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Max Lentz

Born: January 1945; Chicago, IL.

Not much is known about Max Lentz's turbulent childhood years in the Windy City. Only a few hours after his birth, he was found on the doorstep of a convent and orphanage in the middle of winter with a bracelet that read: Max Lentz (it wasn't until many years later that he would learn that "Max Lentz" was not his name but the name of the Peoria, Illinois jeweler that made the bracelet). He quickly earned a reputation with the nuns as a difficult, unruly child who would do anything for a laugh.

During his prepubescent and teenage years, he was passed from foster home to foster home until he finally struck out on his own at the age of 17. Living on the streets, the skinny, undersized boy came to rely on his smart mouth and wiles to survive, hustling money with three card monty and other small-time scams -- not unlike the character he would come to play on Kresky. According to Lentz, it wasn't until he was 22 and in a nightclub, picking pockets, that he saw a stand-up comedian and realized that there might be a more legitimate (and potentially more profitable) avenue for his particular talents.

Max Lentz 1975

Lentz tackled stand-up comedy with the same unflinching determination that he had con artistry and soon he was traveling the nightclub circuit with such luminaries as Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams and Jimmie Walker. His comedy largely grew out of the apparent contrast between his shark-like hustler abilities and his appealing sadsack personality. In the early seventies, he moved to Hollywood and set his sights on a movie career, but the next few years saw several movie and sitcom deals fall through for him. He was considering abandoning acting altogether when the call came from his agent that UBC wanted him for the recurring Iggy Morton part on Kresky, a role that, as Lentz put it, he was "born to play".

A funny thing happened when Kresky was cancelled in 1980: Max Lentz vanished without a trace. No one, neither friends nor colleagues, seemed to know what had become of him. For a time, the story circulated that he was dead, a scenario not at all beyond the realm of possibility given his rumored ties to the underworld. After the dust settled, the world more or less forgot about Max Lentz for the next seven years.

Then, as mysteriously as he had gone, Max Lentz reappeared on the LA scene a changed man. He claimed to have undergone a spiritual rebirth while travelling the Far East. He now called himself simply Max and enthusiastically espoused the virtues of a self-discovered belief system called Hyperphysicology; what he described as a "non-dogmatic spirituality devoted to the realization of self". A dynamic blend of various Eastern religions, new age self-help terminology and Native American Sasquatch lore, Max's Hyperphysicology quickly began winning over converts, particularly among the Hollywood elite who gravitated to the faith's endorsement of materialism as a means of self-actualization. Today, what first appeared a rather harebrained cult is now not only a remarkable spiritual success story but also a multi-million dollar financial behemoth, peddling all sorts of self-help literature and merchandise all around the world.

Remaining true to one of the central tenets of Hyperphysicology, Max does not discuss the belief system with unindoctrinated outsiders, so much of the origins and evolution of the religion seem destined to go unexplained. But Max is always eager to welcome the curious as well as the spiritually bereft into the fold.

Max lives in Malibu, California with his wife Storm, a personal trainer.

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