In the category of "I thought he was already dead," we have the passing of Robert Bootzin, a fixture of sixties' talk shows as the frenetic Gypsy Boots. I remember him mainly from his visits to Steve Allen's various talk shows. Gypsy, as everyone calls him, was sometimes described as "the first hippie." He would burst onto Steve's stage, dressed like a cross between Tarzan and Mahatma Gandhi. Displaying more than enough pep and enthusiasm to classify as a colorful crazy, he'd preach about "natural foods" and would bring berries and bark and other odd things he'd collected in Griffith Park for Steve to sample. How talk shows have changed. Today, if you worked for Leno or Letterman and you suggested they participate in something like that, you'd be fired on the spot.
Gypsy would swing on ropes, dance with women in the audience and make outrageous claims about how his lifestyle would enable him to live well into his second or maybe third century. Audiences loved him and Mr. Allen, who was no fool when it came to the creation of exciting television, kept having him back.
Mr. Bootzin didn't make it to 100. Obits like this one say he was either 89 or 91 and the confusion is understandable. When he did talk shows in the sixties, he never divulged his age and I think most of us got the idea that he was much older than his energy level would indicate. I'm amazed to find out now that he was in his fifties back then as he extolled the magic of organic figs and wheat grass and running naked through the park at daybreak. He probably wasn't as good an example of great health as we thought then. Nevertheless, he was funny and outrageous and great at self-promotion, turning up almost anywhere in Los Angeles where a crowd gathered out-of-doors. They don't make 'em like that anymore.