Body Styler of the Rich and Famous

By Anastasia Toufexis

Dan Isaacson greeted Indianapolis 500 Winner Danny Sullivan with a reassuring smile. But soon Sullivan's grin was a grimace. As rock music pulsated through the gray-carpeted, fluorescent-lighted room, Isaacson put the race-car driver through a grueling 1 1/2-hour workout designed to strengthen his lower and middle back after injuries suffered last summer when his vehicle slammed into a wall at 185 m.p.h. in the Poconos. The punishing session included 20 minutes of fast pedaling on an exercise cycle, 60 sit-ups with a 20-lb. dumbbell across his chest, some stretching, alternate elbow-to-knee and leg raises, and lifting weights. "I don't come here for the body building, I come here for the fun," Sullivan joked. But Isaacson did not let up on the pressure as he and Sullivan went on to more stretching exercises.

Isaacson loves to make celebrities sweat, and they love to let him. He is among the best known of a bustling new breed: personal trainers who suddenly can be found in every major U.S. city where there is money and fat to burn. Trainers are to the narcissistic '80s what private fencing masters and dancing teachers were to an earlier time. These status symbols in sweat socks, always perfectly fit, fit perfectly. They signal affluence (private hour-long sessions at a studio or client's home run $50 to $150) without suggesting decadence. Los Angeles, a city that has always been littered with beautiful bodies, naturally boasts a megadose of tony body toners, 200 of them by one practitioner's estimate. Fitness consultants have joined agents, managers and publicists as the undisputable indispensables of many a star.

Jake Steinfeld was perhaps the first to make a public reputation with a best-selling 1984 book and videocassette (Body by Jake). But many in lo-fat, hi-fad Southern California now swear by Isaacson. A muscular, 5 ft. 7 in. 155 pounder who bears a remarkable resemblance to Bruce Jenner, Isaacson, 36, has perfected the art of dealing with the nonsense and the no-nonsense attitudes of stars. He cajoles, he flatters, but he produces. "Hollywood's based on taking care of business," he says. "We get it done. We make it happen. For me the bottom line is getting the result I'm asked to give." Among his 90 or so celebrity clients: John Travolta, Arm-Margret, Christopher Reeve, Linda Evans, David Hasselhoff (Knight Rider), Olivia Newton-John, Dyan Cannon and Billy Crystal (who presumably would not look mahvelous without him).

Travolta is one of Isaacson's major projects. The actor will soon be getting ready for Far from Over, or Saturday Night Fever III. A self-described "reluctant matador" when it comes to exercise, Travolta has developed some unaesthetic handles around his hips. "When I'm not being paid a lot of money to do a movie and to get in shape, I'm like Marlon Brando," he confesses. Says the determined Isaacson: "There's no question as to whether we can produce the shape and the look." After all, Isaacson came to fame, or more precisely to the attention of the famous, three years ago when he prepped Travolta for Staying Alive (Fever II). Isaacson was the athletic consultant at the Snowmass Club near Aspen, Colo., where he met Travolta. "I couldn't have been a better pilot project," recalls the actor. "I was fat and out of shape." In four months Isaacson sculpted Travolta into a road-company Sly Stallone.

If the movie was no wow, Travolta's body was. The rebuilt dancer persuaded his trainer to go West and put up some of the money to get Isaacson started in a 1,200-sq.-ft. studio that features $50,000 worth of equipment and, no less important, wall-to-wall mirrors for checking oneself out. But his star customers are not interested in a convivial health club. They want the personal touch, and they get it. If Mickey Rourke requests an after-midnight workout, Isaacson opens the gym. If Danny Sullivan asks him to fly to Indianapolis, he gets on a jet. If Travolta likes new sweats and shoes for every workout, Isaacson supplies them. "When they don't get what they want, they get testy," he says of his clients, and he is willing to go the extra mile.

Christopher Reeve is flaunting a sleeker look thanks to Isaacson. The actor had pumped iron to beef up for his role as Superman, but a new movie role he wanted to play required a leaner line. Last June, Isaacson trekked to Williamstown, Mass., where Reeve was playing in summer stock, to set up a rigorous six-day-a-week trimming program. It began before breakfast with ten to 15 miles of bicycling, went on to lunchtime weight-lifting, some racquetball, running or tennis and finally, a half-mile swim before most of the evening performances. Reports the proud teacher: "He's lost weight, he's certainly got well diversified and he's become an incredible all-around athlete."

Isaacson is quick with encouragement and compliments, but carefully avoids hyperjock competitiveness or withering comparisons.[*] A member of the American College of Sports Medicine, he draws from a variety of sources (the Pritikin Program, Earl Mindell's Vitamin Bible, The Sports-medicine Book by Gabe Mirkin and Marshall Hoffman) and serves it all up with a commonsensical approach that stresses his four Ds: decision, determination, discipline and diligence. His unballyhooed fifth D, of course, is deference. He ministers to egos as deftly as to flesh, and he is sympathetic to the open-pore scrutiny and pressures faced by performers. "They are subject to more criticism than they were ten years ago," notes Isaacson.

As for the pressures on him, he admits that he does not get to spend enough time with his actress wife Kim. The work "is long and hard and at times gets very tough," he says. So what does the trainer do to relax? When he gets too edgy with his earthbound heavenly bodies, Isaacson, a licensed pilot, sometimes just takes a plane up for a couple of hours of solitary communion with the real stars. --By Anastasia Toufexis. Reported by Michael Riley/Los Angeles

With reporting by Reported by Michael Riley/Los Angeles