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Coordinates: 41°18.755′N 72°55.830′W / 41.312583°N 72.9305°W / 41.312583; -72.9305

Morse College is one of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University, built in 1961 and designed by Eero Saarinen. It is adjacent to Ezra Stiles College. The current Master is Frank Keil, Professor of Psychology and Professor of Linguistics. The Associate Master is Kristi Lockhart. Following the Spring 2005 semester, former Dean Rosemary Jones stepped down, and was followed by Dean Alexandra Dufresne, who left after the 2006–2007 academic year. On May 2, 2007, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey announced that Joel Silverman will become the next Dean of Morse College.

History[link]

In his report on the year 1955-6, Yale President A. Whitney Griswold announced his intention to add at least one more residential college to the system Yale had launched only two decades earlier. "We have the colleges so full that community life, discipline, education, even sanitation are suffering," he stated. This news bred wild rumors about four or five new colleges being added to Yale's system. Nothing substantial was announced until the spring of 1959 when Eero Saarinen '34 was chosen as the architect, and the Old York Square behind the Graduate School became the designated site. The Old Dominion Foundation, established by Paul Mellon '29, provided money to build two "radically different" colleges, which would alleviate the growing strain on the older colleges.

Morse College is an eclectic structure built on an odd, angular site with many design features that are reminiscent of the Tuscan villages, most notably San Gimignano. The college consists almost entirely of single rooms, and in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen eliminated all right angles from the living areas. This resulted, notoriously, in two rooms which have eleven walls, none of which is long enough to put the bed against and still be able to open the door. In a 1959 article in the Yale Daily News, Eero Saarinen discussed his design for Morse. "Our primary effort was to create an architecture which would recognize the individual as individual instead of an anonymous integer in a group." Although the design has its fervent supporters, some prior residents regard the design as a disaster. The exterior of the college has been compared to concrete peanut brittle.

The college provides several amenities to its resident "Morsels." The fourteen-story main tower provides an inspiring view of all of New Haven. The common room's decorations include air hockey, pool, ping-pong, foosball, and a big-screen TV. A special more homey atmosphere is found in Ericka's Room, a space filled with comfy couches, TV, board game tables, and hosting small literary and theatrical events. Ericka's Room memorializes Ericka Bishop, '97, who was killed by a drunk driver just prior to the start of her junior year in Morse.

Morse has an adjacent "twin" residential college named "Ezra Stiles" which is architecturally similar and built at the same time. The two distinct colleges share an underground kitchen over which runs a public walkway to the Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Architecturally, Morse and Stiles differ from predecessors by having more private space per student, and the lowest ratio of natural light aperture to wall surface of any other colleges.

In 2009, Morse College won the recently renewed and prestigious bladderball contest. The Morse team defeated its opponents by a commanding score of 1,000,026 to 24.^{[citation needed]}

Also during the 2009-2010 school year, Morse College dominated Yale intramural sports in Men's Cross Country, Men's B Hoops, and Coed Dodgeball, one of only four colleges to win championships in every season.^[1] Morse College freshmen then pulled off a brilliant performance at the Yale Freshman Olympics, earning a bronze medal and winning such events as the distinguished volleyball tournament.

Renovations[link]

As of June 2009, renovations of Morse College were begun to bring the college up to date with the other ten colleges that were renovated in the previous ten years. Renovations include a steel and wood skybridge between Morse and Ezra Stiles, as well as a large shared basement space that will house, among other elements, a gym, recording studio, art studio, and 100-seat theater, and that will swell the shared space between Ezra Stiles and Morse to 15,300 square feet (1,420 m²) from the former 11,699.^[2] Renovations also include a re-landscaped courtyard, an outdoor eating patio, and a water feature, the "Morse Beach".

Cheers[link]

• "Morse, Morse, Hung like a horse!"
• "Dot dot, dash dash, we're Morse college, kiss our axe!" (in reference to Morse code and the battle axe that is part of Morse's shield)
• "Dit dot dit, rah rah Morse!"
• "Yale is Morse!"
• "Morse is the Co-op, DANCE! Morse is the Co-op, DANCE! Bet you want to get inside our PANTS!" (In reference to a common slur formerly used by students of other residential colleges that Morse College looked like the old Yale Co-op building and present Yale Bookstore.)
• "Morse always wins"
• "We eat your fear"
• "Harass them! Harass them! Make them relinquish the ball!"
• "Morse likes sports!"

