Ruth Westheimer, a sex therapist known as Dr Ruth who was renowned for her frankness and fronted her own eponymous TV talk show, has died aged 96 . In the 1980s, her TV series The Dr. Ruth Show, was attracting millions of viewers, with hundreds of thousands of people tuning in to watch it at night when it aired.
Her radio call-in show Sexually Speaking began in 1980 and lasted for a decade, and she also wrote 45 books on sex and sexuality. The news of Westheimer’s death was confirmed by her publicist Pierre Lehu, who co-authored books with her. ‘She was restful when she passed away.
Her son and daughter were with her and holding her hand at that moment,’ Lehu told People in a statement. ‘It was as peacefully as she could possibly go. She was 96.
’ No cause of death has been given. Lehu continued: ‘It’s amazing, there was stuff still going on in her life and someone wants to make a biopic about her.’ Born in Germany in 1928 as Karola Ruth Siegel, Westheimer grew up in a Jewish household and the only child of her parents, who worked as a housekeeper and a notions wholesaler.
After Westheimer’ father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis, her mother and grandmother sent her to Switzerland for her safety, where she stayed at an orphanage. Both of her parents were killed during the Holocaust. When she was a teenager, she emigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, where she trained as a sniper in the Israeli military.
On her 20th birthday.