
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES | Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:34pm EST
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jack LaLanne, a one-time sugar-holic who became a television fitness guru preaching exercise and healthy diet to a generation of American housewives, died on Sunday at age 96, his daughter said.
LaLanne, who became U.S. television fixture in his close-fitting jumpsuit starting in 1959 and came to be regarded as the father of the modern fitness movement, succumbed to pneumonia following a brief illness at his home in Morro Bay, along the California's central coast.
"He was surrounded by his family and passed very peacefully and in no distress ... and with the football game on Sunday, so everything was normal," Yvonne LaLanne, 66, told Reuters.
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