Celebrity fitness guru Richard Simmons died on July 13, just one day after turning 76. A rep for Simmons confirmed his passing to ABC News. The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a 911 call from his housekeeper and found Simmons dead, apparently from natural causes.
Born Milton Teagle, Simmons was overweight as a child and as an adult, established gyms and lost over a hundred pounds, going on to help others lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. As his celebrity grew, Simmons appeared on numerous television shows, even playing himself on daytime soap opera General Hospital from 1979-83. There, he taught exercise classes for the women of Port Charles in the Campus Disco. He returned again in 2013 for a couple of episodes to help Lucy with the annual Nurses Ball.
“The first person that I met was Genie Francis,” Simmons recalled. “I clicked immediately with her. When I got my first paycheck, I went to Tiffany’s and bought her a pair of earrings. When I gave her the blue box — the famous blue box — she gazed at the earrings. ‘For me?’ she said. She later told me she gave the earrings to her daughter.”
Appearing on the incredibly popular GH helping Louise Haven’s character of Beverly with her weight loss goals helped Simmons spread his message to an even wider audience than before and letters began flooding into the studio. “They all said they are happy I am on General Hospital,” Simmons said. “They were inspired by Louise’s effort to drop the weight. Some of these letters were written by teenagers, women of every age, and some from men. It was overwhelming, to say the least.”
Simmons also hosted his own series, The Richard Simmons Show, from 1980-84, and released numerous cookbooks and exercise books as well as workout videos, including the popular Sweatin’ to the Oldies series. He was in the process of writing a script for a film based on his fascinating life before his death.
