Part 4
I also invited other men and women who lost a lot of weight. They would bring a pair of their pants they used to fit in. Then I put my body in one leg then the success story would put themselves in the other leg. They would always ask me to sign their pants and you know…I did.
This influenced others to write in with their success stories. And I would invite them to do the show. My first sponsor was a high powered blender called the vitamix. The motor if this blender could easily run a small car lol.
Before the show the creator of the Vitamix came and showed me how the blender worked. I noticed he had part of a finger missing. He said to me “I reached in the blender when I shouldn’t have.” I wondered where part of that finger went .
The blender came with a wooden stick about two feet long. And you would use it to push down the food you were blending. The first day I used the vitamix I did not put the top on all the way. When I turned it on everything jumped out of the blender and on to my face and body. I looked like a popsicle on a hot day. I was always afraid of the Vitamix and when I had to use it I broke out in a sweat.
At that time I was doing General Hospital and my show at the same time. Woody told me I “had to quit GH”. He did not like working around the soap opera schedule. I was not a happy camper. But I did what he said.
I used to think of Woody as a father figure. Then he became Father Dearest. He was like Joan Crawford in a different body. I remember taping one day and he did not like what I was doing. He put his hands around my throat and began squeezing. My face turned bright red and I couldn’t breath. Two people had to take Woody’s hands and release them from my neck.
I have seen people get choked in a movie or tv show but now I knew what it felt like first hand. I was in my dressing room washing my hair and he pushed my head in the water. I thought I was going to drown.
Even though I loved my show, I always feared what Woody would do. Woody coproduced two exercise videos for me with a video production company. The first one was called Everyday with Richard Simmons. The workout began with a bunch of people eating fattening desserts in an ice cream parlor. They were all dressed in street clothes. I popped out of a hot fudge sundae with a cherry on my head. They all gasped…I snapped my fingers and everyone magically had their workout outfits on. I then snapped my fingers again and we were all on the workout set. The music was sort of elevator music.
The show hired a fitness instructor whose first initial was the letter T. She was all smiles in front of me but one day she was talking about me in a negative way to the cast in the video. I walked behind her and heard the whole thing. She turned and gave me one of her smiles and I told her she could no longer work on the video. She was not smiling when I sad good-bye.
The second workout was called the stomach formula. It was 7 minutes a day for 7 days of the week. This workout was all about the stomach and how to firm it up. Every day the cast and I wore different colored outfits. The set was a circular stage with me and the cast fit into a portion of the circle.
I held auditions and met a guy who had a black patch on his eye. I did not ask any questions. He was nice and had a fit body. I can’t tell you how sore I was doing this workout for hours at a time. After we finished the taping in a few days I looked up at the heavens and said thank you I don’t have to do another crunch.
A few weeks later I went to the restaurant called The Melting Pot. As I was taken to my seat ….who did I see? The man who was in the stomach formula with the black eye patch. Guess what? He wasn’t wearing the black eye patch. He just put it on to get a job. I couldn’t even talk to him. I went to the table with my friends to have lunch.
To be continued…
Love,
Richard
