Jerry Springer, a broadcaster, author, politician, journalist, actor, attorney, and host of a daytime program so offensive that he once apologized by saying it “ruined the culture,” passed away today at the age of 79 in his suburban Chicago home following a brief illness, according to a statement released by his family.
Springer was best known as the host of The Jerry Springer Show, a syndicated television program that aired for 27 years and featured provocatively sensational topics and confrontations between guests, which occasionally degenerated into fistfights.
In 1991, Springer began his talk program with a more conventional format. In a suit and tie with spectacles, he resembled a younger version of the legendary talk-show host Phil Donahue, and he similarly questioned guests while roaming the crowd with a wireless microphone.
Over time, however, Springer began to feature more outrageous guests and topics, including cheating spouses, overt racism, and explicit issues guaranteed to stir debate.
Achievement in a televised spectacle
It became one of the pillars of the tabloid talk show movement, which included presenters such as Maury Povich, Sally Jessy Raphael, Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, and Morton Downey Jr. Springer, an affable, charismatic man with a conventional appearance and a just-asking-questions demeanor, always appeared as a more conventional contrast to his outrageous guests.
When I first met Springer as a critic for the St. Petersburg Times in 1997, at a taping in Florida centered on the case of a white man sentenced to prison for using threats and racial slurs to drive away his African American neighbors, he insisted that his show was all about generating conversation.
“At its best, television is like a mirror,” he told me. Even if this only causes people to discuss the issue at the dinner table, it will have done some good.
Unfortunately, the program also fabricated scandalous arguments to increase viewership and ratings, with Springer serving as the gracious, criticism-deflecting ringleader.
A beginning in governance and law
Gerald Norman Springer was born in London, England, and moved with his family to Queens, New York, when he was four years old. By the late 1960s, he had graduated from Tulane University and Northwest University Law School.
In Cincinnati, he practiced law before being elected to the city council in 1971. In 1974, he was forced to resign after confessing he had paid a sex worker by check, but he was re-elected in 1975. And in 1977, he served as mayor of Cincinnati for a year.
In the 1980s, however, the Cincinnati NBC affiliate WLWT recruited him as a political reporter and commentator, subsequently promoting him to primary news anchor and managing editor.
According to an interview Springer gave to WLWT, he was still working as a news anchor and commuting from Cincinnati to Chicago when The Jerry Springer Show debuted.
The success of Jerry Springer opened many doors for the host, who portrayed himself in the 1998 film Ringmaster, briefly replaced Regis Philbin as host of America’s Got Talent, appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and hosted a courtroom show called Judge Jerry ended last year. Even his security guard, Steve Wilkos, has a talk program that is still airing.
But the circus-like atmosphere of the show, in which participants sometimes appeared to walk onstage knowing they were expected to be disruptive and fight, could have grave consequences.
In 2002, the program was sued by the son of a former guest who was murdered by her ex-husband after the episode in which she appeared aired.
In 2019, the program was also sued by the family of a man who committed suicide after appearing in an episode in which his fiancée confessed to cheating.
Also, In an interview with the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast from the previous year, Springer apologized for the show’s impact, stating,
“What have I done? I have destroyed the culture…I just hope purgatory isn’t that hot, as I’m extremely flammable.”
However, the host’s brash sense of humor may also deter detractors. When I re-interviewed him in 2012 for the Tampa Bay Times, I inquired about the normalization of violent behavior for viewers.
He was prepared to reply:
“Every day, our show is a morality play in which the good men triumph and the bad guys fail… I would contend that it is possible for a child to be inspired by violent television or film in which all the characters are extremely attractive and sexy. There has never been a person who watched our program and said, “When I grow up, I want to be just like that!”
In a statement, Springer’s family urged admirers to “make a donation or perform an act of kindness for someone in need” in his memory, noting,
“As he always said, ‘Take care of yourself and each other,'” “Take care of yourself and each other.”
Also Read: All About Parker Posey’s Dating History, Current Boyfriend & More