Official cheer[link]

The full official cheer of Morse College is a rendition of "Happy Birthday" to Samuel Morse, followed by the repetition of "Morse, Morse, hung like a horse" six times, then concluding with "Morse Always WINS!"

Origin of the Current Official Morse College Cheer

1) It is always Samuel Morse's birthday. Every day. 2) If Morsels are playing a game of capture the flag on old campus against each other, no matter which team is victorious, Morse always wins.

Alternative to 2: Despite a terrible call by officials during the Freshman Olympics Dodgeball Competition of 2007 (thereby throwing the scoring of the Olympics to Pierson College), all 117 members of the Morse Freshman class came out of Durfee for the last event, the Tug of War, beating all of the other colleges.

Notable alumni[link]

• Fran Kranz, actor from "Cabin in the Woods", "Dollhouse", and "Death of a Salesman"
• Jennifer Beals, actress from Flashdance and The L Word
• Nancy Caffyn, former Mayor of South Windsor, Connecticut and a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
• Sada Jacobson, 2004 Olympic bronze and 2008 silver (individual) and bronze (team) medal winner for sabre fencing
• Allan Heinberg (1989), co-creator of The OC, writer for The Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, etc.
• Joseph Lieberman, US Senator and former Vice Presidential candidate
• Douglas Warner, former Chairman, J.P. Morgan
• Bronson Pinchot, actor portraying Balki in Perfect Strangers
• Clay Shirky, writer on the social and political impact of the Internet

Trivia[link]

• The Morse courtyard was home to two well known sculptures - Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks by Claes Oldenburg and a piece by J. Seward Johnson. The Johnson sculpture was removed during the renovations.
• Morse's mascot is the walrus, because in French le morse translates to walrus.
• A student in Morse is known as a "Morsel," also the name of the small cafe ("Buttery") in Morse's common room.
• On April 23, 2010 over 100 Morse students stormed the Yale Daily News building with a replica of the Lipstick in response to an article which claimed that Morse students had the least spirit of the 12 residential colleges.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Morse College, Yale
• New Morse Website

Michael Morse (born April 2, 1981) is an American freestyle skier who has competed since 1997. His best World Cup finish was third in a moguls event in Norway in 2009.

Morse's best finish at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships was 18th in the moguls event at Inawashiro in 2009.

He was named to the US team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in January 2010.

References[link]

• Michael Morse at the International Ski Federation

This biographical article relating to freestyle skiing in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Eero Saarinen (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈeːro ˈsɑːrinen]) (August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.^[1]

Biography[link]

Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father, Eliel Saarinen.^[2] They emigrated to the United States of America in 1923, when Eero was thirteen.^[3] He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father was a teacher at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and he took courses in sculpture and furniture design there. He had a close relationship with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and became good friends with Florence Knoll (née Schust).

Beginning in September 1929, he studied sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France.^[1] He then went on to study at the Yale School of Architecture, completing his studies in 1934. Subsequently, he toured Europe and North Africa for a year and returned for a year to his native Finland, after which he returned to Cranbrook to work for his father and teach at the academy. He became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1940. Saarinen was recruited by his friend, who was also an architect, to join the military service in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Saarinen was assigned to draw illustrations for bomb disassembly manuals and to provide designs for the Situation Room in the White House.^[4] Saarinen worked full time for the OSS until 1944.^[1] After his father's death in 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect's office, "Eero Saarinen and Associates". Eero Saarinen died of a brain tumor in 1961 at the age of 51.

Personal life[link]

He had two children from his first marriage, Eric and Susan. Following his divorce from the sculptor Lilian Swann Saarinen, his first wife, in 1954, Saarinen married Aline Bernstein Louchheim (March 25, 1914 – July 13, 1972), an art critic at The New York Times. They had a son, Eames, named after his collaborator Charles Eames.

Work[link]

Furniture[link]

Saarinen first received critical recognition, while still working for his father, for a chair designed together with Charles Eames for the "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition in 1940, for which they received first prize. The "Tulip Chair", like all other Saarinen chairs, was taken into production by the Knoll furniture company, founded by Hans Knoll, who married Saarinen family friend Florence (Schust) Knoll. Further attention came also while Saarinen was still working for his father, when he took first prize in the 1948 competition for the design of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, not completed until the 1960s. The competition award was mistakenly sent to his father. He designed furniture with organic architecture.

