Still Hungry After All These Years: My Story - Hardcover

Who is the real Richard Simmons? The energetic wizard who gets overweight people eating right and exercising? The comic who prances around in shorts and a tank top on late-night television? The compassionate listener who sheds tears at sad stories? They're all real, but there's much more. In this book, you learn how Simmons went from being an overweight child whose obsession for food controlled his life to becoming the exercise-and-diet guru of today. It's an engrossing tale, filled with poignant anecdotes, fascinating tidbits (he played a meatball in a commercial when he was an art student in Italy), and even horror stories (licking the nozzle of an empty asthma inhaler, trying to get just one more drop so he could breathe, because his father restricted his inhaler refills). The style is pure Richard: food-obsessed and often very funny ("I even changed my own diapers because I didn't like the way my parents did it").

Much of the book is about--what else?--food. Even as a baby,

I could recognize a package of bacon at twenty feet. The strips of bacon looked so weak, so flimsy, so sad, until they hit the frying pan. Then they began swimming and dancing, lacing up at the sides and turning golden brown.

At adolescence, his tastes matured. "Puberty was graduating from Thousand Island salad dressing to Caesar salads... from hot dogs and hamburgers to beef stroganoff... from ice cream in a cone to crème brulée." Simmons describes the torments of being obese (268 pounds as a college student), the humiliation of the diet doctors, and his "angels"--the special people who turned his life around. He has a definite knack for drawing the reader in; you'll feel like a dear friend has just confided his life story to you. --Joan Price

The diet/exercise media guru, autobiographically speaking, is sweatin to the oldies. Millions of overweight Americans (especially older women), adore Simmons for his empathy and for inspiring them on TV, videos (like ``Sweatin to the Oldies'') and mall appearances to eat right and exercise their way to better health. Others, however, can see Simmons as a bit too driven and fawning. This candid book helps nonfans understand, if not like, the author. This ``court jester of health'' dons his droll, upbeat persona. There are many food jokes, like wishing he were born in Italy, where so many people were ``little plum tomatoes and little provolone cheeses,'' but he often resembles the clown crying in his makeup trailer. Raised as Milton in New Orleans, Simmons was very attached to his mother, a fan dancer turned cosmetic saleslady, and bitterly feuded with his stay-at-home dad, who had failed in show business. Food ``was a religious experience,'' and the rotund boy blamed his brother when he raided the refrigerator and even put the familys house up for sale. Even more troubling traits for this inspirational icon are revealed when he quits Weight Watchers for earning too many pig pins as a weight gainer, refuses to attend his fathers funeral, and calls his housekeeper and six dogs the woman and children in his life. Getting the best revenge on dad, whom he reconciles with to the point of embarrassing him with public kisses, Simmons recounts how (after beating obesity and bulimia) he went from a bit part on General Hospital to his own successful TV show, cook- and diet books, exercise videos, promos of fat-free popcorn at K-mart and buying mansions in Beverly Hills. There are many examples of heroic work to rescue 1,000-pounders and other victims of disease, but many readers will only conclude that Simmons is still crazy and that his love handles are protruding from his tank top. (First printing of 200,000; $400,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.