out the interview he gave Esquire in 2004, when he was pushing 90:
“Of course I have fears. But what good is thinking or talking about them? Billy Graham is about the hereafter. I’m for the here and now.”
“If you want to change somebody, don’t preach to him. Set an example and shut up.”
“I can’t afford to die. It’ll wreck my image.”
In short, he lived a fuller, happier, and more successful life than you. Have another donut, fatty.
