Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist whose unequivocal manner and unending charm made her a talk show superstar, has . Westheimer died Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, her publicist Pierre Lehu confirmed on Saturday.
Westheimer rose to fame thanks to her willingness to speak frankly about sex when few others would. Her nighttime radio show, became so popular in the 1980s that she parlayed it into a Lifetime TV show. At that point, she was famous enough that it was simply called “The Dr.
Ruth Show.” “We don’t have the luxury to not talk about sex,” . “Our children get information from the internet, and some of it may be inaccurate.
The conversation has to extend beyond the home; it has to be a collaborative effort by schools, parents.” “The Dr. Ruth Show” ran from 1984 to 1991, but Westheimer remained an authority on sex, appearing on talk shows and granting interviews to spread important information.
She also published dozens of books, ranging from to “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Talking About Herpes.” “I may have been and gone on ‘David Letterman’ and ‘Arsenio Hall’ because they had young audiences I wanted to talk to,” .
“But at the same time, I always did serious books or taught seminars. I was very conscious of that.” But Westheimer was much more than the nation’s leading sex therapist.
Born June 4, 1928 in Germany’s Bavaria region, Westheimer was also a Holocaust survivor. When she was 10 years old, her .