We had some really interesting and funny guests over the years, including Burt Reynolds, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Jerry Seinfeld, Howie Mandel, Cyndi Lauper, Bill Cosby, Isaac Asimov, Regis Philbin, Mayor Ed Koch, Gloria Steinem, Helen Gurley Brown, Martin Scorsese, Joan Rivers, and many, many more. You can see parts of some of these interviews on my YouTube channel.
When Roseanne Barr came on my show, she wasn’t a big star with her own show yet. She was a stand-up comedienne and she was funny, but when she sat down next to me, I could see she was chewing gum. Under some circumstances I could have faked it and pretended that I hadn’t seen what she was doing, but this was my TV set—and I had no intention of letting her off the hook.
“Roseanne, I’m a teacher and I look at this set as if it was my classroom, and one rule I’ve always had in my classroom is no chewing gum.”
Roseanne is rarely at a loss for words, but she looked at me and was speechless. I offered her a tissue; she took it and spat out her gum, and we had a wonderful interview after that. And after all these years, I know she remembers that episode. When I was having difficulty getting my Twitter account verified, someone told me that Roseanne had had the same difficulties, so I contacted her via Twitter. She answered me and mentioned the gum incident. She wasn’t able to help me, but it made me smile to think of Roseanne remembering me telling her she couldn’t chew gum on my set. (Eventually someone else put me in touch with someone at Twitter, and I was awarded my blue star.) So you see, standing up for your principles is one way of making your life more enjoyable—and memorable.
I’d also like to suggest that you absorb the fact that in your life, you’re the central character, the celebrity. When approaching a major birthday, many people will say, “Oh, I don’t want anyone to make a fuss. I don’t need a party.” But imagine how miserable you’d feel if this birthday slipped by and nobody noticed! So if you do need to have this birthday marked, you might as well give yourself permission to enjoy it like the celebrity you are for the day.
Why do some people not get even a fraction of the joie de vivre that others do? Because they feel they don’t deserve it. They put themselves down, say that they’re not important. But nobody is more important in your life than you! And rather than push joy away, you have to reach out your two hands and grab it whenever possible. When a celebrity walks down the red carpet, she expects to be photographed. Think of your life like a red carpet, put a smile on your face and accept whatever attention you can get and enjoy it. Sure, if you keep your head down and let your hair cover your face, you won’t get the notice you deserve and all that inattention will make you miserable. In life there are no half measures. You can’t expect to be given a pat on the back if you run away from every outstretched hand. So think of yourself as the celebrity you are and accept whatever glory comes your way.
If you look at the list of famous guests on my shows, you’ll note that many were comedians. That wasn’t an accident, because comedians are consistently entertaining—their quick wits give them the ability to find a joke no matter what the subject, and with sex, it’s even easier. Now, I didn’t book the show; that was up to John and his associates. But while comedians might make fun of the advice I gave, I also kept in mind what the Talmud says, that a lesson learned with humor is one retained. So if together these comedians and I could make the audience laugh while also providing some useful information about sex, then I was quite satisfied.
I hope you realize that when you are watching an interview, there’s a lot of faking going on. It may appear as if the conversation is spontaneous, but in fact both the host and the guest are well prepared so that there is no “dead air”—no awkward moments of silence—and also so that the conversation is always entertaining. And to some extent, my advice is to prepare for any conversation you might have the same way. If you’re meeting a friend for lunch, read the morning papers so that you’re up on the latest news. If you’re up watching late night TV the night before and hear a funny joke, write it down so that you’re prepared to repeat it at lunch.
Mining the joie de vivre that life has to offer requires that you put some effort into what you do. It’s all right to have some “dead air” during a lunch, but you don’t want there to be too much of it, and you want the overall atmosphere to be one where you both come away feeling good about having gotten together. If you provide entertaining conversation, then people will want to get together with you. But if you’re boring, then you’ll find yourself alone more and more, and that’s not going to provide you with a very rich life.
Of course, even comedians have their softer side. I remember George Burns telling me how, after Gracie died, he continued to sleep on the same side of the bed. He got sort of misty-eyed, and you could see how much he’d loved her. It was moments like these that proved why having someone who was a therapist in the host’s chair was so valuable. Guests would sometimes forget that they were on television and open up to me in ways they never would if the host were another comedian. When you’re on The Tonight Show, no matter who the host, the guests have to compete with the host in a “can you top this” type of environment to get laughs. But with me, it was possible to show one’s human side.
And I also know that George realized that my size aided me in getting people to open up because I wasn’t the least bit imposing. After his appearance he was talking to John Lollos while I was still on the set, standing on the Persian carpet that my chair was on, signing autographs, and George said: “You know why she’s so good at what she does? She looks like if she fell off that carpet, she’d hurt herself.”
It wasn’t always easy to get big-name guests. Many were afraid that they would get blindsided by some personal question. Even after a publicity representative or agent would make the date, the preinterview phone call was often filled with the celebrity worrying about what was to be discussed. Of course, the longer the show ran, and the more word got out that being on the Dr. Ruth show—whatever version—was fun, and the easier it was to get celebrities.
