R.I.P. Ruth Westheimer and Richard Simmons

Well, my friend the author Eve Golden had scarcely announced the launch of her new website Eve’s Obits when two prominent celebrities obligingly demonstrated its usefulness by dying within 24 hours of each other, supplying her with instant fodder. I learned about both deaths from Eve. As both were pop culture figures who came to national prominence around the same time, promoted their own quirky gospels of mental and physical well-being, and expanded the public’s notion of what an American celebrity should look and sound like, a kind of theme seemed to coalesce around the day…before another event changed the conversation entirely.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024) left us first.

Dr. Ruth burst into the public’s consciousness in the early to mid ’80s, first as the host of the radio call-in show Sexually Speaking and then with her TV shows Good Sex! With Dr. Ruth Westheimer and The Dr. Ruth Show. It is rare for someone who is well into their 50s to become a pop culture phenomenon but Dr. Ruth came into our lives like a tidal wave. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was instrumental in changing American culture. Dr. Ruth was a sex therapist with an Ed.D. from Columbia. She spoke openly and frankly (and constantly) about sex in a way that was unprecedented in American broadcast media. While she was not without a sense of humor about it, and many had a laugh at her expense in the early years, she was relentless in educating the public about a surprisingly huge range of topics related to human sexuality, breaking taboos, normalizing many practices once widely regarded as deviant, and raising awareness of the dangers of STDs, among much else. Though America had prided itself on a “Sexual Revolution”, it had been a partial one at best. There was greater sexual freedom, but public discourse about it remained fairly restricted and repressed. The graphic nuts and bolts of it (forgive me) were rarely discussed, and seldom without giggles or embarrassment. There’s still an element of that now, but much less so, and large credit for that can be laid at the tiny feet of Dr. Ruth. Adults now routinely talk about body parts and their functions in grown-up conversations without having to resort to euphemisms, evasions, deflections, codes. I assure you that several decades ago that was very much not the case.

It seems obvious to me, and perhaps some would dispute it, but it seems to me that Westheimer was able to get away with all of this because she was a sweet little old lady. That was her persona and she played it up. She was tiny; 4′ 7″ tall, and approaching grandmotherhood. Then as now there were significant factions in American society that depicted sex as something evil, Satan’s oldest snare for catching human souls. These people already sounded ridiculous, but the effect was amplified by the sight of this incredibly harmless woman, compassionately helping people work out their hang-ups, dispassionately, humanely, with no “judgment”. She was a DOCTOR. She lived that mission. There was no way to condemn her for it without looking like a kook or a monster, though that’s never stopped some people.

What we’ve recounted already would be significant, but Dr. Ruth also came with a remarkable backstory. For starters, she was a Holocaust survivor. Born and raised in Germany, she was ten when her folks sent her to Switzerland to keep her safe from the Nazis. Her entire family was killed. After the war she moved to Israel, then still the British Mandate of Palestine, where she served in the Haganah, precursor to the IDF. Incredibly she saw action in the 1947-49 Palestine War, and was wounded in battle. This tiny little woman was a secret badass! She was trained, and served, as a scout and a sniper. (A very odd detail to report given today’s other big news. Sadly, no new entry on EvesObits on that account). In 1950 she moved to France, where she studied and taught at the Sorbonne. The move to the U.S. was six years later.

Here’s a tidbit that seems to be missing from most of the Dr. Ruth obits but as a show biz writer I feel compelled to include: Mary Gross played her in a series of sketches on SNL at the peak of Dr. Ruth-mania. So much for us not giggling! Anyway, Ruth herself was funny, wise, and engaging, not to mention titillating, so she was also a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman (22 times), The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson(9 times), The Arsenio Hall Show (7 times), and dozens of others.

A last little connection. One New Years Eve, either 1985 or 1986 I found myself ushering in the New Year at the home of Dr. Ruth’s son Joel, who’s a couple of years older than me. The connection was a high school friend who I think met him while serving in the IDF. The place was in Queens or elsewhere in Western Long Island. I was only about 20 and hadn’t yet moved to NYC. We travelled all the way from Rhode Island for the party. We probably spent more time on I-95 than at the actual function. I have vague memories of the interior of the place, but little else, because, well, it was New Year’s Eve, an evening when memories are conventionally obliterated with strong beverages. At any rate, I’m quite certain there was no sex for your correspondent that night, good or otherwise.

A few hours after Dr. Ruth passed, and one day after his 76th birthday, we also lost Richard Simmons (1948-2024). He was almost exactly 20 years younger than Dr. Ruth, prompting some wag to quip yesterday that perhaps we should pursue sex rather than exercise in the interest of living long lives.

Simmons came on the scene at almost the exact same time as Dr. Ruth. His syndicated Richard Simmons Show ran from 1980 to 1984. I am somewhat nonplussed that most obits are not mentioning that show as what he is best known for, it’s what put him on the map. Instead they’re mentioning the home videos he later sold. 40 years ago, when there were only three TV channels, EVERYONE knew the TV shows. Only SOME people are aware of some video you buy and watch at home. At any rate, Simmons revolutionized American culture about as much as Dr. Ruth did. In a couple of ways.

One is that he was instrumental in popularizing fitness regimens among ordinary people. Simmons began showing up on national television in the late ’70s on account of the popularity of his L.A. exercise studio. (For context, the Jane Fonda workout tapes didn’t start coming out until 1982). Prior to Simmons, the main TV workout guru was Jack LaLanne, who was popular enough but sort of gung ho and macho, a quality that probably reassured some while being off-putting to others. Make no mistake, LaLanne was absolutely a character and in his way nutty and TV friendly, as well. But Simmons, like Dr. Ruth, was unprecedented. As far as anyone could tell he was flamboyantly gay, although he never, to his dying day, made a statement about his sexual identity one way or another. He had all these high energy, unrestrained mannerisms, and sported exercise clothes much closer to what women customarily wore (as opposed to the track suits that straight men typically donned for a work-out). Since Simmons never defined himself publicly, and it’s not for us to do it on his behalf, perhaps we can risk taking the loosest-defined initial from LGBTQ+, the all-embracing and vague term Queer, to describe him. There had been few if any people like him on television before. Truman Capote? Liberace? His presence changed the landscape.

Simmons wasn’t just a fitness guru, but a weight-loss evangelist as well. A former fatty, he had reportedly dropped over 100 pounds through diet and exercise. Earlier, less healthy, efforts to shed pounds had also resulted in hair loss, hence his other notable attribute, a scrappy afro hairdo composed of patched together transplants. Interestingly, this odd mix of baldness and a curly cover-up was not unlike that of General Hospital‘s Anthony Geary (interesting because Simmons himself made recurring appearances on the soap. What a strange aesthetic to cultivate). Simmons was a TV natural, and like Dr. Ruth, he made the endless round of morning shows, late night talk shows, and cameos as himself on TV programs and in movies.

I am delighted to learn he had a background in show biz in his native New Orleans. His mother was a fan dancer, and his dad emceed variety shows! He himself majored in art at college. Astoundingly, he had walk-ons in two Fellini movies during his overweight years, Satyricon (1968) and The Clowns (1970).

Everything goes in threes of course and a third shoe has dropped. Unfortunately the third major celebrity to pass today was not the star of The Apprentice, but Shannon Doherty.Beverly Hills 90210 was after my time; I’ll leave it to others to eulogize her.