Jerry Springer, whose tabloid talk show became a rowdy hit, dies at 79
Jerry Springer, a onetime politician who presided over television’s most notorious tabloid talk show, a raucous and long-running series known for its on-air fights, blurred nudity, bleeped-out profanities and parade of cantankerous guests — including feuding relatives, hedonistic swingers and furniture-throwing boyfriends — died April 27 at his home in suburban Chicago. He was 79.
His longtime publicist, Linda Shafran, announced the death in a statement but did not specify the cause.
Mr. Springer, a former lawyer, had survived a prostitution scandal, served as Cincinnati mayor and worked as an Emmy-winning local news anchor before launching his namesake talk show in 1991. “The Jerry Springer Show” went on to air in syndication for 27 seasons, exerting an irresistible hold on millions of Americans even as critics dismissed it as exploitative and voyeuristic, a symptom — or perhaps a cause — of loosened morals in an agitated nation.
“Springer wears his sleaze and slime like a chest full of medals,” Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg wrote in 1997. Oprah Winfrey, whose own talk show fell behind Mr. Springer’s in the ratings for a time, dismissed the show as “a vulgarity circus,” while Washington Post journalist Sharon Waxman crowned Mr. Springer “king of the trash heap,” writing in 1998 that “no subject is too indecent, no individual too pathetic for an appearance on his show.”
Episodes bore titles like “Threesomes With Grandma” and “I Married a Horse,” which some TV stations passed on because of its discussions of interspecies relationships. Another episode, “Klanfrontation!,” devolved into scuffling between Irv Rubin, the chairman of the Jewish Defense League, and several white-cloaked Ku Klux Klan members.
Presiding over it all was Mr. Springer, who variously served as a referee, ringmaster, carnival barker and relationship counselor. He could be funny, comforting, scathing and self-deprecating, sometimes all in one episode. At the end of one show, he declared that “virtually anyone could do what I do, which is to basically say three things: ‘You did what?’ ‘Come on out!’ ‘We’ll be right back.’”
When a brawl would break out on-air, Mr. Springer usually looked shocked, chiding his subjects for fighting as bouncers stepped into the fray and the studio audience erupted in boos or cheers, responding to the mayhem as if it were a professional wrestling match.
Mr. Springer said he provided post-show counseling for participants who needed it, although by his account things usually ended well. After guests were corralled back into their seats or shuffled offstage, they often asked for pictures in the green room.
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“It’s like most people,” he said. “They blow off steam, and life goes on.”
That was not always the case. One of Mr. Springer’s guests, Nancy Campbell, was murdered by her ex-husband shortly after she appeared on the show in 2000 as part of an episode titled “Secret Mistresses Confronted.” The show’s producers had wanted Campbell, her ex-husband and his new wife to fight onstage, according to records released as part of an investigation into the killing. Family members of Campbell blamed Mr. Springer for the murder and sued the talk-show host, settling for nothing in 2003.
Mr. Springer distanced himself from the show at times, telling Reuters that he didn’t take it seriously and “would never watch” it. But he also defended his creation as escapist entertainment, and argued that it offered ordinary people a chance to air grievances and express themselves in a public forum.
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“Virtually all of television is a canned, restricted, vanilla view of life,” he told Good Housekeeping magazine in 1998, “and the people on television are always White, upper-middle-class people wearing jackets and ties.”
“We are showing a nonpower group,” he continued. “They’re not powerful because of their education or their age, and they’re not the people we’re used to seeing on TV. I like the people on our show because they don’t put on airs. They are real.”
Gerald Norman Springer was born in London on Feb. 13, 1944. His parents were Jewish refugees from Germany, and many of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were killed in the Holocaust.
At age 4, he immigrated to New York with his parents and older sister, settling in Queens, where his mother found a job as a bank clerk and his father worked as a street vendor selling stuffed animals.
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Mr. Springer studied political science at Tulane University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1965, and graduated from Northwestern University’s law school in 1968, entering politics that year as a campaign aide to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
After Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Springer joined a Cincinnati law firm, ran for Congress and turned his attention to local politics, winning a seat on the city council in 1971, at age 27. He was brash and left-leaning, offering up a proposal to ban Cincinnati residents from being drafted into the Vietnam War, and developed a loyal following before abruptly resigning in 1974, citing “very personal family considerations.”
Mr. Springer soon acknowledged that he had used personal checks to pay for prostitutes — the kind of scandal that would later figure on his talk show.
He was never charged with a crime and, after saying he had made a mistake, revived his political career, returning to the city council and taking office as mayor for a single one-year term beginning in 1977.
Five years later, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Ohio governor, finishing third in the Democratic primary. He went on to work for Cincinnati’s NBC affiliate, WLWT, first as a political reporter and then as an anchor and managing editor, before starting “The Jerry Springer Show” with backing from Multimedia Entertainment, which also distributed “The Phil Donahue Show.”
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The series initially served as an extension of Mr. Springer’s journalism, with interview subjects including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. But the show struggled in the ratings, and in 1994 producer Richard Dominick led an overhaul of the program, moving it in a sleazy, outlandish new direction that took it to the top of daytime television.
The show’s success made Mr. Springer a pop culture phenomenon, with studio audiences chanting “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” when he appeared onstage. He played a fictional version of himself in the movie comedy “Ringmaster” (1998), hosted “America’s Got Talent” for two seasons on NBC, competed on “Dancing With the Stars” and inspired a hit British musical, “Jerry Springer: The Opera,” which imagined him conducting his talk show in hell.
Mr. Springer also started a podcast, hosted a liberal radio show based in Cincinnati and mulled a return to politics, including a potential run for U.S. Senate in 2004. After “The Jerry Springer Show” aired its last episode in 2018, he started a new syndicated series, “Judge Jerry,” in which he drew on his legal training while settling disputes between guests.
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“For the first time in my life, I am going to be called honorable,” he joked when the show was announced. The series was canceled after three seasons.
Mr. Springer married Micki Velton in 1973. They reportedly divorced in 1994, but his publicist said they remained together and were still married when Mr. Springer died. In addition to his wife, survivors include their daughter, Katie Springer, and a grandson.
Many of Mr. Springer’s talk-show episodes ended with a “Final Thought,” in which he would offer advice or reflect on the day’s guests before delivering his signature sign-off: “Till next time, take care of yourself and each other.”
The segments highlighted a softer side of Mr. Springer’s personality, which he also demonstrated in 2008 while delivering the commencement address at Northwestern School of Law, over the objections of some students who criticized his show.
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“I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy a comfortable measure of success in my various careers,” he said, “but let’s be honest, I’ve been virtually everything you can’t respect: a lawyer, a mayor, a major-market news anchor and a talk-show host. Pray for me. If I get to heaven, we’re all going.”
Then he took the speech in a more serious direction.
“It is perhaps inevitable that we are inclined to always judge others. But let me share this observation. I am not superior to the people on my show. … We are all alike. Some of us just dress better or have more money, or perhaps we were born into better circumstances of parental upbringing, health, brains and luck.”
“Whatever we achieve in life,” he added, “is 99 percent a gift.”
Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
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