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      Richard Simmons, Exercise and Fitness Personality, Dies at 76

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      With his exuberant can-do spirit, Mr. Simmons appealed to a wide following to get moving with exercise videos like “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”Richard Simmons, who for years was the face of home fitness through his wildly popular videos and energetic personality, died on Saturday morning in Los Angeles. He was 76.A representative for Mr. Simmons, Tom Estey, confirmed Mr. Simmons’s death.The Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles Police Department responded to an address linked to Mr. Simmons at 10 a.m. on Saturday. A Fire Department spokesman said personnel at the scene determined he died of natural causes.At his Beverly Hills exercise studio, Slimmons, and in his videos and DVDs, Mr. Simmons exuded an enthusiastic can-do spirit to inspire people of all ages and fitness levels to get moving.Mr. Simmons stretched and jumped in contrast to other fitness gurus of the 1980s, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who exuded movie-star looks and charm.Mr. Simmons’s approach was perhaps more noticeable, and relatable, than his counterparts as he spoke directly to audiences in his aerobics videos.One video features him clapping and singing in unison with students as they entered his studio.“You’re actually inside my real exercise studio, ‘Slimmons,’ and these are my honest-to-goodness teachers,” he said, looking to the group around him.In 2017, Mr. Simmons was the subject of a popular podcast, “Missing Richard Simmons,” which became a cultural phenomenon.In March, Mr. Simmons said he had been treated for basal cell carcinoma, which he said first appeared as a “strange looking bump” under his eye.This is a developing story. More

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      Ruth Westheimer, the Sex Therapist Known as Dr. Ruth, Dies at 96

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      Frank and funny, the taboo-breaking psychologist said things on television and radio that would have been shocking coming from almost anyone else.Ruth Westheimer, the grandmotherly psychologist who as “Dr. Ruth” became America’s best-known sex counselor with her frank, funny radio and television programs, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96. Her death was announced by a spokesman, Pierre Lehu.Dr. Westheimer was in her 50s when she first went on the air in 1980, answering listeners’ mailed-in questions about sex and relationships on the radio station WYNY in New York. The show, called “Sexually Speaking,” was only a 15-minute segment heard after midnight on Sundays. But it was such a hit that she quickly became a national media celebrity and a one-woman business conglomerate.At her most popular, in the 1980s, she had syndicated live call-in shows on radio and television, wrote a column for Playgirl magazine, lent her name to a board game and its computer version, and began rolling out guidebooks on sexuality that covered the field from educating the young to recharging the old. College students loved her; campus speaking appearances alone brought in a substantial income. She appeared in ads for cars, soft drinks, shampoo, typewriters and condoms.She even landed a role in the 1985 French film “One Woman or Two,” starring Gérard Depardieu and Sigourney Weaver and released in the United States in 1987. (“Dr. Ruth will never be mistaken for an actress,” Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review, “but she does have pep.”)Dr. Westheimer with Gérard Depardieu, left, and Michel Aumont in the 1985 movie “One Woman or Two.” “Dr. Ruth will never be mistaken for an actress,” one critic wrote of her performance, “but she does have pep.”Moune Jamet/Orion Pictures Corp., via Everett CollectionThese days, some effort may be needed to recall that Ruth Westheimer had a radical formula and considerable influence on social mores. Talk shows abounded in the 1980s, but until she came along none had dealt so exclusively and clinically with sex. Nor could anyone have anticipated that the messenger of Eros would be a 4-foot-7 middle-aged teacher with a delivery that The Wall Street Journal described as “something like a cross between Henry Kissinger and a canary.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hidetoshi Nishijima Was ‘Overwhelmed’ by This Filmmaker’s Work

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      After seeing “Husbands” and “Minnie and Moskowitz,” the actor from “Drive My Car” and the new Apple TV+ series “Sunny” said, “I couldn’t go home. I just kept bicycling around.”The morning after “Drive My Car” won an Oscar for best international feature, its lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima was already planning his next project.Nishijima, 53, met with the director and screenwriter of the upcoming Apple TV+ show “Sunny” and is now one of its stars.In “Sunny,” which began streaming this month, Nishijima plays Masa, an employee at a secretive robotics company in Japan as well as the husband to Suzie Sakamoto, an American expatriate played by Rashida Jones. When Masa and their son go missing, Suzie embarks on a quest to find out more about the company and the husband she thought she knew.“In this show, there’s trust and betrayal,” Nishijima said in a video interview from Tokyo, where he lives with his family. “There’s technology that has a good side and a dangerous side. This show really explores how as a human sometimes you don’t even know who you are.”He discussed the way he brings a bit of nature to his home, the thing he and his “Drive My Car” character have in common and the filmmaking book he keeps coming back to. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Movie TheatersWhen I was in my 20s and 30s, I wasn’t really working. I was an actor, but I wasn’t working. So I was going to the movies every day. In Tokyo, we could watch every movie in the world. I would watch two or three movies a day. Looking back, I treasure those moments. I was still doing something productive, and I feel like that kind of saved me in a sense. It helped me keep my sanity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judy Belushi Pisano, Who Defended Her Husband’s Legacy, Dies at 73