During his long association with Knoll he designed many important pieces of furniture including the "Grasshopper" lounge chair and ottoman (1946), the "Womb" chair and ottoman (1948), the "Womb" settee (1950), side and arm chairs (1948–1950), and his most famous "Tulip" or "Pedestal" group (1956), which featured side and arm chairs, dining, coffee and side tables, as well as a stool. All of these designs were highly successful except for the "Grasshopper" lounge chair, which, although in production through 1965, was not a big success.

Buildings[link]

Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St. Louis

One of Saarinen's earliest works to receive international acclaim is the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois (1940). The first major work by Saarinen, in collaboration with his father, was the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. It follows the rationalist design Miesian style: incorporating steel and glass, but with the added accent of panels in two shades of blue. The GM technical center was constructed in 1956, with Saarinen using models. These models allowed him to share his ideas with others, and gather input from other professionals. With the success of the scheme, Saarinen was then invited by other major American corporations to design their new headquarters: these included John Deere, IBM, and CBS. Despite their rationality, however, the interiors usually contained more dramatic sweeping staircases, as well as furniture designed by Saarinen, such as the Pedestal Series. In the 1950s he began to receive more commissions from American universities for campus designs and individual buildings; these include the Noyes dormitory at Vassar, as well as an ice rink, Ingalls Rink, and Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges at Yale University.

He served on the jury for the Sydney Opera House commission and was crucial in the selection of the now internationally known design by Jørn Utzon.

Eero Saarinen and Associates was Saarinen's architectural firm; he was the principal partner from 1950 until his death in 1961. The firm was initially known as "Saarinen, Swansen and Associates", headed by Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swansen from the late 1930s until Eliel's death in 1950. The firm was located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan until 1961 when the practice was moved to Hamden, Connecticut. Under Eero Saarinen, the firm carried out many of its most important works, including the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) in St. Louis, Missouri, the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport that he worked on with Charles J. Parise, and the main terminal of Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.. Many of these projects use catenary curves in their structural designs. One of the best-known thin-shell concrete structures in America is the Kresge Auditorium (MIT), which was designed by Saarinen. Another thin-shell structure that he created is the Ingalls Rink (Yale University), which has suspension cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is nicknamed "the whale." Undoubtedly, his most famous work is the TWA Flight Center, which represents the culmination of his previous designs and demonstrates his expressionism and the technical marvel in concrete shells.^[1]

Miller House in Columbus, Indiana

Eero worked with his father, mother and sister designing elements of the Cranbrook campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, including the Cranbrook School, Kingswood School, the Cranbrook Art Academy and the Cranbrook Science Institute. Eero's leaded glass designs are a prominent feature of these buildings throughout the campus. http://www.arkitekturanyc.com/cat3.htm

Saarinen died while undergoing an operation for a brain tumor at the age of 51. His wife, Aline, coincidentally, would also die of the same ailment. His partners, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, completed his ten remaining projects, including the St. Louis Arch. Afterwards, the name of the firm was changed to "Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, and Associates", or Roche-Dinkeloo.

Reputation[link]

Eero Saarinen was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1952. He is also a winner of the AIA Gold Medal.

Saarinen is now considered one of the masters of American 20th century architecture.^[1] There has been a veritable surge of interest in Saarinen's work in recent years, including a major exhibition and several books. This is partly due to the Roche and Dinkeloo office having donated their Saarinen archives to Yale University, but also because Saarinen's oeuvre can be said to fit in with present-day concerns about pluralism of styles. He was criticized in his own time—most vociferously by critic Vincent Scully—for having no identifiable style; one explanation for this is that Saarinen adapted his modernist vision to each individual client and project, which were never exactly the same.

