NEW YORK: Richard Simmons, television’s hyper court clown of physical exercise who built a mini-empire in his brand tank tops and short shorts by urging the fat to exercise and eat much, died Saturday. He turned 76 on Friday.
According to his writer Tom Estey, who wrote an email to The Associated Press, Simmons passed away at his Los Angeles home. He gave no more information.
Los Angeles police and fire departments claim to have responded to a home where a person was declared deceased from biological causes after the AP’s AP has verified this information with Simmons’.
Simmons, who had revealed a body cancer treatment in March 2024, had since dropped out of sight, sparking speculating about his health and well-being. TMZ initially reported his demise.
Simmons was a previous 268-pound teenager who became a master of some media forms, sharing his hard-won weight-loss tips as number of the Emmy-winning morning” Richard Simmons Show” and creator of best-selling books and the diet plan Deal-A-Meal. He even opened training studios and starred training video, including the madly effective” Sweatin’ to the Oldies” range, which became a cultural phenomenon.
My nutrition and food plan are only two words, common sense, and… In 1982, he told The Associated Press” with a dash of good humor.” ” I want to help people and make the world a healthier, content place”.
Simmons embraced mass media to spread his message, even as his flamboyant flair and outfits finally made him the face of jokes. He was a sought-after host on TV shows led by Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Phil Donahue. However, Howard Stern may tease him until he cried and David Letterman had prank him. He was mocked in Neil Simon’s” The Goodbye Girl” on Broadway in 1993, and Eddie Murphy put on light makeup and dressed like him in” The Nutty Professor”, screaming” I’m a filly”!
Asked if he thought he could inspire people by being foolish, Simmons answered,” I think there’s a day to get serious and a moment to be ridiculous. It’s knowing when to do it. I try to have a nice combination. Being silly cures depression. It catches people off guard and causes them to reflect. But there is a lot of seriousness that makes sense between all of that silliness. It’s a different kind of training”.
Simmons ‘ daytime show was seen on 200 stations in America, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan and South America. His first book,” Never Say Diet”, was a smash best-seller.
He was known to counsel the severely obese, including Rosalie Bradford, who held records for being the world’s heaviest woman, and Michael Hebranko, who credited Simmons for helping him lose 700 pounds. Simmons put real people- chubby, balding or non-telegenic- in his exercise videos to make the fitness goals seem reachable.
Simmons consistently praised healthy eating and exercise regimens throughout his career as a reliable critic of fad diets. In 2005, he told the AP that the Atkins diet craze, which spread across the nation, “always has some weird things about eating four grapes before you go to bed, drinking a special tea, or buying this little bean from El Salvador.” ” You’ll live longer, feel better, and look fantastic if you watch your portions, have a good attitude, and you work out every day.”
Simmons was a native of New Orleans, a chubby boy named Milton by his parents. ( He renamed himself” Richard” around the age of 10 to improve his self-image ). He would confess to people that he ate too much because he thought his parents liked his older brother more. He grew to almost 200 pounds after being teased by classmates.
Simmons claimed to the AP that while his mother was a child, she regularly watched exercise guru Jack LaLanne’s TV show. However, Simmons was n’t crazy about the fitness aficionado. ” I hated him”, Simmons said. Because he was healthy, fit, and had such a positive attitude, and I was n’t ready for his message, he said.
Federico Fellini directed his film” Fellini Satyricon” with the help of Simmons who traveled to Italy as a foreign exchange student. He told the AP:” I was fat, had curly hair. The Italians thought I was hysterical. I was the life of the party”.
After receiving an anonymous letter, his life changed. ” One dark, rainy day I went to my car and found a note. It said,’ Dear Richard, you’re very funny, but fat people die young. Please do n’t die”. He went on the starvation diet, which left him extremely thin and ill because he was so shocked.
After the crash diet he gained back 65 pounds. In the end, he was able to come up with a wise strategy to trim the pounds and keep them off. ” I went into the business because I could n’t find anything I liked”, he said.
Some news outlets speculated that Simmons was being held hostage in his own home when he had n’t been seen in public for a number of years. In telephone interviews with” Entertainment Tonight” and the” Today” show, Simmons refuted the claims and told his fans he was enjoying the time by himself. Filmmaker-writer Dan Taberski, one of his regular students, launched a podcast in 2017 called” Missing Richard Simmons”.
Simmons broke his six-year silence in 2022, with his spokesperson telling The New York Post that the adored fitness icon was “living the life he has chosen.”
