US talk show host Jerry Springer dies aged 79

ITV News Entertainment Reporter Rishi Davda looks back at the life of Jerry Springer, who has died after a brief illness

US talk show host Jerry Springer has died aged 79, according to a statement from his family.

He was best known for showcasing dysfunctional families on The Jerry Springer Show, which ran from 1991 until 2018 in the US.

Family spokesman Jene Galvin said in a statement: “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.

“He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humour will live on.”

Springer died peacefully at his home in Chicago after a brief illness, the statement added.

He had stepped down from The Jerry Springer Podcast, after eight years, in December.

Before Springer’s broadcasting career, which included stints as a political reporter and commentator, he was the mayor of Cincinnati, in the US state of Ohio, and a political campaign adviser to Robert F. Kennedy.

Springer became a TV namesake for featuring stories with dysfunctional families willing to bare all on weekday afternoons.

At its peak, The Jerry Springer Show was a ratings powerhouse and regularly included brawls, obscenities, and blurred images of nudity.

Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favourite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show.

After more than 4,000 episodes, the show ended in 2018, never straying from its core salaciousness.

Some of the show's last episodes had such titles as “Stripper Sex Turned Me Straight,” “Stop Pimpin’ My Twin Sister,” and “Hooking Up With My Therapist.”

Springer called it “escapist entertainment,” while others saw the show as contributing to a dumbing-down decline in American social values.

He reportedly often had told people, tongue in cheek, that his wish for them was “may you never be on my show.”

In a Too Hot For TV video released as his daily show neared 7 million viewers in the late 1990s, Springer offered a defence against the disgust of some viewers.

“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.

He added: “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 also contended that the people on his show volunteered to be subjected to whatever ridicule or humiliation awaited them.

Springer retired the format in 2018 after some 4,000 episodes, and started a new programme with NBCUniversal called Judge Jerry.

He remained a regular on TV, appearing on the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? tracing the Springer family through the Holocaust to the small town of Neustettin, now in Poland.

In 2003 Jerry Springer: The Opera, written by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, debuted in London.

Featuring all the tropes of the TV show plus a troupe of tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members, it won numerous awards including four Oliviers.

In June 2009, Springer made his stage debut as Billy Flynn in Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre, London.

Controversial talk show host Jerry Springer defended his show during an interview with ITN in 2010

Springer later admitted his TV show had been a “circus” and “nuts” but he also defended its more extreme content.

“In any population of 50,000 people you are going to have some people who are mean, some people that are crazy, some people that are racist, some people that beat their spouse,” he said at the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2019.

“You can have all kinds of people.”

Gerald Norman Springer was born on February 13, 1944 in a London underground railway station being used as a bomb shelter.

His parents, Richard and Margot, were German Jews who fled to England during the Holocaust.

They arrived in the United States when their son was five and settled in the Queens borough of New York City.

This was where Springer got his first Yankees baseball gear and became a lifelong fan of the games.

At Tulane University, Springer studied political science and went on to get a law degree from Northwestern University.

Before entering the world of entertainment, he worked at a law firm and then was elected to Cincinnati City Council in 1971 and 1975 before rising to serve as mayor.

Springer ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970 but was elected to the city council the following year. A scandal relating to allegations he was using prostitutes failed to derail his upward progress – he won a council seat in 1975 and was made mayor in 1977.

It was in 1991 that he launched his eponymous talk show and upended the TV landscape.

He later became a local television politics reporter and had an NBC affiliate WLWT-TV news show.

Springer began his talk show in 1991 with a more traditional format, before the series became known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments.

On his Twitter profile, he called himself “talk show host, ringmaster of civilisation’s end”.

Springer was married to Micki Velton. They had a daughter, Katie, and divorced in 1994.

There are plans for a funeral and a memorial, his agent added.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, people should make a donation or an act of kindness to someone in need or a worthy advocacy organisation in tribute to Springer signing off his talk shows with the phrase: “Take care of yourself, and each other.”

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