Bibliography[link]

Main terminal of Dulles International Airport at night

Interior of the MIT Chapel

The Swedish Theatre at night

• Remodelling of the Swedish Theatre, Helsinki (with Jarl Eklund)
• Concordia Senior College campus, now Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana[1]
• The Law School at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
• The Miller House, Columbus, Indiana.
• Berkshire Music Center, Opera Shed Tanglewood, Massachusetts.
• Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
• TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport
• Washington Dulles International Airport
• Kresge Auditorium and MIT Chapel at MIT
• Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in Holmdel, New Jersey
• Case Study House #9, the John Entenza House (collaboration with Charles Eames)
• CBS Building (Black Rock) New York
• Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center, New York
• General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan
• US Embassies in Oslo and London
• North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana
• Law School and Woodward Court dormitory (demolished 2002) at the University of Chicago
• Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, New York; designed in collaboration with his father Eliel Saarinen
• Ezra Stiles College, Morse College, and Ingalls Rink (affectionately known as "The Whale") at Yale University
• Noyes House dormitory at Vassar College. Its lounge is affectionately called the Jetsons lounge because of its curved architecture.
• Hill College House at the University of Pennsylvania. Originally a women's dormitory, the building was made with a "drawbridge" to symbolically keep men out.
• IBM Pavilion, 1964-1965 New York World's Fair
• IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York
• IBM Rochester, a plant in Rochester, Minnesota
• John Deere World Headquarters, Moline, Illinois
• The "Tulip chair", popularized by its use on the original Star Trek television series (1966–69).
• The "Womb" chair
• North Campus, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Earl V. Moore Building, housing the University of Michigan School of Music
• East Terminal at Ellinikon International Airport, Athens Greece, posthum finished.
• Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Medbury, Fitch and Harvey Ingham Halls, Quadrangle Dormitories ("The Quads"), Hubbell Dining Hall, and Oreon E. Scott Chapel at Drake University in Des Moines, IA
• Firestone Baars Chapel at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
• Crow Island School

Selected projects

Washington Dulles International Airport, Dulles, Virginia  TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport  1953 Kresge Auditorium, MIT campus, Cambridge, Massachusetts  North Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana  1953 Emma Hartman Noyes house, Vassar College campus, Poughkeepsie, New York

See also[link]

• Eero Saarinen structures
• Thin-shell structure
• Tensile architecture
• List of notable brain tumor patients

Notes[link]

References and further reading[link]

• A&E with Richard Guy Wilson, Ph.D.,(2000). America's Castles: Newspaper Moguls, Pittock Mansion, Cranbrook House & Gardens, The American Swedish Institute. A&E Television Network.
• Roman, Antonio (2003). Eero Saarinen. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-340-9. 
• Serraino, Pierluigi (2006). Saarinen, 1910-1961: a Structural Expressionist. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-3645-1. 
• Merkel, Jayne (2005). Eero Saarinen. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 0-7148-4277-X. 
• Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa (2006). Eero Saarinen. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11282-3. 
• Saarinen, Aline B. (ed) (1968). Eero Saarinen on His Work. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
• Knight, Richard (2008). Saarinen's Quest, A Memoir. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9746214-4-9. 

An exhibition of Saarinen's work, Eero Saarinen: Realizing American Utopia, has been organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York in collaboration with Yale School of Architecture and the Museum of Finnish Architecture. The exhibition will tour in Europe and the USA from 2006 to 2010. The exhibition is accompanied by the book Eero Saarinen. Shaping the Future.

In 1973, the Aline and Eero Saarinen papers were donated to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, by Charles Alan, Aline Saarinen's brother and executor of her estate. In 2006, these primary source documents on the couple were digitized in their entirely and posted online on the Archives' website.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eero Saarinen

• http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Crow_Island_School.html
• Eero Saarinen letter to Florence Knoll Bassett, 1935-1936, Florence Knoll Bassett papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
• Lines of Authority Time Magazine retrospective article
• Eero Saarinen - Design Dictionary Illustrated article about Eero Saarinen
• Saarinen rising: A much-maligned modernist finally gets his due
• Great buildings online entry
• Earl V. Moore Building School building designed by Eero Saarinen
• 860 photos of 19 buildings designed by Saarinen from the Balthazar Korab Collection at the Library of Congress
• Saarinen's Village: The Concordia Campus Through Time
• Digital image database at the Yale University Library, contains 1296 images and drawings from Saarinen's archives
  • Finding aid to the Eero Saarinen Collection at Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
• Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future The 50th Anniversary Exhibition of the Museum of Finnish Architecture
• Saarinen Tulip Chair
• Eero Saarinen: Realizing American Utopia
• Eero Saarinen Exhibitions at Cranbrook Art Museum

