Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Acclaimed Sex Therapist, Dies at 96

Ruth Westheimer in 2019 (Photo: Jean_nelson/Depositphotos)

The incredible life of Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, has come to an end. The acclaimed German-American sex therapist, who broke barriers with her frank talk about taboo topics, died at her Manhattan home on Friday, July 12. She was 96 years old.

While most of the world knows Dr. Ruth for her career as a therapist, she actually didn't earn her doctorate until she was 42 years old. Her journey to that point is just as fascinating as what happened once she became a public figure.

Born in 1928, Dr. Ruth—who was Jewish—was sent to Switzerland from Germany as the Nazis came to power. Her parents, who stayed behind to care for Dr. Ruth's elderly grandmother, were eventually killed in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This tragedy certainly formed her tough exterior, and at 17, she joined the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization, and trained as a sniper. After being wounded by an exploding shell and injuring her feet, she moved to Paris to start her studies.

By the time she moved to New York in 1956, she had gone through two unsuccessful marriages and was a working single mother. Still, she prioritized her education and took night classes while working as a house cleaner for a dollar an hour. This eventually led her to work as a project director at Harlem's Planned Parenthood and to a successful teaching career. She would also go on to marry her third husband, fellow Holocaust survivor Manfred “Fred” Westheimer, to whom she was married for 36 years until his death in 1997.

Her foray into media began in 1980 with her call-in radio show Sexually Speaking. By 1983, it was a top-rated show in the country's largest market and launched Dr. Ruth's brand. The public was fascinated by her direct approach to tackling topics that many weren't willing to talk about at the time. She soon became a talk show darling, often appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night With David Letterman.

“I was 50 when I had my first show, so I was never on television with a short skirt or décolleté; I never tried to look or be younger,” she told Harvard Business Review when asked about why the show was a success. “Maybe that’s one secret. The accent, too. When I came to this country, people told me that if I wanted to teach and work here, I would have to take speech lessons to lose my accent.

“But it helped me greatly, because when people turned on the radio, they knew it was me. I was also very well trained—I was fortunate to work for seven years at Cornell with Helen Singer Kaplan, who wrote the most important textbook on sex therapy—and I was explicit in my answers.”

She then made the leap to television, hosting The Dr. Ruth Show. Airing in different iterations from 1984 to 1991, she not only hosted celebrities and got them to open up about sexuality and relationships, but she also answered questions from callers. Her warm, caring nature and frank advice allowed her to tackle serious topics with love and humor.

At the same time, Dr. Ruth continued to work in academia, lecture at conferences, and publish books. She authored 45 books on sex and sexuality for academics and the general public. Never one to slow down, she continued to work and make television appearances. And in 2023, she was honored by the United Nations' Women's Entrepreneurship Day Psychology Pioneer Award.

For all her success, she never forgot her origins. She was a longtime board member of New York's Museum of Jewish Heritage and addressed her childhood and the effect the Holocaust had on her in the 2019 documentary Ask Dr. Ruth.

“There were 1,500,000 Jewish children killed during World War II. I was spared because, by chance, I was in Switzerland, not in Holland, Belgium, or France. People like me have an obligation to make a dent in society,” she shared in 2016.

“I did not know that my eventual contribution to the world would be to talk about orgasms and erections, but I did know I had to do something for others to justify being alive.”