 But he adopted the name Richard around the age of 10 to improve his self-image. When he was still an overweight teenager, Simmons was an exchange student in Italy. He did peanut butter commercials as well as eating scenes for Fellini for the film Fellini Satyricon. Simmons once said in an Associated Press interview, he says, I was fat, had curly hair. The Italians thought I was hysterical. I was the life of the party.