Who is gypsy boots

Boots, the self-described "Ageless Athlete," believed helped his case that a healthy diet promoted longevity, Bootzin said. In his 60s, Mr. Boots could throw a football farther than many men half his age. In his 70s, he had groupies: a band of young fitness-conscious women called the Nature Girls. In his 80s, he was still a joyful nonconformist, ringing his signature cowbell from the sidelines at University of Southern California football games in an outlandish outfit topped with a kooky cardboard crown and chanting his mantra: "Don't panic, go organic; get in cahoots with Gypsy Boots.

Paul Fleiss , a Los Angeles pediatrician, said of his friend of 35 years. Along the way, Mr. Boots "introduced thousands, maybe millions of people to healthy eating," said Patricia Bragg , a Santa Barbara-based health-and- fitness authority who knew Mr. A longtime Hollywood resident who moved to Camarillo about 15 years ago, Mr. Boots lectured and entertained at health shows. He was a regular at Lakers, Raiders and Dodgers games, where he waved signs, devoured bananas and pranced with his Nature Girls.

Boots married Lois Bloemker, a conservative, academic woman from Ft. Wayne, Ind. Number Bryce Edmonds Apr 24, Gypsy Boots, born Robert Bootzin, one of the naturals industry? He was somewhere in the neighborhood of 89 years old, though no one knows for sure.

Made famous by the hit song? Nature Boy,? However, Boots made his big splash on the national radar screen in the early? At health conventions, when it was his turn to speak, Boots? He liked to make people laugh and to shake it up a bit,? Gypsy recorded a rock music album entitled Unpredictable and starred in a documentary that the acclaimed film director Taylor Hackford shot but never released.

While his national fame grew, Gypsy remained a local hero in LA, marching in parades, running marathons, and ringing a cowbell at Lakers, Dodgers, and USC games. By the 60s, the world—the hip, young edge of it, anyway—had caught up, at least partially, with Gypsy. It had remade itself into something like his image, confirming his extravagant self-confidence, and he rode that Dionysian tiger with characteristic enthusiasm—while, it should be said, never descending into the dark, druggy abysses of that era.

The first time I met him as an adult, that Sunday morning in , a few months after my first phone talk with him, I drove my rented Mustang from my hotel in Hollywood to that organic market on Vine, arriving as requested at ten AM sharp. Once I spotted the colorful van with his face painted on its side, I shuffled toward it, my vodka-addled head throbbing. A pair of legs—muscular and hairy and old and bare—were sticking out of the wide-open rear door of the van.

At the end of the legs were high white socks and beat-up brown sandals. He crawled out and faced me, looking older and smaller but otherwise very much as I remembered him.

Here were the same long silver hair and beard, the same love beads, and the same flamboyant clothes, accented now with a pair of gym shorts, a headband, and a football he was holding. Resisting him was futile. As I soon discovered, Gypsy could dropkick footballs while barefoot and throw yard passes with ease—in his 80s.

Then Gypsy sprang another surprise. He drove like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic, taking his hands off the wheel to make silly gestures and looking away from the road to gauge my reactions.

And here was the physician in question, a tall man with wire-rimmed glasses and curly hair, greeting us.

Paul Fleiss said, extending his hand. Serendipity, I was learning, was commonplace with Gypsy Boots. It was just one of the forms of magic he kept in his bag of tricks. During the nine years of our friendship, Gypsy was a raucous childlike surrogate grandfather for me. Actually—given his raucousness—he was more like my much, much older surrogate big brother.

Or—given how childlike he was—like a much, much older kid brother. After that first meeting, he served as a connection to that buoyant childhood day when I first met him.

Choking down my fear, I would ride around with him in his van as he drove recklessly around the city. The birthday parties, usually held outdoors at the Paramount Studios lot thanks to Michael Douglas, were amazing affairs, drawing hundreds of charming kooks.