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      She was married to John Belushi until his fatal drug overdose in 1982. She went on to celebrate his comic talent in books and a documentary.Judy Belushi Pisano, who after the death of her husband, the actor and comedian John Belushi, from a drug overdose in 1982 became a fierce defender of his legacy, died on July 5 at her home on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts. She was 73.Her son, Luke Pisano, said the cause was endometrial cancer.Mr. Belushi, a member of the original cast of “Saturday Night Live” and a star of hit films like “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers,” was among the best-known comic actors in the world when he was found dead in a Hollywood hotel.Though it took weeks to determine the cause — from a mix of heroin and cocaine — the public immediately seized on Mr. Belushi’s death as a cautionary tale of excess in an era defined by it.His reputation as a hard-partying drug addict was further underlined by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in his book “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi” (1984), which Ms. Pisano had initially authorized but later came to regret.“The book is both unfair and inaccurate,” she told The Philadelphia Daily News in 1984. “To me the biggest lie is that it claims to be a portrait of John but it’s not. It’s only about drugs.”Ms. Pisano at the 2004 ceremony posthumously honoring John Belushi with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Vince Bucci/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s News Conference Answered Many Questions. But Not the Big One.

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      For once, a presidential Q. and A. was must-see TV. But it didn’t put an end to the summer’s biggest drama.Follow the latest Biden news and election updates.There were many questions at President Biden’s nearly hourlong news conference on Thursday night — questions about Gaza, Ukraine, the campaign, his health, his record.But at its heart there was only one question: Could he do it?That is, could Mr. Biden, who stunned viewers and his party and George Clooney with a doddering performance at the first presidential debate two weeks ago, stand and deliver? Could he be coherent? Could he dispel the talk of age and frailty and decline? Could he beat the doubters who want him to step down from the ticket? Could he look like a winner?On a national TV stage, Mr. Biden answered the individual questions, often comfortably, sometimes defensively, with depth and engagement and flashes of passion. As for the uber-question, the answer was incomplete. He was not the uncomfortable, lost presence of the debate, but he didn’t erase the memory of that version of himself either. He came across as the president he wants to be, but not necessarily the candidate his critics have said he needs to be.Presidential news conferences are rarely must-see TV. But the stakes — heightened by reports that some Democrats were waiting for it before weighing in on whether Mr. Biden should remain the nominee — gave this one the air of a test, if not a last stand.The telecast had the daredevil feel of a live walk through a minefield. The first false step came before the news conference proper, at remarks after the afternoon’s NATO meeting, when Mr. Biden introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”The president caught himself and recovered. “I’m better,” Mr. Zelensky joked; “You’re a hell of a lot better,” Mr. Biden said. The audience laughed. Anybody can mix up a name once.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best True Crime to Stream: Truly Random Crimes

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      Four picks across television, film and podcasting that highlight a fundamental human fear: complete lack of control.Watch or listen to any amount of true crime, and it quickly becomes evident that some of the most disturbing cases involve wrongdoers who know their victims. At times, that might be simply an acquaintance, a co-worker, a classmate or a neighbor.But most often it’s someone much closer, like a partner, former partner, friend, parent or child. Truly random crimes, in which the perpetrators have no relationship to the victims, are relatively rare, which is comforting — until it isn’t. Hearing about such crimes, where any sense of perceived control is stripped away, can prey on our greatest fears.Here are four offerings across television, podcast and film that examine these dark, disconcerting fringes.Documentary Film‘American Nightmare’This three-part 2024 Netflix docuseries about the abduction of Denise Huskins could easily top a streaming list about shockingly botched investigations. It’s stunning how quickly she and her husband, Aaron Quinn (her boyfriend at the time), were dismissed and labeled liars by law enforcement, then mocked by the news media after they had endured a horrific attack. But just as astonishing is how bizarre the crime was.The documentary, from the filmmakers behind “The Tinder Swindler,” Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, incorporates interrogation footage and new interviews to illustrate the widespread reluctance to believe the victims. We witness Quinn being pressed as though he were a suspect and Huskins being branded the “real-life Gone Girl,” referring to Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel about a woman who stages her own kidnapping and frames her husband for her disappearance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Late Night Laughs Off the Responses to George Clooney’s Essay