National Building Museum

• http://www.nbm.org/about-us/publications-news/blueprints/eero-saarinen.html

v t e Architects and artisans of metropolitan Detroit Resident architects Charles N. Agree Gunnar Birkerts Marcus Burrowes Henry T. Brush C. Howard Crane Peter J. Diederichs John M. Donaldson Joseph N. French Yousif_Ghafari Alvin E. Harley William E. Higgenbotham Eric J. Hill John C. Haro Eugene C. Hopkins Albert Kahn Louis Kamper William E. Kapp William Kessler Gordon W. Lloyd William G. Malcomson George D. Mason S. Kenneth Neumann Mark Nickita Harry J. Rill Gino Rossetti Matthew L. Rossetti Wirt C. Rowland Eero Saarinen Wallace Frost Eliel Saarinen Victor Saroki Fred L. Smith Leonard B. Willeke Minoru Yamasaki Visiting architects Henry Bacon John Burgee Daniel Burnham Ralph Adams Cram Paul Cret Henry Engelbert Cass Gilbert Bertram Goodhue Michael Graves Victor Gruen Richard W. Jennings Jens Jensen Alfredas Kulpa-Kulpavičius Philip Johnson Charles Luckman Frederick Olmsted Charles A. Platt John C. Portman, Jr. Henry Hobson Richardson Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Horace Trumbauer Whitney Warren Charles Wetmore Stanford White Frank Lloyd Wright Resident sculptors Romas Banaitis Marshall Fredericks Julius Melchers Carl Milles Isamu Noguchi Corrado Parducci Carlo Romanelli Edward Wagner Visiting sculptors Herbert Adams Donald De Lue Avard Fairbanks Daniel Chester French Robert Graham Lee Lawrie Giacomo Manzù J. Massey Rhind Ulysses Ricci Augusto Rivalta Randolph Rogers Raffaello Romanelli Adolph Alexander Weinman Resident ceramists Horace Caulkins Diana Pancioli Mary Chase Perry Stratton Photographers Michelle Andonian Curt Clayton Don Coles Carlos Diaz Sean Doerr Marge Beaver Roy Feldman Dale Fisher Jeff Garland Steve Hall Balthazar Korab Dave Krieger Laszlo Regos Tony Soluri William Zbaren See also Architecture of metropolitan Detroit

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (November 2011)

Jennifer Roback Morse is the President and Founder of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage^[1] for the promotion of heterosexual marriage and the opposition to same-sex marriage. The Institute's mission is to "make marriage cool" by promoting the idea of lifelong, committed marriage. She speaks on college campuses and at other venues around the country on issues concerning marriage.^[2]

Educational career[link]

Morse is a former teacher of economics at both Yale University and George Mason University. She is now a part-time Research Fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.^[3]

Personal life[link]

A Catholic, Morse is a married mother of two: a girl born in 1991, and a Romanian boy she adopted that same year, at the age of 2.^{[3][dead link]}

Published works[link]

• Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World
• Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work.

Notes[link]

1. ^ http://www.ruthinstitute.org/pages/aboutRuth.html
2. ^ http://loveandfidelity.org/default.aspx?ID=11#Q4
3. ^ ^{a b} Morse, Jennifer (2008-01-13). "About Dr. J". JRM Enterprises. http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/pages/bio.html. Retrieved 2008-12-01. 

External links[link]

• Ruth Institute
• Acton Institute staff bio
• Official Website
• "Is Feminism finished?"

This article about a United States journalist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Richard Simmons
Simmons in September 2011
Born	Milton Teagle Simmons (1948-07-12) July 12, 1948 (age 63)[1] New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.[1]
Residence	Beverly Hills, California
Nationality	American
Education	Cor Jesu High School
Alma mater	University of Southwestern Louisiana, Florida State University
Occupation	Physical fitness expert, voice actor, Political Activist
Years active	1974–present
Home town	French Quarter, Louisiana
Height	5 ft 6.5 in (1.69 m)
Television	The Richard Simmons Show Fish Hooks
Religion	Catholic
Website
www.RichardSimmons.com

Milton Teagle Simmons (born July 12, 1948),^[1] known professionally as Richard Simmons, is an American fitness personality who promotes weight-loss programs, prominently through his Sweatin' to the Oldies line of aerobics videos and is known for his eccentric, outgoing and frequently flamboyant personality. Currently, he also provides the voice of Coach Salmons on the Disney Channel animated series Fish Hooks.

