Richard Simmons was what happened when you crossed Slim Goodbody’s appearance with the energetic attitude of Robin Williams and the ever-loving sentiment of Fred Rogers. Some people just manage to take advantage of growing trends and run with it. By the time Simmons, born Milton Teague, moved to the Los Angeles area in the 1970s, fitness gyms were becoming more and more popular.
Unfortunately, it was for people who were already fit. Simmons had publicly talked about his obesity in his youth getting up to about 268 pounds. He began to establish his own fitness gyms, originally offering a salad bar restaurant, and began to get more and more popular. He would eventually lose about 123 pounds. Since the location was in the Beverly Hills area, Simmons’s popularity would grow as the fitness craze exploded in the 1980s.
And Simmons would become more and more of a personality at a time in which very few people were famous for being famous. Other than Simmons, Jim Fixx was the only famous fitness person. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1970s with bodybuilding was considered a new trend. Simmons’ eccentric behavior and loud voice which still had a hint of the southern twang from his youth made him someone you couldn’t forget after seeing him just once.
He got his own TV show The Richard Simmons Show and appeared in a recurring role on the ABC daytime soap General Hospital. His energetic attitude quickly became ripe for parody, most famously by Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live who did a Little Richard Simmons parody. Murphy would play a Simmons-like character Lance Perkins in his 1996 movie The Nutty Professor. Simmons would later criticize Murphy’s performance but said he agreed with the overall message of the movie’s protagonist Sherman Klump, also portrayed by Murphy, wanted to get healthier and have a more positive outlook.
Simmons would continue to appear on game shows and TV shows. He was a current guest on shows like The Howard Stern Show, Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and others. In 2003, he appeared as a guest star on the skit comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? in which his interaction with Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles had the comics cracking up as well as host Drew Carey and the audience members. The skit was “Living Scenery” with Simmons pretending he was props for a deck chair, Jet Ski and telescope, among others. Interacting as a Jet Ski with Mochrie gave off a suggestive position that had every cracking up.
You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-r4Flc_d2M
For most of his public life, Simmons’ sexuality was often the topic of discussion. Coming on to the main stream at a time when it was still taboo to be openly gay, especially with the rise of the AIDS epidemic, Simmons kept his life very private. However, Stern claimed in his book Private Parts, Simmons made a comment one-time during a phone call that suggested he was gay. Recently, Jane Fonda has said that she had lunch with Simmons one time with a new boyfriend he had started a relationship with.
Both Fonda and Simmons took advantage of the home video market and released their own style of fitness VHS tapes. While Fonda may have gone for the most topical look that was in aerobic classes and fitness centers, wearing leotards and doing stretches, Simmons took a different approach. He released Sweating to the Oldies tapes in numerous variations over several years. His concept was to have regular people wearing regular gym clothes mostly doing dance moves to older music from the 1950-1960s era.
But one thing that Simmons did during this time that was uncommon was to show empathy for people who were obese. During the latter half of the 20th Century, a lot of comedy revolved around people who were obese or overweight. However, this started to change in the 2000s and more people began to get sympathetic toward people with weight problems. Actors appearing in “fat suits” was considered a negative cliched trope such as blackface.
And while this was heavily criticized for enabling obesity, many of the people featured in his videos would lose weight to his videos. And even though he had appeared on Stern and both of Letterman’s late-night shows, he on a few times butted heads with the hosts. After Letterman sprayed him with a fire extinguisher causing an asthma attack during a taping around Thanksgiving 2000, Simmons didn’t appear again for six years. He continued to appear as a guest on Stern’s show with his last appearance in 2013.
After that starting in 2014, Simmons went on to live a more private life for years that began to cause speculation in the tabloids, he was undergoing gender reassignment. Other media speculation was that Simmons was being held against his will in his Beverly Hills residence by a housekeeper or assistant. In the last year, there was even reports Simmons was in talks for a biopic or limited series about his life with Pauly Shore in talks to play him.
However, all of the talk was just that – talk. Simmons just wanted a more private life even though he did give an interview with People magazine days before his death letting people know he was being treated for a skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma, and that he has been talking with his friends and fans online and through e-mails.
Rest easy, Richard! Where you are, we all know you probably have more energy and excitement than you’ve ever known.
At the same time, I would like to offer my condolences to the family and friends of Shannon Doherty. Originally, a child actor, she rose to stardom on Beverly Hills 90210. But she fired in a much-publicized move over reports she was hard to deal with. The same later happened in the series Charmed. However, Rose McGowan, the actress who replaced her, has spoken out against Alyssa Milano, who was also on the show, as being the main source of conflict among the cast and crew.
Was it a clash of egos? Who is going to be the star of a hit TV show? I never watched 90210 nor Charmed but there was a lot emphasis put on Jennie Garth as the good girl and Doherty as the bad girl on 90210. But then again, the tabloids sometimes exaggerate things. Look at Simmons.
For the last decade of her life, she battled breast cancer that spread to her lymph nodes and then after receiving treatment that went into remission, it came back in 2020. It was advance stage 4 and by 2023, it had spread to her brain and was terminal. She died, just like Simmons, on July 13 at her home in Malibu, Calif.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 