“Dr. Ruth” Westheimer, the diminutive sex expert who brought frank discussions of relationships to American pop culture with her thick German accent and frank talk about sex on radio and television, has died at the age of 96.
Westheimer, known affectionately as “Dr. Ruth” for her books and radio and television appearances, died Friday at her New York City home. Her co-author and publicist, Pierre Leff, confirmed her passing to USA Today on Saturday.
“She was peaceful when she passed away,” Lev told People magazine. “Her son and daughter were with her, holding her hand. … She passed away as peacefully as possible.”
Westheimer, who fled the Nazis as a child in her native Germany, was tireless to the end, and until just last month she continued to write and post on social media about the many things that interested her.
“I used to ski and water ski when I was younger, so I would definitely try,” she wrote in a June 27 post on X about a video of a woman sliding down a sand dune. “I probably tried it last year, even at 95!”
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Dr. Ruth gives sex advice to young people
Speaking to USA Today to promote her upcoming documentary, “Ask Dr Ruth,” she said she had some advice for the growing number of young people who find themselves too busy, stressed or broke to go on dates.
“Don't be stupid. Make time for sex,” she pleaded. “Sex is a lot of fun and it's free. Make the connection happen. Don't join the ranks of people who have lost the art of conversation.”
She published three books in 2018 alone, and in January 2019, she attended the premiere of a documentary at the Sundance Film Festival that received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics.
The film explores how Westheimer's tragic past shaped her into the bright, outspoken and tenacious woman she is.
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Dr. Ruth on Social Media
Her fun X account is littered with upbeat posts that reflect her bright and positive personality.
“It's #FirstSnow and I'm home. I was supposed to go to a book launch but can't make it. Partly because I'm 90 and afraid of falling, and partly because I don't have a car!” she wrote playfully from her trademark handle, @AskDrRuth, in November 2018. In between posting comments expressing admiration for the art she saw in galleries and gushing about the possibility of enjoying oral sex more in later life, she was promoting her new Holocaust book, “Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom,” about the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.
“I don't promote books a lot, but this book is important to me,” she declares in the video clip.
Her commitment to truth and history helped her overcome her initial reluctance to cooperate with the documentary (by filmmaker Ryan White), especially given her desire to separate work and family.
Westheimer said she ultimately became passionate about the project as a way to share her refugee experience with others and to “tell the Holocaust deniers to stop denying the Holocaust.” “Some people say, 'Look, that was a long time ago. Stop talking about it,' so I have to fight that.”
To the end, Westheimer urged the benefits of staying active in older age, and that boredom can be deadly.
“I'm really lucky because I'm healthy and I love what I do,” she told USA Today. “I tell older people, don't retire, get started. You don't have to stay in the same profession, you can do something else, but don't sit at home and be bored.”
Dr. Ruth kept her private life private.
Westheimer has always been private about her personal life, which includes three marriages, and in 2019 she was a bit coy about whether she was in a relationship, telling USA Today (“Next question,” she said with a laugh).
Her third and final marriage, to Fred Westheimer in 1961, was what she called her “real marriage,” and lasted until his death in 1997.
But she spoke fondly of her two adult children and four grandchildren, with whom she spent her free time at her New York home.
“I'm very proud of my four wonderful grandchildren, even though I lose at chess,” Westheimer said. “I usually take them out to dinner and a show. I'm not a cookie-baking grandma.”
How Dr. Ruth became famous
Westheimer, who has lived in New York since moving there from France in 1956, first rose to fame in the 1980s (when she was in her early 50s) by publicly offering explicit advice on sex that experts said had previously been taboo, making her incredibly influential in purging American culture of the last vestiges of sex-phobic asceticism.
She first came to attention in 1980 when she spoke before a New York station about the need for sex education programming to address issues of birth control and unwanted pregnancy.
This led to the launch of a radio talk show called “Sexually Speaking” on WYNY-FM, which became a huge hit with national airings and established Westheimer as a nationally recognized authority on sexual issues.
