Richard Simmons, ‘the clown prince of fitness,’ dies at 76

Richard Simmons, teaches a class at his gym in Beverly Hills, Calif., Nov. 21, 2009. Simmons, who for years was the face of home fitness through his wildly popular videos and energetic personality, died on Saturday morning, July 13, 2024, in Los Angeles. He was 76. (Stephanie Diani/The New York Times)

By ALEX TRAUB

Richard Simmons, who with dances, confessions, screeches, comedy sketches and pep talks established himself as America’s most popular fitness instructor, died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76.

A representative for Simmons, Tom Estey, confirmed the death.

The Los Angeles police and fire departments responded to Simmons’ address at 10 a.m. Saturday. A Fire Department spokesperson said that personnel there determined he had died of natural causes.

In March, Simmons said he had been treated for basal cell carcinoma, which he said first appeared as a “strange looking bump” under his eye.

From the 1980s until his death, Simmons was the dominant incarnation of a long-standing figure from American pop culture, dating at least to the muscle show impresario and magazine publisher Bernarr Macfadden (1868-1955). Simmons shared much with Jack LaLanne. Each man became a television and self-help sensation by promoting a personal story of being born again: a miserable youth of sinful junk-food gluttony, followed by the discovery that physical fitness confers happiness and virtue.

“I think I’m just a good example of a chubby, fat, unhappy kid who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, and dreamed, and now all my dreams are coming true,” Simmons told TV host Huell Howser in 1980.

A TV fitness act would seem to demand a balance between masculinity and theatrics. Simmons showed otherwise. He transformed exercise and healthy eating into a realm of cross-dressing skits, squealing exhortations, sequined tank tops, teeny-weeny short shorts and saucy repartee. He preached not musclebound pride but the joie de vivre of self-love.

In two 1981 profiles, People magazine called Simmons a “hyperkinetic elf in an emerald-green track suit” and “the clown prince of fitness.” In 2017, The New York Times labeled him “the most loquacious, flamboyant, visible and rambunctious exercise evangelist this world has ever seen.”

His TV show, “The Richard Simmons Show,” went into national syndication in 1980. He developed a series of gags and characters, including Reverend Pounds (“a man of the cloth — the tablecloth”) who intoned, “Though I waddle through the valley of linguine and clams, I shall fear no evil.” He dressed as Scarlett O’Hara gorging herself during a picnic before war rations might go into effect.

And he ran and leaped around the stage, performing and explaining cardio workouts to his live audience and viewers at home, his body bronzed and his curly hair plugs motionlessly in place.

Simmons went off the air in 1984, but he developed a wide array of other products and performances to replace his show. There were many iterations of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” on VHS and DVD (in 2008 The Denver Post called it “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of workout videos”), weight-loss cruises, infomercials and bestselling books.

Simmons attained such ubiquity that late in life, when he retired from making public appearances, a hit podcast dedicated itself to speculating on his reasons for doing so.

He appeared as himself on “General Hospital,” and on talk shows including “The Dr. Oz Show,” “Ellen” “The Dr. Ruth Show” (whose host, Ruth Westheimer, died Friday) and the “Late Show with David Letterman,” where he and Letterman focused less on fitness than on mocking each other’s dress and mannerisms.

Simmons was no less in character during the roughly 200 days he spent on the road each year, traveling to promote his products, give motivational speeches and meet fans. He flew around the country napping across two first-class seats in his signature gym shorts.

Tour buses would arrive at his home in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood, and rather than avoid the gawking out-of-towners, Simmons would race onboard, helping the ladies with their makeup.

Jared Gutstadt, a Canadian musician and entrepreneur, once loudly complained at an airport while waiting for his bags at the carousel — and then he heard a voice call him a “meanie weanie” and demand he do push-ups. He was being scolded, he wrote in a 2015 Times article, by Richard Simmons.

“I turned five different shades of red, but I did the 10 push-ups, and people started laughing,” Gutstadt wrote. “That incident made me realize that I have to be a lot more Zen.”

Fans were promised the real Richard Simmons, and they got it. “You’re actually inside my real exercise studio, Slimmons, and these are my honest-to-goodness teachers,” he said in one workout video. Into the late 2000s, a lesson with Simmons cost just $12.

He was born Milton Teagle Simmons in New Orleans on July 12, 1948. His mother, Shirley, was disowned by her Jewish family when she set out to become a dancer for the Ziegfeld Follies, Simmons told Dr. Ruth. He became an “extreme Catholic,” the religion of his father, Leonard, who once performed in a vaudeville act and was a master of ceremonies for big bands in Chicago.

He told varying stories about how he came to be called Richard — that an uncle had paid for him to attend college, at Florida State University, if he took his name, or that he simply disliked the name Milton.

Simmons frequently said that he began overeating at a young age. “While other kids my age began exploring their sexuality, I spent time exploring food,” he wrote in “Still Hungry — After All These Years,” his autobiography. “Food became sex for me — it became my pleasure.”

Yet for all his openness and availability, Simmons reserved some of his life for himself. He rarely left his hotel room when traveling and avoided restaurants. He described himself to The Denver Post as a loner with few friends whose main company consisted of pet Dalmatians and live-in housekeepers.

“I don’t have a lot to offer one person,” he said about his lack of a romantic partner. “I have a lot to offer to a lot of people.”