Dr Ruth Westheimer
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 1990
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer.
Born in Germany in the late 1920s, her Jewish family sent her out of the country as the Nazis rose to power. Sent to the safe but lonely confines of a Swiss orphanage, she was never to see her family again. Then, after living in Israel and studying in Paris, she eventually took American citizenship. Then, 10 years ago, she emerged from obscurity to become a national celebrity. As an unemployed college lecturer in her early 50s, her appearances on radio and television, where she handed out explicit but common-sense advice on sex and its problems, brought her fame and fortune. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early life, her adventures in Paris and Israel and the satisfactions of her present job.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: There Was A Time by Joel Westheimer Book: Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell Luxury: Large box of marrons glacés
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a sex therapist, born in Germany in the late 20s her Jewish |
| 0:34.4 | family sent her out of the country as the Nazis rose to power. They stayed behind |
| 0:39.0 | and perished. After living in Israel and studying in Paris and New York, she eventually took American citizenship. |
| 0:46.0 | Then, ten years ago, she emerged from obscurity and became a national celebrity. |
| 0:52.0 | On radio and later on television, this unemployed college lecturer in her early 50s |
| 0:57.4 | offered explicit but common sense advice on sex and its problems. |
| 1:02.3 | Her warm, frank and often funny style has made her famous in France, |
| 1:06.4 | Germany and in Britain. She is Dr Ruth Westheimer. Dr Ruth, you're even on occasions compared with Freud I think does that make you |
| 1:15.0 | smile or does it secretly please you? |
| 1:17.0 | Secretly of course it pleases me when they call me Grandma Freud. |
| 1:22.0 | It is very interesting because I think it has to do with my accent particularly. |
| 1:28.0 | After all, I'm not Austrian, I'm of German Jewish descent, but people sometimes think in terms of the psychology, they then |
| 1:37.4 | think, ha ha, it must be Simon Freud. |
| 1:40.5 | So your accent is part of the secret of your success. What else is it do you think? What is it about you that struck that nerve in the American public and made them want to come to you with their problems? |
| 1:51.0 | I was very fortunate. I am very well trained. I have all of the academic credentials. I have the clinical |
| 1:58.4 | experience by now. But I also believe strongly that it is because I'm an older woman, I'm going to be |
| 2:06.7 | 62 this year, I am short, 4 foot 7, I do have a big smile. I can talk about these issues of sexuality with |
| 2:20.7 | humour. But most importantly you don't threaten them is that what you're saying by |
| 2:25.1 | your appearance your voice or anything I'm not threatening not to men and not to |
| 2:31.3 | women that I think is an important part of it. I'm really like a little |
... |
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