Richard Simmons, Patron Saint of Fab Fitness

A Tribute

“This is his legacy,” I thought this morning as I performed a series of increasingly difficult rhythmic squats set to specially-arranged pop music.

I was thinking, of course, of Richard Simmons and his legendary Sweatin’ to the Oldies tapes. He’d sing loudly along as he danced around encouraging the other exercisers, infecting everyone with his exuberance and those little striped dolphin shorts. “I love you,” he’d sometimes say directly to the camera, a kind of flamboyant fitness-y version of Mr. Rogers. I think he meant it.

The exercise classes at my gym are primarily taken by me and a bunch of other slightly flabby women, and are led by a chiseled, muscular gay man who looks like a Greek god. He’s a fantastic, patient leader, smiling encouragingly and quickly offering “options” (easier ones) for those who are struggling. Sometimes he sings along with the music, and frequently makes eye contact and nods. His leadership is both instructive and performative, and is always 100% supportive.

I don’t know if my current fitness instructor would ever say “I love you” to any of us, but I do know that my mom would have raved about him.

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Richard Simmons came into my life when I was in the 5th grade (on TV, anyway). My parents had recently divorced, and my sister and I were living with our mom in a two-bedroom apartment that felt very exciting near Waco’s fanciest suburb: there was a pool at the complex and a “bathroom suite” in the main bedroom, and we got to live on the second floor! It was in that apartment that I learned to love opening the blinds to let the sunlight in and light fires using those long matches and paper-wrapped “logs” in the fireplace. It was a new, joyful era that I associate with peach-scented candles and pretty, delicate transparent curtains.

My sister and I (ages 8 and 10) had recently fallen in love with “oldies.” Our mom had bought a series of tapes with music from the 1950s and 60s in a pink jukebox-shaped container. It was a happy time, our mother young, relatively healthy, and refreshed from breaking away from an untenable living situation. It was during that time we (she) also discovered Paul Simon’s Graceland album, and that, the oldies, and country music station fare became the soundtrack of our lives, what we’d listen to as we drove around and out of town in her new Toyota Camry with automatic seatbelts.

Knowing we’d love the music and the fanfare, she bought the Sweatin’ to the Oldies tapes instead of renting them from Blockbuster. As Simmons led his group, transitioning seamlessly between whoops of encouragement and flawless aerobics moves, we popped popcorn and served ourselves Coke to sit on the couch and watch him, the irony completely lost on us.

This is one of my favorite family memories.

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Richard Simmons died a few months ago, and I was surprised to really feel it. Certain people become cultural touchstones — the best that society has to offer, someone the rest of us can point to as examples of what “the best” looks like. I’d place him with the likes of Dolly Parton and Mr. Rogers in terms of eligibility for American sainthood.

Simmons showed the kind of love and compassion for others that only those who’ve been dragged through the mud and hung up wet themselves exhibit. Indeed, one of his many claims to fame is personally answering fan mail, as well as making phone calls to people who asked for help. He made sure that everyone who reached out to him felt heard and special.

The beginning of his well-known story is of an extremely overweight young man. Once he lost the weight, he became an exercise evangelist, gearing the Good Word toward average people during a time when most fitness was for the already fit.

He was a clown. He was outrageous, but he was outrageously kind. He did not look down on people, and he openly let himself be the butt of the joke, seeming to always be meta-level along for the ride, above the fray. He was a kind of rodeo clown, preventing his overweight and self-conscious clients from feeling ridiculed and judged: “Hey-hey, no, over here! Look at me!” By being the most ridiculous person in the room by far, others could relax, the pressure off.

And this performance disarmed one of people’s main objections to getting started in the fitness world with a less than fit body. His silliness was actually extreme kindness. “I love you,” it said. “I will do whatever it takes so that you feel comfortable with improving your physical health, and I’ll make sure you have fun doing it.”

He unwaveringly stayed himself during a time when gay men could not really talk about being gay, when making fun of them was a national sport. I suspect that this hurt him — how could it not? — but at least outwardly, he seemed to take it the same way Dolly Parton has always taken dumb blonde and big boob jokes (“Dumb blonde jokes don’t bother me because I know I’m not dumb. I also know I’m not blonde.”) Simmons, as a man of his time, avoided the topic of sexuality altogether, though he may as well have answered the way Juan Gabriel, a Mexican singer widely-suspected of being gay famously did in an interview: “You don’t ask what you already know.”

He had a very public public life, and a very private private life. He was never “out and about” with any partner, but I find myself fantasizing about a happy private life for him. I hope he fell in love, and that people fell in love with him. I hope he got to experience everything he wanted in life.

Rest in peace, sweet Richard. You were a good one.