Burt Reynolds was perhaps the biggest-name celebrity in my career as host and at that point it was a real coup. The production staff sent him baskets of fruits and flowers and other “bribes,” but it was worth it, as it worked. What didn’t work was the satellite. He was on as a live guest, but the satellite went out and so anyone looking to see the interview was disappointed. Of course, we taped the show, and it did get broadcast later on. But we’d gotten a lot of publicity that Burt was going to appear live on my show—and it was disappointing not to be able to take full advantage of it.
That happens to all of us. We build up a moment and when it arrives, either something goes wrong—or it just doesn’t live up to our expectations. After the Burt Reynolds show, we went out to grab a bite to eat. Soon we were laughing and carrying on as much as usual. There would be more shows the following week; we couldn’t allow our disappointment to spoil our joie de vivre. And you shouldn’t be in your own home wearing a long face any more than I could on my television set. When something bad happens, complain as loudly as you can for five minutes and then put it aside. You’ve heard the phrase, “Get it out of your system.” Well, I’m all for that. You’re not permitted to allow small misfortunes to linger and fester—not if you want to have a life filled with joy.
Most people who don’t know me think that I believe that nothing is sacred. But while I would talk about some aspects of a celebrity’s personal life when they were on my shows—after all, they were experienced at being guests on TV shows, and every question was approved during the preinterview—I would never ask “real” people personal questions. When I had segments that involved people on the street revealing a sex problem to me that I would try to help them solve, the “guests” were actually actors pretending to have a particular problem. They had to memorize lines, though my answers weren’t scripted. In this way we got the information out in an entertaining way, but without putting any regular people at risk.
It’s my
feeling that those who appear on a so-called reality TV show and spill all their dirty laundry are going to have their problems, whatever they might be, made even worse by telling all the world about it. My conscience won’t allow me to do that, and it wasn’t a part of my shows. I was once asked by Good Morning America to do a whole week’s worth of segments and they wanted me to talk to viewers and try to help them with their sex problems. I suggested that they invest in a psychologist, whom the show would pay, to see these guests afterward to help them overcome the damage done by talking about their sex lives on national TV. That made my point, and GMA changed their mind about the segment.
On radio and on TV I spoke with real people on the phone, but their identities were hidden. Their family and friends would not know their private problems unless the client decided to make them aware of it. I am super careful about respecting the privacy of the people who come to me for therapy in my office. Now, if someone I speak to then goes around bragging to their friends that they spoke to me on the phone, that’s up to them. I just won’t shoulder the responsibility of making anyone else’s life worse off to benefit my status.
When it comes to maintaining the joie de vivre in one’s life, I advise others to maintain as much privacy as they can. If you spill the beans about your problems to friends and relatives, it might put added pressure on you, making the situation worse, not better. Of course, you might have a friend or relative who gives good commonsense advice and is always discreet; in that case, it’s fine to discuss your problems. It can be a relief to unburden yourself. But choose that person carefully, because if you spill the beans to the wrong person, then your life could become more miserable. Keep in mind, telling your story to a professional counselor can be very helpful. Your friend may give you commonsense advice, but a professional has the training and experience to give you advice that has proved successful with other clients. That expertise is worth a lot. When I see a client and I know that I’ve helped lots of other clients with a similar problem, I can be fairly certain of meeting with success when advising this new client. But when your best friend gives you advice, it can be a hit-and-miss affair; following that advice might lead you even further down the wrong path.
Despite how much importance I place on maintaining people’s privacy, things can sometimes go wrong. I had on as a guest Wayland Flowers, the ventriloquist, and his puppet, Madame. Madame is a bawdy lady, and the questions I was supposed to ask her were designed to elicit a certain kind of answer typical of her style. But before Wayland brought her out, I was to talk to him alone. The problem was that the questions I was supposed to ask Madame, which were sexual in nature, came up on the teleprompter when Wayland was out there without her—and I wound up asking him some very personal questions, ones I would never have dreamed of asking him without his guise of Madame. It took a moment or two for the right questions to be put on the teleprompter, so it was an awkward moment. But Wayland was a good sport and didn’t complain.
I once had Lainie Kazan on as a guest. Before she came on stage, I’d taken some phone calls, and one was about oral sex. I’d told a woman who wanted to perform oral sex on her husband but wasn’t sure of what to do, to practice on an ice cream cone. When Lainie came on, she had a follow-up question.
“Dr. Ruth, I heard you tell that woman to practice oral sex on an ice cream cone. That might be good advice for her, but what about we ladies who are always on a diet?”
“Lainie, then instead of putting ice cream in that cone,” I answered her, “put low-fat frozen yogurt!”
The comedian David Brenner and I chatted about cuddling. I think it’s very important, but David hated it.
“I don’t like it when there are four arms in the bed. I have enough trouble figuring out where to put my two arms and then suddenly there’s two more. Two minutes of cuddling is my maximum.”
