R.I.P. Richard Simmons, fitness guru

Richard Simmons has died. (Confirmed by a representative for Simmons, speaking to ABC News.) One of the most famous fitness gurus on the planet—and later, a figure of occasionally reclusive speculation—Simmons was best known for his Sweatin’ To The Oldies line of exercise videos, and for a long string of extremely energetic media appearances. With a public persona of nigh-unrelenting energy and cheer, Simmons went from being a successful gym owner to becoming an international celebrity across the 1970s and 1980s, eventually becoming one of the most recognizable fitness advocates on the planet. News of his death comes just one days after his most recent birthday. Simmons had just turned 76.

Simmons was open and frank about his struggles with his weight from an early age, often citing his earlier obesity as part of his journey toward an obsession with physical fitness. Dabbling in acting from an early age—he appeared in a couple of Fellini’s 1970s films, cast primarily for his weight—he put his focus in the ’70s on both his own fitness, and creating gyms that appealed to customers who weren’t already physically fit. (A rarity in the Los Angeles of the era.) An appearance on NBC reality show Real People introduced the Simmons vibe to the world: High-energy, high volume, very funny, a little totalitarian. The immediate impression led to acting opportunities—he appeared on multiple episodes of General Hospital—and a long and storied career in the world of late night talk. Hosts might perform irritation at Simmons’ antics (with Dave Letterman being an especially good foil), but they knew bringing him on meant they weren’t just getting some boilerplate fitness advice: They were getting a huge dose of absurdist energy who was clearly at least a little bit in on the joke.

A happy pitchman, Simmons made the most of his celebrity in the 1980s and ’90s, using TV marketing to sell viewers on multiple Sweatin’ To The Oldies exercise tapes, as well as his “Deal-A-Meal” diet plan. The Simmons fitness plan was never all that complicated—it typically boiled down to “exercise and eat better” with a lot of bells and whistles attached—but few people on the planet could make those basic ideas sound more exciting. For kids who grew up in the era, he was simply one of those household gods that inevitably develops in your own internal pantheon: You just couldn’t watch TV for more than an hour without glimpsing his face, or hearing his iconic voice—to say nothing of the various parodies of him that suffused pop culture of the era.

(Those parodies feel telling, because they emphasized the way Simmons, the persona, was easy to boil down: Make it loud, make it camp, make it spandex-y. But we’d wager that very few of them were ever as relentlessly funny as Simmons the man, who could fire off rapid-fire banter while doing high-impact calisthenics, and who could portray himself as the world’s most fun-screaming drill sergeant at the apparent drop of a hat.)

In the 2010s, Simmons became a slightly stranger figure, even if his own actions were always perfectly comprehensible: In 2014, he stepped back from a public life he’d been living for nearly 40 years at this point—and then found the world weirdly unwilling to let him fade into obscurity. Rumors swirled around his isolation, luring the true crime podcast industry to try to get its teeth in him. And his recent conflicts with Pauly Shore, who’s been bound and determined to create some kind of biopic of the guru, largely against the man’s will, have been well-documented. Through it all, Simmons would pop up from time to time to assure everyone he was fine, he loved them, and he was just done being internationally famous, thanks. In one of his more recent breaks of his regular silence, he mentioned that he’d been suffering from skin cancer, framing the reveal as a reminder to people that they should get any irregularities checked out. (Perfectly in character: Simmons noted in his later years that, despite stepping back from the limelight, he still spent decent chunks of his days communicating with fans, letting them know he cared.)

Per TMZ, Simmons was pronounced dead in his Beverly Hills home today, after authorities were called in by his housekeeper.