My Father the Strongman
Jack LaLanne
Born François Henri LaLanne in San Francisco, California, in 1914, Jack LaLanne is considered the father of fitness in the United States. He opened the first health and fitness club in the country in Oakland in 1936. For thirty-four years starting in 1951, he preached the gospel of healthy eating and regular exercise on The Jack LaLanne Show. He was renowned for his feats of strength, such as swimming from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco handcuffed, shackled, and towing a half-ton boat. (He was sixty years old.) LaLanne had four children, Yvonne, Janet, Daniel, and Jon. He died in 2011, at age ninety-six.
Jack and Jon (seven years old) on the set of The Jack LaLanne Show, 1968
i grew up with a silver spoon and my father’s iron fist in the Hollywood Hills. When I was a kid, in the 1960s, Dad was at the height of his fame, so he wasn’t around all that much. But of course, I’d see him every day on The Jack LaLanne Show. And he ran a very tight ship, especially when it came to health, regardless of whether he was home. He was a fanatic. For breakfast, I was given a brown shake made of desiccated liver tablets, cod oil, and vitamins instead of bacon and eggs. At school, all the kids would have Ding Dongs and Twinkies in their lunch boxes. I’d have an apple. I’d desperately try to trade, but with little luck. On my eleventh birthday, my dad got me a whole wheat birthday cake. You couldn’t cut it with a chain saw! His fanaticism wasn’t directed at only us kids, either. My parents would host dinner parties, and he’d always be lecturing their guests: that they should eat healthier, work out more, and stay active. Lecturing. Lecturing. Lecturing.
Naturally, I spent most of my childhood trying to find a way to eat junk food. I’d raid the cabinets of our neighbors, the Boyers, who lived at the end of the cul-de-sac and kept boxes of Count Chocula and Cap’n Crunch in their house. I even wrangled an invite to Camp Israel, where I was probably the only person there for the food and was certainly the only goy. But mostly I relied on our housekeeper, Hattie. With Dad gone and Mom busy, I spent a lot of time alone with her. As strict as my father was, Hattie tried to soften the edges and make sure my childhood wasn’t all juice and lectures. She was a real pioneer when it came to healthy cooking, too. She started making the soul food she grew up with in a way that would meet Dad’s strict guidelines. She’d make potato chips in safflower oil and with sea salt, fried chicken with a whole wheat batter, and custard sweetened with honey. But she didn’t do everything by the book. She kept a secret cabinet for my siblings and me filled with dehydrated space food and Snack Pack pudding. And sometimes she’d sneak me down to C.C. Brown’s on Hollywood Boulevard, where we’d get hot fudge sundaes—scoops of vanilla ice cream in a silver bowl with hot fudge poured on top and a cloud of whipped cream. But the holy grail, for really special occasions, was McDonald’s french fries.
Though he was strict, Dad was also a comedian. When he was at home, he was cracking jokes 24/7. He wasn’t an angry guy, and he got on well with everybody (as long as you didn’t mind being lectured about health and fitness). In his mind, the most important thing he could do was deliver the message to the American people that fitness and diet matter, and that mission cut across all sorts of cultural lines. In the 1960s and ’70s, a lot of hippies used to come hang out at our house, attracted to Dad’s gospel of healthy eating. (Meanwhile, I had to sneak over to the Boyers’ to smoke pot, terrified of Dad ever finding out.) I’m not sure what the flower children made of my dad, who always wore his trademark jumpsuit and his hair close-cropped, or what he made of them, in their bell-bottoms and tie-dye, but they at least saw eye to eye on the virtues of nonprocessed food.
As for me, I had to leave home and go out on my own—and pass some years with terrible digestive health—to finally discover that Dad was pretty much right. I’ll never forget those hot fudge sundaes and forbidden french fries, but these days I have a healthy shake every morning and exercise daily. Just like he would have wanted.