Episode 35: Bess Motta
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Bess behind the scenes of 20 Minute Workout.
If you’ve ever seen my Instagram, you likely know that I’m a huge aficionado of 1980s workout videos. over the years I have posted many clips from exercise videos—all saved under the hashtag, #laurakittyworkout. Some of my earliest memories are my mother’s VHS fitness tapes, which I would pop in the VCR and watch on repeat—captivated by the women jumping in unison in leotards and legwarmers—a hugely influential aesthetic memory. My guest this week happens to be "Aerobics queen of the 1980s,” Bess Motta.
As I learned more about fitness history and the rise of aerobics in the 1980s, I became aware of 20 Minute Workout, a Canadian TV show developed by Ron Harris in 1983 featuring a “bevy of beautiful girls” working out in an all-white studio, filmed from many innovative angles. 20 Minute Workout was a spinoff of Aerobicise, a series of workout videos Ron produced in 1981. The show was broadcast across Canada and syndicated at stations all around the US. Bess was one of the star instructors—known by fans for her mop of curly hair, ultra-lean body, and endless energy. The first season featured a different instructor for each day of the week, Monday through Friday: Bess Motta, Arlaine Wright, Holly Butler, Nicole Nardini, and Anne Schumacher. For the second season, only Bess and Arlaine were featured as instructors.
Bess, Holly and Annie doing the #20MinuteWorkout live in Kansas City, 1984.
The show became a fan favourite not just for the hard workouts, but also for the rather erotic staging of it; in 1983, the Washington Post remarked that Harris’ “adventurous camera angles” made the show “a bit saucy, as though you’ve been allowed to watch the Playmates of the Month do their daily dozen.” The Ron Harris aesthetic—the white room, closeups of women’s body parts moving in unison, synth music (by Shiva and later Jermyn/King/Ouillet) pulsating in the background—has had a huge lingering influence on pop culture, from porn to music videos to every ad American Apparel ever made. In 2012, American Apparel even re-edited and republished Ron Harris’ fitness archive for a special Tumblr project (sadly long defunct).
For Bess, it was always about the workout, rather than sexual aesthetic (though looking good was a helpful side effect)—she wanted others to feel the joy and power in their bodies that she did. When questioned about the apparent sexiness of the show in 1985, Bess said, “If people start watching because they think it’s sexy, after a while that’s going to get boring, and they might start exercising, too. I’m not a model or a beauty queen. I’m not Victoria Principal. I’m a person who really had to work at it.” In addition to emceeing events like the Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship, she appeared in ads for products like Converse as well as on the cover of many health and fitness magazines.
Bess, Annie and Holly of 20 Minute Workout, while on tour.
But 20 Minute Workout is just one small part of Bess’s history. Born and raised in Woodland Hills, outside LA, Bess grew up close to Hollywood and the entertainment industry—playing with the kids of movie and TV stars and acting in school plays alongside future Oscar winners. After high school, she went on to star in “The Great American Backstage Musical” on stage in San Francisco and London—arriving back from her British sojourn thirty pounds heavier. Needing to lose weight for auditions led her to join a gym and try aerobics; within months she had lost the weight and was leading sixteen classes a week. Throughout the 1980s, Bess taught classes in LA and traveled almost weekly to lead workouts and emcee fitness competitions at malls all over the country.
Throughout this period, Bess continued to act in small movie and TV roles, leading to her part as Sarah Connor’s roommate Ginger in The Terminator—famously murdered by Arnold Schwarzegger’s character while bopping around to her stereo. In 1987, she acted in New Monkees, a TV series updating the famous Sixties show and band for a new generation. Throughout the 1990s, Bess taught fitness classes while taking care of her mother stricken with Alzheimer's. In 2016, Bess returned to the stage to star as Judy Garland (her idol since childhood) in the west coast theatre premier of “The Boy from Oz,” for which she won the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and Best Featured Performance from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, in addition to multiple awards from Los Angeles theater critics.
Bess as Judy Garland in “The Boy from Oz,” at the Celebration Theater in Los Angeles, 2016.
Due to 20 Minute Workout and The Terminator, Bess continues to have legions of adoring fans. As she discusses in the episode, many of them have shared just how important her work was to them—how her workouts helped them out of depression, helped them come to terms with their sexuality, changed their lives in a multitude of ways. Due to the busyness of her life in LA and the far-flung places 20 Minute Workout was syndicated, Bess was unaware of the breadth of her impact until the 2000s when the internet helped her connect with fans all over the world.
Bess and I connected on Instagram years ago, and finally met in person when I was in LA a few months ago After forty years of leading workouts, last year Bess retired from teaching yet the energy that so captivated 20 Minute Workout fans in the 1980s is still there—she’s funny, bright and full of laughter.
In the interview, she mentions this Norma Kamali video and talks about how this song by Kat Mandu was the best to choreograph aerobics routines to.
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