(From the Las Vegas Review Journal, Tuesday, April 15, 1997)

Strongman, actor Peter Lupus finds health his mission in life

      Some actors -- such as the ones billed exclusively as sex kittens or teen rebels -- outlive their usefulness after a certain age.

      But Peter Lupus, almost 65 -- who played Willy Armitage, the "strongman" secret agent on the original "Mission: Impossible" television series -- is still going strong, though acting is not his top priority anymore.

      "My agent tells me. `The older you get, the more valuable you become,' " says Lupus, who weighs around 240 these days -- compared to his 250-plus during the "Mission" days -- and still works out four or five days a week.

      On June 17, his 65th birthday, Lupus says he hopes to set a Guinness world record by lifting a cumulative 20,000 pounds in a 30-minute span.

      Lupus was in Las Vegas recently to speak to direct distributors who sell for KareMor International. For the last three years, he's been the national spokesman for, and an investor in, KareMor, which makes Vitamist -- a line of vitamins, minerals and hormones that are sprayed into the mouth.

      "I said, `You're kidding,' " Lupus recalls, when introduced to the sprays. Until Vitamist came along, Lupus says he had been taking up to 150 pills daily -- 50 pills, three times a day -- to maintain his form and energy.

      Those were strictly vitamins and minerals and other natural substances, he adds. No anabolic steroids, no narcotics. Never ever. And, the pills were just a supplement to his lifelong habits of eating healthy and exercising regularly.

      But the pill swallowing was a chore. Once, he appeared on a show hosted by Art Linkletter expressly to demonstrate how to swallow 50 pills at a time.

      He walked onstage carrying Linkletter on his shoulder, then began his pill maneuver. "Don't make me laugh. I could spray the whole front row," Lupus remembers warning his host before he drank a glass of milk and poured in the pills.

      Just as he was ready to swallow, Art's son Jack intoned, "Ladies and gentlemen, let us pray."

      Lupus started laughing, and turned his back to the audience in case he couldn't regain control. But he managed to keep his mouth shut and get the load down his throat.

      Today, Lupus enthusiastically uses and promotes Vitamist. Not only does it eliminate having to swallow pills, KareMor maintains the substances are better absorbed -- about 90- to 95-percent absorption vs. 50 percent or less when in pill or capsule form. And a spray can easily be used three times a day, to avoid the peaks and valleys associated with taking something in pill form only once a day.

      Eating a healthy breakfast of granola and scrambled egg substitute at a local hotel coffee shop, Lupus is easygoing and ready to reminisce about his "Mission" days.

      The network series ran from 1966-1973 on CBS, and two seasons on ABC, starting in 1988. A website devoted to the show says, "What made `Mission: Impossible' so interesting was the concept of the `con.' ... In each episode the team would devise and execute a plan to make the target (for instance, a corrupt dictator) think that one thing was happening while in reality something else would."

      Unlike Greg Morris, the deceased actor who played electronics expert Barney Collier on the show and hated the recent "Mission: Impossible" movie starring Tom Cruise, Lupus welcomed the film. But he believes he was "more muscular than Jean Reno," the actor who portrayed the updated Willy character.

      Cruise "had the star power to get it done," says Lupus, noting that at least three times previously, Paramount Pictures had tried to do a movie version, but "couldn't get everybody to agree on a script." The earlier attempts, according to Lupus, had a plot that would reunite the original cast and team them up with a set of younger hotshot agents.

      Despite that difference of opinion between Morris and Lupus, the two got along well and made a point of catching up by telephone every Christmas Day.

      "He was the first big black star to star in a worldwide hit," Lupus says.

      Their two characters often spent time squeezed together in narrow spaces such as tunnels or holes. Lupus used to joke to Morris, "If we spend anymore time together like this, we're going to have to get engaged."

      For Morris' part, he liked to make Lupus break character by getting the ultraserious Willy to laugh, while on camera, at pranks occurring off-camera.

      "I'd look at his forehead, his chest," any place except directly into Morris' eyes, to avoid losing concentration, Lupus admits. Morris was a Las Vegas resident when he died in 1996.

      Martin Landau -- who played disguise artist Rollin Hand -- is still a close friend. Landau often joins the Lupus family for Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner at their home in Southern California.

      "Exceptionally talented" is how Lupus describes Landau, not just for his acting range but also his drama coaching.

      Willy was a man of few words, so Lupus often went to Landau to help make the character believable.

      Willy's principal talent was his strength. He'd carry heavy baggage or move weighty obstacles for the other characters. Some of Willy's fan clubs, Lupus cheerily acknowledges, took pride in tallying how many words Willy was allowed to speak per episode.

      Lupus tried to bring warmth to Willy by having him show concern and support -- via a look or a short comment -- for the other secret agents with the bigger roles.

      But playing Willy was no breeze. To show bulging neck muscles, sweat on the brow, or a weight lifter's concentration, Lupus literally had to lift heavy loads on camera -- with no extra pay. At least Lupus and Morris were smart enough to arrange for perpetual residual payments, should the show go into syndication, Lupus adds.

      Bruce Geller, the creator and executive producer on "Mission: Impossible," insisted that each mission feat be possible, according to Lupus.

      In one episode, where Willy had to pretend to be carrying two suitcases of diamonds -- although one bag actually held a concealed lock-picking expert played by Wally Cox -- Lupus estimates he was carrying almost 400 pounds. And the sequence was taped "at least 10 times."

      His success in acting comes from his physical type and strength, Lupus readily agrees. Before "Mission," he played numerous Hercules and Goliath-type roles.

      In one episode of the TV comedy, "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" about two klutzy construction workers, Lupus played a man who happens to catch actress Emmaline Henry when she fell off a ladder.

      In a skit on "The Jack Benny Show," Lupus once appeared as a Tarzan swinging across the stage as he held a shapely Jane.

      Lupus also appeared as a regular on "Police Squad," and a guest on "Fantasy Island" and "Vega$." He still takes about one movie role a year, usually filmed and aired in Europe -- in which he still typically plays a good-guy detective sort.

      He is married to the same woman, Sharon, whom he met in a gym he once owned in his hometown, Indianapolis.

      His personal workout routine remains about the same, too, despite the passage of time. Over a four-day period, Lupus covers all parts of the body. He takes turns working on what he calls the "push" muscles -- such as the chest, shoulders and triceps -- and the "pull" muscles, which include the back, biceps, forearms, thighs and calves.

      It's probably superfluous to add that, after all these years, Peter Lupus really enjoys his workouts, at a public gym near his home. He explains, "I don't take a cell (phone). That's my time for myself."