Simmons began his career by opening a gym called Slimmons in Beverly Hills, California, catering to the overweight, and he became widely known through exposure on television and through the popularity of his consumer products. He is often parodied, and a frequent guest of late night television talk shows such as The Late Show With David Letterman. Simmons continues to promote health and has broadened his activities to include political activism, notably in support of a bill mandating non-competitive physical education in public schools as a part of the "No Child Left Behind" act.^[2][3]

Early life[link]

Richard Simmons was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.^[1] Simmons was born to show business parents^[4] and raised Catholic in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended Cor Jesu High School (now Brother Martin High School).^[5] He was obese throughout his adolescence and by the time he graduated from high school, he weighed 268 pounds.

His first job, in New Orleans, was selling pralines at Leah's.^[6] After starting college at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, he transferred to Florida State University. While enrolled there, he studied as an exchange student in Florence, Italy. He graduated with a BA in Art. After graduation, Simmons moved to New York City where he worked in advertising, as a waiter, and for cosmetics companies Revlon and Coty Cosmetics.

Fitness career[link]

Upon moving to Los Angeles in the 1970s, Simmons worked as the Maître d'hotel at Derek's,^[7] a restaurant in Beverly Hills. He developed an interest in fitness, but was dissatisfied with the unhealthy fad diet methods^{[clarification needed]} and the established gyms and exercise studios of the day which favored the already fit customer. It was his interest in fitness that helped him lose 123 lb (56 kg).

Simmons later opened his own exercise studio, originally called The Anatomy Asylum, where emphasis was placed on healthy eating in proper portions and enjoyable exercise in a supportive atmosphere. The business originally included a salad bar restaurant called "Ruffage," the name a pun on the word roughage (dietary fiber), though it was eventually removed as the focus of the Asylum shifted solely to exercise.^[8] Now called Slimmons, the establishment continues operations in Beverly Hills, and Simmons teaches motivational classes and aerobics throughout the week.^[9]

On February 16, 2010, Simmons was on the Dr. Oz Show. At that time it was stated that Simmons has kept off his own 100+ pound weight loss for 42 years, has been helping others lose weight for 35 years, and that in the course of his fitness career has helped humanity lose approximately 12,000,000 pounds.^[10] Simmons now uses the web as a method of outreach by running his own membership based website, and also indicates on his home page that he has established official pages on numerous social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube.^[11]

In media[link]

Simmons began to draw media attention due to the success of his health club that began with him on the television show Real People where he was shown at work. He introduced customers whom he had helped to lose weight. He later made guest roles on the celebrity game shows: Battlestars, Body Language, Super Password, the ABC version of Match Game, the syndicated version of Hollywood Squares, Win, Lose or Draw and Nickelodeon's Figure It Out.

Positive viewer reaction landed Simmons a recurring role as himself on the American soap opera General Hospital,^[12] over a four-year period.^[13] This in turn led to further media notoriety, as well as being in shopping malls, where he taught exercise classes. In the early 1980s, Simmons hosted two shows; Slim Cookin, and an Emmy Award-winning talk show, The Richard Simmons Show, in which he focused on personal health, fitness, exercise, and healthy cooking.

Simmons has been featured as himself on numerous TV shows, including Whose Line Is It Anyway?, CHiPs, Saturday Night Live, The Larry Sanders Show and on an episode of Arrested Development, "Bringing Up Buster". In 1999, he hosted a short lived TV show called DreamMaker. Eight years later he filmed a pledge drive special for PBS, called Love Yourself and Win.

Simmons has been featured in TV advertisements for Sprint, Yoplait, Herbal Essence Shampoos,and toward the end of 2007, he was in a "This is SportsCenter" commercial on ESPN as the show's "conditioning coach." In Canada, Simmons was in an advertisement for Simmons mattresses. The mattress company hired the exercise celebrity because of the similarity in name, and for his appeal to the company's target audience of women over 35^{[citation needed]}. Beyond this, there is no further business partnership between the two.

For three years, he hosted a radio show on Sirius Stars, Sirius Satellite Radio channel 102, called Lighten Up with Richard Simmons. The show is no longer in production.

