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 New York City. 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…
