Jerry Springer, a broadcaster, novelist, politician, writer, actor, lawyer, and host of a daytime show so provocative that he once apologised by admitting it "ruined the culture," died today at the age of 79 in his suburban Chicago home following a brief illness, according to his family.
Though he held a number of high-profile positions throughout his career, including mayor of Cincinnati, Springer is best known as the host of The Jerry Springer Show, a syndicated TV show that aired for 27 years and featured provocatively sensational topics and confrontations among the guests, sometimes devolving into fistfights.
Springer's talk show began as a more traditional affair in 1991. He appeared like a younger version of talk-show legend Phil Donahue, dressed in a suit and tie with glasses, and questioned guests while roving the crowd with a wireless microphone in the same fashion.
Springer, on the other hand, began to highlight more outlandish guests and subjects over time, with cheating spouses, avowed racists, and button-pushing, graphic issues meant to provoke debate.
In a broadcast circus, success
The success of the show helped to establish the tabloid talk show trend, which featured hosts such as Maury Povich, Sally Jessy Raphael, Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, and Morton Downey Jr. Springer, a likeable, engaging person with a conventional appearance and just-asking-questions demeanour, was usually a more buttoned-down foil to his crazy guests.
When I first met Springer in 1997 as a critic for the St. Petersburg Times newspaper, at a taping in Florida centred on the case of a white man sentenced to jail for using threats and racial slurs to drive away his African American neighbours, he insisted his show was about sparking dialogue.
"When it's at its best, TV is like a mirror," he said. "If all this does is get people to sit around the dinner table and talk about it, it's done some good."
Unfortunately, the show fabricated scandalous arguments in order to increase viewership and ratings, with Springer playing the genial, criticism-deflecting ringmaster.
An early political and legal career
Gerald Norman Springer was born in London, England, and moved to Queens, New York, with his family when he was four years old, eventually graduating from Tulane University and Northwest University Law School by the late 1960s.
He practised law in Cincinnati before being elected to the city council in 1971; he resigned in 1974 after confessing to paying a sex worker by check, but was re-elected in 1975. In 1977, he was elected mayor of Cincinnati for a year.
His breakthrough as a TV personality occurred in the 1980s, when he was hired as a political reporter and commentator by Cincinnati NBC affiliate WLWT, who subsequently promoted him to principal news anchor and managing editor.
According to an interview Springer did with WLWT, when The Jerry Springer Show first aired, he was still working as a news anchor, commuting from Cincinnati to Chicago.
Jerry Springer's success opened many doors for the host, who played 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, which ended last year. Steve Wilkos, his security guard, even earned his own talk programme, which is still on the air.
However, the circus-like atmosphere of the show, in which participants appeared to step onstage knowing they were expected to be disruptive and fight, could have serious consequences. The son of a past guest who was killed by her ex-husband after the episode she appeared on was broadcast sued the show in 2002. In addition, the family of a man who committed suicide after appearing on an episode in which his fiancée admitted cheating on him sued the show in 2019.
Springer apologised for the show's impact in an interview with the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast last year, stating, "What have I done? I've destroyed the culture..."I just hope hell isn't too hot for me, because I burn easily."
However, the host's brash sense of humour may deflect critics. I challenged him about normalising violent behaviour for viewers when I interviewed him again for the Tampa Bay Times in 2012. He was prepared with an answer:
"Every day, our show is a morality drama in which the good guys triumph and the bad men lose... I would suggest that when there are shows or films with aggressive behaviour and everyone is incredibly gorgeous and sexual looking, it can motivate a child. "There has never been a human being who has watched our show and said, 'Boy, I wanna be just like that when I grow up.'"
Springer's family requested followers to "make a donation or commit an act of kindness to someone in need" in his memory, stressing that "as he always said, 'Take care of yourself, and each other.'"