• Simmons was a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show in the 1990s. While he resolved at one point to refuse future involvement after Stern insulted him one too many times, he finally was on Stern's show on November 16, 2006, then returned again January 24, 2012.^[14]
• Simmons was also a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman (NBC) and The Late Show with David Letterman (CBS).^[15] On November 22, 2000, they had a falling out after an incident that occurred on that night's show. Simmons (while dressed as a turkey) was sprayed in the face by Letterman with a fire extinguisher after Simmons grabbed Letterman as if to hug or kiss him, causing Simmons to have a severe asthma attack.^[16] Simmons did not attend the Letterman show for six years, finally returning on November 29, 2006. During that time, Letterman once again set Simmons up for a prank. While Richard Simmons was demonstrating a steamer branded with his name, Letterman insisted on placing a tray under the steamer which Simmons did not believe belonged there. When Simmons turned the steamer on, something in the tray exploded and caught fire. Though initially frightened, Simmons took the incident in fairly good nature, even joking that he "felt like Michael Jackson" (referring to a mishap where Jackson's hair was set on fire by a pyrotechnics accident).^[17]
• Simmons also was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He and Leno went door-to-door to market Simmons' health program, only to have people spew as many insults at him as they could.^{[citation needed]}
• Simmons was a guest on the U.S. version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• Simmons is on tracks 1 and 10 of Bob Rivers's 1997 holiday album More Twisted Christmas.
• Simmons has multiple times been on The Glenn Beck Program on HLN.^[18]
• Simmons is featured heavily in the film clip of 'Hawker Boat' by Tobacco, taken from the album Fucked Up Friends.^[19]
• Simmons provides the voice for Coach Salmons, a reoccurring character modeled after his own likeness, for Disney Channel's animated television series Fish Hooks, a Disney Channel Original Series that premiered on September 24, 2010. On December 8, 2010, it was announced that the show has been picked up for a second season.^[20]
• In 2011, Simmons starred in "Fit to Fly with Richard Simmons", an Air New Zealand inflight safety briefing video modeled after his aerobic workouts.^[21]

Personal life[link]

Simmons in August 2007

Personality[link]

Simmons is noted for his flamboyant, high-energy, motivational demeanor, an attribute he uses to help encourage people to lose weight. His high energy level is always featured in his workout videos. His trademark attire is candy-striped Dolfin shorts and tank tops decorated with Swarovski crystals.^{[citation needed]}.

Simmons is known for interacting at a personal level with people using his products. This began by personally answering fan mail he received as a cast member of General Hospital. Simmons still personally answers emails and letters, and makes hundreds of phone calls each week to those who seek his help.^[22] He also talked to people on the air during his radio show, and holds weekly live chats in the "clubhouse" area of his website. His appearances also include a "meet and greet" time, so that people can speak to him one on one.^{[citation needed]}

Simmons claims to have few friends, saying "I don't have a lot to offer to one person. I have a lot to offer to a lot of people." Aside from his three Dalmatians and two maids, Simmons lives alone in the Hollywood Hills.^[22] Although there has been frequent speculation about his sexual orientation due to his campy personality, Simmons has never publicly discussed his sexuality.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

Hurricane Katrina response[link]

In September 2005 Simmons was on Entertainment Tonight to discuss the effects of Hurricane Katrina on his family in his hometown of New Orleans and his involvement in aiding those affected by the hurricane. On August 29, 2006 Simmons was on Your World with Neil Cavuto while making a return visit to New Orleans one year after the flooding, a visit he repeated on March 2, 2007, now talking about his recent trip to Washington D.C. to promote and raise awareness about The Strengthening Physical Education Act of 2007 (bill HR 1224).

Print and other media[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Richard Simmons 2006 Interview on Sidewalks Entertainment
• Richard Simmons discusses his physical education campaign with education blogger Kevin Carey
• Richard Simmons audio interview on physical education at Education Week
• Interview with Richard Simmons
• Richard Simmons Pushes to Get Kids Active in School interview with USA Today
• Fitness Guru Takes Message to Congress on NPR

External links[link]

• The official Richard Simmons website
• Richard Simmons is a Diet and Fitness Coach at AOL Coaches
• Richard Simmons at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Simmons talks about how to remain motivated at Lemondrop.com