Headlong: Missing Richard Simmons · Topic / Pineapple Street Media / Dan Taberski

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

March 15, 2017·29 min·2 clips

Psychoanalyst Rebecca Meredith — who lost 125 pounds on a Richard Simmons cruise and later became a licensed therapist — describes some followers as buckets with holes in the bottom that could never be filled enough.

The door visit still hangs there. Dan and producer Henry have come to New Orleans looking for Lenny, Richard's only brother, and the awkwardness gets there first. Dan should have called. Lenny has gone quiet with everyone, at least as Dan understands it, because Richard went underground and Lenny became fiercely protective. The silence feels private, almost like family business. Then the episode leaves the porch and steps onto the Cruise to Lose, the weeklong world Richard made for followers who needed more than exercise. The tape has plenty of sparkle: disco classes, seminars, group meetings, casino nights, shuffleboard, and Richard working the room like every person mattered. Kathy gives the cruise its emotional center. For her, it meant freedom. Size and physical limits did not run the place for once. Love did. Winifred Morris adds the longer view. After sixteen years beside Richard on those cruises, she remembers people coming back again and again, including some who had spent years alone, because the bonds were real. It is sweet. It also sounds punishing. Richard is shown handing out hugs, kisses, energy, comfort, and structure to hundreds of people at a time. Dan keeps both parts in the frame. The cruise is not a postcard. It shows the joy of being Richard Simmons, and the strain of having so many people reach for him. The episode keeps the followers human too. The jokes and archival bits make room for tenderness instead of turning anyone into a punchline. By the end, the voicemail line lands differently. The show thanks the people who trusted Dan with their Richard stories, then leaves Richard's idea of connection sitting there for everyone listening.

As heard by us

A tender, uneasy portrait of devotion, distance, and the people Richard Simmons changed.

Dan Tversky starts with the people closest to Richard Simmons, and that choice gives the episode its weight. What comes through is not just admiration, but the strain of being shut out, along with the loyalty that lingers anyway.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Follow the trail from a guarded brother to Richard's most devoted circle.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Headlong: Missing Richard Simmons