Eldergays, tell me about peak Richard Simmons

Shit. I'm going to "Oh dear!" myself for typing the word "Facebook" twice. Ugh.

I only remember his appearances on Letterman, where he would get lightly ridiculed.

Oh, and damn autocorrect for fucking up "Slimmons"!

I remember when he was on General Hospital and people talking about it at school.

I worked out at his Slimmons Studio in Beverly Hills while I was vacationing in LA in 2011.

I went with some friends and we all wore eighties workout wear.

In person, Richard is LOUD and kind of raunchy. His hair was very thin and very tall; I think he’d some some extreme teasing beforehand. He flirted a lot with the hottest guy in the room, and while I was on my back with both my legs pointed up in the air, he clutched my ankles together and announced to everyone, “Look! His legs are trembling. It must be his first time!”

I loved it.

I think Richard is a very strange person, but also essentially a very good and kind person. I’m pulling for him.

R5 I love it! Thanks for sharing!

He was on Howard Stern show often and their was always drama-and always entertaining

It seems like he always had a mask on until it got too much for him and then he went away...

R5, that's the Richard I know. I saw him at a taping of a game show in the late 80s. I was backstage and picked his brain about the glory DAYS of GH.

He was very nice; he was a savior to lots of fat women and even fatter gay guys, I imagine.

I, too, am pulling for him.

FYI: His skin cancer scare was a while ago; not recently.

At his peak, nobody was a finer specimen of unbridled masculinity. I met him at a Lane Bryant store opening in Bell Gardens California in the 80s. He was in perfect shape, all sinewy muscle. Having spent the morning sweatin with the oldies, he had a golden, slick sheen that made it hard to keep my hands on him as he took me again and again inside the bathroom of the mall. The very definition of a love muscle.

He sold salad dressing in spray-pump bottles. One squirt, one calorie.

He was better than "stop the insanity!" Susan Powter and more entertaining than Jack LaLanne

He was exhausting.

A simple request to show Richard where the bathroom was at my old TV station ended with him chasing me around while yelling “I have to use the little boys room!”

He was a lot, but when I told Richard how much my mom loved his show, he was very sweet.

Sometime in the early 1990s I watched Richard hawking his Deal-A-Meal cards on QVC. At one point they went to a filmed piece with customer testimonials and what not. When it was over, Richard was standing next to the QVC host looking as if he were daydreaming. The host booms out in his cheesy salesman voice something like, "Richard, it's hard to believe THIS system has changed SO many lives and for TODAY we get to offer it at an ALL-TIME BARGAIN PRICE!" Richard looks at him like he has two heads and says in a quiet, even voice, "What.. the Deal-A-Meal thing?" The host replies, "YES!" with wide eyes. Richard finally twigs in and shouts, "OH, WE'RE BACK!" and turns up the full flame of his usual persona. It was fun to see the real person, even if it was only for a few seconds.

Sounds like he doesn't want "the weasel" to portray him

How well know was he when he started on General Hospital?

r17 he had his own show in the early 80's and he did a lot of guest star appearances.

R18 He started GH in 1979, before those shows.

He started out as a waiter in Beverly Hills. When he opened his first work out studio, it had a salad bar. Very 80s.