“She's opened up a dialogue about sex in a country that is pretty closed-minded about sex, and that's no easy thing to do,” said Debbie Herbenick, a sex educator at the Kinsey Institute, a sex-research group at Indiana University Bloomington.
“People were very open to her persona, and because she was on radio and TV and had such a large cultural presence, she was able to make difficult conversations more comfortable and fun,” Herbenick said.
Dr. Ruth talks to USA TODAY about his work
In a 2013 interview with USA Today, Westheimer spoke about his accomplishments.
“I want people to know that I had the audacity, the guts to speak about a subject that had never been discussed before,” she said.
In an interview shortly before turning 85, Westheimer said he is “fortunate to be in good health” and has an informal fitness routine.
“I don't exercise, but I get a massage once a week. I walk a lot. I don't just sit around, I walk and talk,” she says.
Though Westheimer was only 4 feet 7 inches tall, she was nationally famous, from guest appearances on late-night TV shows to appearing on the cover of People magazine. Though she kept a lower profile in her later years, she never retired.
Ms Westheimer has adapted to the times, speaking out about issues such as masturbation on her YouTube channel, where she posts to her more than 113,000 X followers.
Even before the advent of social media, she was a frequent presence in other media outlets: in the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on TV shows (“Hollywood Squares” and “Quantum Leap”), recordings (Tom Chapin's album “This Pretty Planet”) and even commercials (an ad for the 1994 Honda Prelude).
In 2009, she was named number 13 in Playboy magazine's 55th anniversary issue list of the 55 most important people in sex of the past 55 years. A one-act play about her life, “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” ran Off-Broadway for several months in 2013 and opened at Theatre J in Washington, DC in 2021.
And she kept writing books. In 2018, her 43rd, 44th, and 45th books were published: “Stay or Go: Dr. Ruth's Rules for Real Relationships,” co-written with Pierre A. Leff, in January; “Roller Coaster Grandma,” co-written with Leff, in February; and “From You to Two,” co-written with Leff, in June.
One of her most recent books, co-authored with Jonathan Mark, was published in paperback in 2020: Heavenly Sex: Sexuality and the Jewish Tradition.
Westheimer was a teacher at heart. She taught at Lehman College, Brooklyn College, Adelphi University, Columbia University, and even West Point. In April 2018, she was in her third year of teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned her doctorate in education from the university in 1970.
Maurice Tunick, a vice president of SiriusXM Satellite Radio in New York and a longtime collaborator, worked on Westheimer's “Sexually Speaking” show in 1980. “I'd like to say I knew her before she was Dr. Ruth,” he told USA Today in a 2013 interview.
“'Relatable' is the perfect word for her,” he said. “She will be remembered for her ability to communicate with people.”
Dr. Ruth's childhood and career as a sniper
Westheimer became famous for talking about sex, but her story, while lesser known, is also worth noting: Born Carola Ruth Siegel in Germany, she was sent by her family to an orphanage in Switzerland in 1939 at the age of 10, along with other Jewish children who had been sent there to escape the Nazi regime.
At the age of 16, she moved to Palestine and trained as a sniper in the Haganah, the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, before being wounded in the 1948 War of Independence and moving to Paris to study psychology at the Sorbonne.
Her son, Joel Westheimer, a professor of education at the University of Ottawa in Canada, believes his mother's success was due to discussing topics that no one was discussing at the time.
“She was a pioneer in that sense, and she did it in a way that was non-threatening to anybody. Maybe it helped that she had a German accent and was not yet 23,” he said.
“Her accent, her build and the way she spoke combined to let people down,” he added. “She was really smart and her answers were common sense and insightful. She was funny, but always serious at the same time.”
Her daughter Miriam Westheimer, who works in international education in New York, says her mother's attitude was always one of status quo.
“Make every moment count because you never know what tomorrow will bring,” she says of her mother's mantra.
Contributors:Amanda Lee Myers, Mike Snyder and Patrick Ryan
