Ruth Westheimer obituary

Ruth Westheimer, who has died aged 96, was an American psychosexual therapist famed for transforming attitudes towards the open discussion of sex. She began quietly in 1980 with a 15-minute recorded programme, Sexually Speaking, aired after midnight on a New York radio channel. A year later it had become an hour-long live phone-in show.

Following emphatic success she went on to write more than 35 books, including Dr Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex (1994) and Sex for Dummies (1995). She also syndicated her column in newspapers worldwide, and developed games, videos, software and her own website.

Her boundless enthusiasm, her frankness, her German accent and her height – she was 4ft 7in – made her instantly recognisable and endlessly parodied, but never forgotten. Few in her field can claim to have been featured in a primetime science-fiction TV series (Quantum Leap, 1985), to have appeared under the thin disguise of Dr Ruth Weisenheimer in a Batman story (The Dark Knight Returns, 1986) and to have sung with an award-winning musician (Tom Chapin, on his album This Pretty Planet, 1996). Nor, having trained as a sniper in Israel.

She was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to orthodox Jewish parents, Julius Siegel, a haberdashery wholesaler, and Irma (nee Hanauer). An only child, Ruth had a happy childhood. Julius took her regularly to the synagogue. She was later to insist, against conservative and religious voices that sought to criticise her openness, that sex was not only good but heavenly; and that her message of liberal thinking towards sex had its origin in her religion.

When she was 10, her father was taken by the Nazis and in 1939 her mother and grandmother sent Ruth for safety to a children’s home in Switzerland. Letters stopped arriving in 1941 and the home became an orphanage, as her family and the families of fellow students disappeared into the concentration camps. Ruth never saw her parents again and believed that they perished in Auschwitz.

At the age of 17 she emigrated to what was then Palestine and joined the Jewish underground, the Haganah, to fight for Israeli independence. She was trained as a sniper and a scout but in 1948, three weeks after Israel declared independence, and on her birthday, she was seriously wounded by an exploding shell. After a long convalescence, in 1950 she moved to Paris with her first husband, David, an Israeli, studied psychology at the Sorbonne and taught at kindergarten level.

She divorced in 1955 and the following year travelled with a French boyfriend, Dan, to New York, where she gained a master’s degree in sociology from the New School for Social Research. She and Dan married and had a daughter, Miriam, but soon divorced.

In 1961, she met a fellow Jewish immigrant, Manfred Westheimer, known as Fred, while on a skiing trip. She married him nine months later and became an American citizen shortly afterwards. In 1964 their son, Joel, was born.

In the late 1960s, Westheimer joined the Planned Parenthood organisation in Harlem, New York and, in spite of her initial shock at the frank conversation she encountered, soon found her vocation. She became project director in 1967. She gained a doctorate in 1970 through evening classes at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work with Planned Parenthood prompted her to study with the pioneer sex therapist Helen Singer Kaplan.

In the early 70s, she became an associate professor of sex counselling at Lehman College in the Bronx. She taught at Brooklyn College, Adelphi University, Columbia University, West Point, New York University, Calhoun College at Yale University and Princeton University, and was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.

Her life and career took a dramatic turn when she gave a lecture to New York broadcasters about the need for sex education programming. Betty Elam, of the New York radio station WYNY-FM, offered Westheimer $25 a week to make Sexually Speaking. After a couple of weeks it was noticed that work stopped in the building as studio and office workers gathered to listen to this “cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse”, as the Wall Street Journal later described her.

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Her midnight show on a small, struggling station was getting better ratings than peak-period programmes on major channels. Westheimer appeared on Late Night With David Letterman in 1982 and was soon a household name across the US. Her cable TV show was soon rolled out across the US as The Dr Ruth Show.

Her radio programme Ask Dr Ruth was syndicated nationally and internationally, so she became as well known in London and Hong Kong as she was in New York. As well as a weekly series on Israeli TV, she contributed to ITV’s This Morning breakfast show and spots on television in Luxembourg, Switzerland and France – she spoke English, French, German and Hebrew.

She subsequently starred in The All New Dr Ruth Show and You’re On the Air with Dr Ruth and reached teenagers and young people with What’s Up, Dr Ruth? (1989), as well as senior citizens with Never Too Late (1992).

Sex and sexuality were not her only concerns. She was also involved in documentaries on family and religious values, Ethiopian Jews and Bedouin women, and in 2023 was named New York state ambassador to loneliness. While she managed to help so many people understand the need for sexual literacy, she never took herself seriously, and was happy to parody herself and her messages in advertisements for cars and shampoo.

She received many awards and honorary degrees. In 1998 People magazine named her among its Most Intriguing People of the Century and in 2009 Playboy, in its 55th anniversary edition, ranked her at number 13 in 55 of the most important people in sex in the previous 55 years. She continued for many years to have a private practice and to offer help and advice through her website, and in 2019 was the subject of a documentary, Ask Dr Ruth.

Fred died in 1997. Ruth is survived by Miriam and Joel and four grandchildren.