But I knew there must be more to this, and I got David to admit that when he was a boy he slept in the same bed as his brother. Now his dislike of cuddling made sense. He’d grown up wanting to have a bed of his own, and so even when he was sharing it with a woman with whom he was having sex, he still retained that dislike of sharing a bed.
What’s important about a story like this isn’t that we learned something about David Brenner but that anyone else viewing the segment who had a dislike of sharing their bed and who had been forced to do so as a child would realize the source of their problem. And even more important, their partner—who might be upset at being rejected and forced to sleep as far away as possible—would suddenly understand the underlying reason and so not take it personally.
Now, being a comedian, David talked about cuddling as if it were all a joke, but in fact we were discussing an issue that has serious ramifications among many couples. Small disagreements about an issue such as cuddling can lead to major problems. So while it may have seemed like this segment was just an excuse for David to be funny, in fact we may have saved some marriages out there among my viewing audience.
David’s experiences as a child were having a negative effect on his joie de vivre as an adult. Sometimes you need the help of a therapist or even a psychiatrist to discover such issues, while sometimes all it takes is a little self-exploration. In David’s case, knowing the source of the problem didn’t change how he felt about sharing his bed, but as I said, knowing that source could definitely make a partner of his more understanding. So if you have issues like that, let your partner know where they stem from, assuming you do. I’m not saying you have to share them with the world, but with a lover it would be appropriate.
Let me add a caveat to what I just said. You need to be able to share much of your life with a partner, but you don’t need to share all of it. Celebrities are surrounded by paparazzi, but you’re not. If there are parts of your past that might undermine your relationship and haven’t come out into the open, then my advice is to keep them under wraps. These could be negative parts of your life as well as positive ones. Here’s an example of each type.
You’re on a business trip; you go out to dinner with a coworker; you each have too much to drink and end up having sex, even though you’re both married. You have no feelings for this person, you both regret what happened, and you promise yourself that you will never let this happen again. Do you tell your spouse? I say you don’t. No matter how well your spouse takes this news, it’s going to leave a scar on your relationship. You’re not a celebrity, so there wasn’t a reporter to see you and your coworker entering the elevator arm in arm, so your secret is safe. Better to leave it that way.
Your previous lover was well endowed, while your current partner is perhaps a little on the small side. Does it bother you when making love? He’s a very good lover who always gives you orgasms, so the answer is no. If he asks you about your former partner in this department, my advice would be to tell a white lie and not report the size of his penis. It doesn’t gain you anything but it could leave your current partner feeling badly and therefore take some of the joie de vivre out of each future time you have sex. As long as whatever it is you’re hiding has almost no chance of leaking out, then this sort of cover-up is perfectly all right.
Not every show was meant to be funny. I had as a guest Dr. Mathilde Krim, who at the time was leading the fight against AIDS. When I first started on radio, AIDS hadn’t been discovered yet. Everyone was afraid of herpes, but while not a pleasant disease, herpes isn’t deadly (except that the lesions caused by herpes may serve as entry points for the HIV virus to enter the body). But when I had my TV shows, AIDS was a sexually transmitted disease that was killing many, many people. At first it was mostly gay men, but it was obvious that that was the tip of the iceberg, and it was vital that the public be educated about the dangers of unprotected sex. Now, perhaps my ratings weren’t as high when I tackled a subject such as AIDS but to me that didn’t matter. What counts is that perhaps I saved a few people’s lives by getting them to take precautions that they otherwise might not have.
Richard Simmons
was someone I’d had on as a guest several times. As you know, he gives off a lot of energy when he’s on TV, and he starts getting himself prepared the moment he walks into the building. He’s constantly jumping around, screaming things at the top of his lungs, and just giving off as much energy as possible every second he’s there.
Richard is usually promoting something, and on one occasion John said to him not to promote some health bar because he’d done it on his last appearance. Richard swore up and down that he wouldn’t—but the moment he was in front of the cameras, he pulled the bar out from his gym shorts and started his spiel. All I could do was laugh, because you know what? I do the same thing.
When you’re a guest on a show, it’s often because you want to plug something. With me, it’s often a new book, but it could be a show or an appearance. In any case, what is supposed to happen is that the host will ask you a question at one point that prompts your response about what it is you’re plugging. However, what often happens with me is that we start talking about sex, the host gets very intrigued, and also knows that it makes for good ratings. The next thing you know, my five minutes are up and I never got to mention what I was there to plug. Having had that happen to me a number of times, I no longer wait for the host to ask me the question. As soon as I’m out there, I mention the book or whatever. I don’t know if I learned that from Richard Simmons or not, but if you are ever on TV promoting something, all I can tell you is not to rely on the host, no matter how emphatic the producer is to trust that your product, book, or show will get the plug you seek. You have to take charge because you’re not getting paid to be on the show, your compensation is the plug, so you better make certain that you get it.
The Doctor Is In Page 11