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      “It’s crazy the election of 2024 could be decided by the Sexiest Man Alive of 1997,” Kumail Nanjiani, the guest host, joked on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Trump vs. Biden vs. ClooneyAfter George Clooney, in a guest essay for The New York Times, called for President Biden to drop out of the race, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!”“You know whom movies never worked out for? Donald Trump,” said Kumail Nanjiani, the guest host on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “A man who somehow blew a one-second cameo in ‘Home Alone 2.’”“Of course, the big difference between George Clooney and Donald Trump is that George Clooney actually made money from a casino.” — KUMAIL NANJIANI“It’s crazy the election of 2024 could be decided by the Sexiest Man Alive of 1997.” — KUMAIL NANJIANIBiden campaign officials responded to the essay, with one saying the actor quickly left a recent campaign fund-raiser, while president stayed for three hours. Seth Meyers found the comment snarky, saying, “Your slam on Clooney is that he left the fund-raiser three hours early? No [expletive]. He’s got better places to be — he’s George Clooney.”“OK, fair enough. but most people would leave early, too, if they knew that they were going home with George Clooney.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What’s next, Brad Pitt getting body slammed by Jimmy Carter?” — SETH MEYERS“But maybe it should be inspiration. Maybe the only way Biden can win this fight is to assemble a crack team of well-funded, highly skilled bank robbers, ‘Ocean’s 11’ style. There’s Gavin Newsom, the smooth-talking frontman; Pete Buttigieg, the expert safecracker; and Kamala Harris, the genius card counter posing as the drunk aunt at the craps table.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Press Conference Edition)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Me’ Is a Lovely and Distinctive Tween Drama

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      Anchored by beautiful performances, this Apple TV+ superhero show surpasses its own genre clichés.How often the world nearly ends at a middle-school dance. “Me,” a superpower tween drama arriving Friday on Apple TV+, has your standard cataclysm in its be-streamered gym and hits plenty of familiar beats along the way. But the show is anchored by beautiful performances, and its non-magical story lines punch well above their weight class. Why, it’s almost as if the real super powers lay within all along.Lucian-River Chauhan stars as Ben, our saucer-eyed hero who is trying, for his mother’s sake, to make a go of things with his doting new stepfather (Kyle Howard) and funky, precocious stepsister, Max (Abigail Pniowsky). Lucky for him, Max tries to have his back at school, where he is subjected to (unimaginative) cafeteria bullying.Our Ben is not just a put-upon little dweeb, though. He is also a shape-shifter. One morning, he wakes up not looking like himself but instead exactly like a classmate. Eventually, he learns to control this power, and he attempts to wield it justly: to stand up for people even lower in the social strata than he, to help Max ask a crush to the doomed dance, to mimic voices as a fun party trick. But there’s a reason well-meaning adults always offer the same advice. Just be yourself! Pretending to be other people is a dangerous game.As a gentle blended-family drama for young viewers, “Me” is lovely and distinctive. The relationship between Max and Ben is one rarely explored on television: stepsiblings who are allies. Chauhan and Pniowsky are terrific, and especially terrific together. Ben lets Max in on his big secret right away, and not only does she instantly believe him, she’s in his corner, helping him with his techniques and also with his ethics.This warm wholesomeness is not without its deeper tensions: Max is loyal to her own mother, too, and she resents how often her wants are dismissed in order to placate her divorced parents. Ben’s powers are thoughtfully framed as part of the natural teenage search for one’s identity, and his mother (Dilshad Vadsaria) worries, with good reason, that he’s withdrawing, pulling away.Were we to stay within the domestic realms, even with Ben’s gifts, this would be among the most emotionally literate middle-grade shows. But of course Ben’s abilities connect him to a broader world of a superpowered cabal and an evil guy seeking world domination and blah blah blah. The triteness is tiring, the mechanics and motivations of the supernatural stories do not make enough sense, and the use of split timelines only muddies the narrative.There are 10 episodes of “Me,” and they start strong, strong enough to fend off the forces of evil that threaten both the characters and the show. More