Richard Simmons fans reveal how the legendary fitness guru personally saved their lives: ‘He meant it’

nypost.com:

who tragically died after a fall on July 13, one day after his 76th birthday, was calling and emailing hundreds of fans even in his final days, he revealed in his last interview with People.

Admirers from around the country tell The Post the sunny aerobics instructor’s personal involvement in their lives really helped make a difference and saved them from tragedy.“He helped my sister during a dark time,” wedding singer and Oceanside, New York, native Beth Mauskopf, 66, told The Post.

She first met Simmons in 1979 at his fitness class in Los Angeles and said she confided in him about her overweight sister Joan’s battle with depression years later. “I wrote to him and told him the situation and said ‘I can’t help her.

Can you call her?’ And he called her [my sister] and encouraged her. He said, ‘One day at a time. You’re worth something.’ Once Richard called her it was as if she was lifted,” she said, noting that her fitness idol saved lives.“Richard taught the world to focus on how far you’ve come rather than how far you have to go,” she said.Simmons rose to fame in the 1980’s as a fitness instructor with his televised aerobics routines and landmark 1988 hit workout tape “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”.He also made TV appearances on “General Hospital” between 1979 and 1982 and talk and radio shows like “Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Howard Stern Show.” In 2014, the New Orleans native, who had struggled with weight issues himself as a kid, retreated from the public eye and stopped teaching his fitness classes.