Jerry Springer, the former mayor and news anchor who hosted a three-ring circus of dysfunctional families on weekday afternoons, died Thursday at 79.
“The Jerry Springer Show” was a ratings juggernaut and US cultural pariah known for outrageous drama. The 27-year-old daytime chat program, known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled confrontations, was an American guilty pleasure.
Springer dubbed it “escapist entertainment,” but others saw it as lowering American social norms.
“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” said Jene Galvin, a family representative and Springer’s friend since 1970. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart, and humour will live on.”
After a brief illness, Springer died quietly at home in suburban Chicago.
Springer joked, “Talk show host, ringmaster of civilization’s end.” He often joked, “may you never be on my show.”
The show ended in 2018 with episodes including “Stripper Sex Turned Me Straight,” “Stop Pimpin’ My Twin Sister,” and “Hooking Up With My Therapist.”
Springer defended disgust in a late-1990s “Too Hot For TV” video.
“Look, television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there—the good, the bad, the ugly,” Springer said. “Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.”
He further claimed that his guests volunteered to be humiliated.
Gerald Norman Springer was born in a bomb bunker in a London subterranean station on February 13, 1944. Richard and Margot, German Jews, fled to England during the Holocaust, where relatives were gassed. When Springer was 5, they moved to Queens, New York, where he got his first Yankees apparel and became a lifetime devotee.
He studied political science at Tulane and law at Northwestern. He considered running for Ohio governor in 2017.
He was an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s failed 1968 presidential campaign. In 1970, Springer, a Cincinnati lawyer, unsuccessfully ran for Congress. In 1971, he was elected to city council.
Springer resigned “an abrupt move that shook Cincinnati’s political community” in 1974. He mentioned “very personal family considerations,” but not a vice probe into prostitution. Springer later admitted to paying prostitutes with personal checks, which could have inspired a show.
Last year, he married Micki Velton at 30. In 1994, Katie’s parents split.
Springer returned to politics in 1975, winning a council seat and becoming mayor in 1977. He then became a renowned nighttime political commentator on local television. He and co-anchor Norma Rashid made NBC affiliate WLWT-TV’s newscast Cincinnati’s top-rated.
After Springer left WLWT in 1993, his chat show became filthy.
It was No. 1 on TV Guide’s “Worst Shows in the History of Television,” but it was a ratings success. Springer became famous, hosting a liberal radio talk show, “America’s Got Talent,” “Ringmaster,” and “Dancing With the Stars.”
“With all the joking I do with the show, I’m fully aware and thank God every day that my life has taken this incredible turn because of this silly show,” Springer told Cincinnati Enquirer media reporter John Kiesewetter in 2011.
In 2003, Springer considered a Senate candidacy to attract “nontraditional voters,” or people “who believe most politics are bull.”
“I connect with a whole bunch of people who probably connect more to me right now than a traditional politician,” Springer told the AP. Despite opposing the Iraq War and supporting universal healthcare, he did not run.
Springer often called the country he arrived in at age 5 “a beacon of light for the rest of the world.”
“I have no other motivation but to say I love this country,” Springer told a Democratic rally in 2003.
In 2019, Springer hosted a nationally syndicated “Judge Jerry” show and continued to podcast about whatever was on his mind, but reality television and combative cable TV talk shows had diminished his shock value.
“He was lapped not only by other programs but by real life,” observed Monmouth University professor and television history David Bianculli in 2018.
He embraced Springer’s legacy despite its constraints on his political ambitions. In a 2003 fund-raising infomercial ahead of a probable US Senate bid the following year, Springer quoted then-National Review commentator Jonah Goldberg, who warned of “slack-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnots” coming to the polls.
In the informercial, Springer referenced the quotation and said he wanted to reach “regular folks… who weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”
