R.I.P.: Radio-TV's ‘Dr. Ruth', Dies At 96

Ruth Westheimer, a child survivor of the Holocaust who became known to millions as Dr. Ruth, the perky sex therapist whose frankness on her long-running radio and television call-in shows made her a go-to guide for tips on the art and science of lovemaking, died July 12 at her home in Manhattan. She was 96.

The Washington Post reports her death was confirmed by Pierre Lehu, a publicist and her co-author on several books, but no cause was noted.

Described as the first superstar sex therapist, Dr. Westheimer was over 50 when she debuted in 1980 on New York’s WYNY with “Sexually Speaking.” The radio program initially aired in 15-minute installments and was later syndicated and extended to two hours to accommodate the onslaught of queries she received from callers. More than a few listeners professed that she had saved their marriages.

Cable television viewers knew her as the prim, matronly host in the 1980s of “Good Sex With Dr. Ruth Westheimer” and as a frequent guest on late-night talk shows. At 4-foot-7, she often was seen perched on a seat, bedecked in pearls, cheerfully dispensing advice on best practices in the sack.

“Have good sex!” she trilled in her instantly recognizable German-inflected voice.

Dr. Westheimer’s old-world accent, at times seemingly incongruous with her discussion of intimate anatomy and its usage, was one of the few traces of her life before she came to the United States. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany, she survived the Holocaust at a Swiss orphanage where her parents sent her before they perished.

“I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world,” Dr. Westheimer once told an interviewer. What she did not know, she added, was that the dent would entail her “talking about sex from morning to night.”