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 bestseller.
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 317 kilograms. Simmons put real people — chubby, balding or non-telegenic — in his exercise videos to make the fitness goals seem reachable.
Richard Simmons with the Rancan sisters, Marissa, Adele, and Lisa, who ran an exercise studio in Cremorne in 1983.Credit: Alan Gilbert Purcell/Fairfax Media
Throughout his career, Simmons was a reliable critic of fad diets, always emphasising healthy eating and exercise plans. “There’ll always be some weird thing about eating four grapes before you go to bed, or drinking a special tea, or buying this little bean from El Salvador,” he told the AP in 2005 as the Atkins diet craze swept the country. “If you watch your portions and you have a good attitude and you work out every day you’ll live longer, feel better and look terrific.”
Simmons was a native of New Orleans, a chubby boy named Milton by his parents. (He renamed himself “Richard” at about age 10 to improve his self-image). He would tell people he ate to excess because he believed his parents liked his older brother more. He was teased by schoolmates and ballooned to almost 90 kilograms.
Simmons told the AP his mother watched exercise guru Jack LaLanne’s TV show religiously when he was growing up, but he wasn’t crazy about the fitness fanatic. “I hated him,” Simmons said. “I wasn’t ready for his message because he was fit and he was healthy and he had such a positive attitude, and I was none of those things.”
Simmons went to Italy as a foreign exchange student and ended up doing peanut butter commercials and bacchanalian eating scenes for director Federico Fellini in his film Fellini Satyricon. He told the AP: “I was fat, had curly hair. The Italians thought I was hysterical. I was the life of the party.”
Richard Simmons speaks with guests at the Wooloomooloo Bay Hotel during a 1982 trip to Australia.Credit: Paul Murray/Fairfax Media
His life changed after getting an anonymous letter. “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 don’t die.’” He was so stunned that he went on the starvation diet that left him thin – but very ill.
After the crash diet, he gained back nearly 30 kilograms. Eventually, he was able to devise a sensible plan to take off the pounds and keep them off. “I went into the business because I couldn’t find anything I liked,” he said.
Richard Simmons at the height of his popularity in the 1970s and ’80s.
When Simmons hadn’t been seen in public for several years, some news outlets speculated that he was being held hostage in his own house. 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.
In 2022, Simmons broke his six-year silence, with his spokesperson telling The New York Post that the beloved fitness icon was “living the life he has chosen”.
AP