One of America’s most controversial television personalities, Jerry Springer, has died at age 79, reports TMZ.
• Read also: Rewatch the best moments of the “Jerry Springer Show”
American host Jerry Springer, famous for his controversial shows peppered with swear words, vulgarities and physical altercations, died Thursday at the age of 79, several American media reported.
Mr. Springer passed away peacefully in Chicago after “a short illness,” the gossip site TMZ reported, citing a family source.
It would be pancreatic cancer, diagnosed a few months ago, other sources told TMZ.
“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was central to his success in everything he did,” said Jene Galvin, a family spokesperson and friend of Mr. Springer in a statement quoted by CBS.
“He is irreplaceable and his loss is a source of immense pain, but the memories of his intelligence, his heart and his humor will live on forever,” he added.
Born in 1944 in the London Underground, which then served as an air-raid shelter, to German Jewish immigrant parents, Jerry Springer ran unsuccessfully for the American Congress in 1970 before being elected in 1977 mayor of Cincinnati in the United States. state of Ohio in the northeastern United States. He ruled this city for a year.
Trash-TV
But the host had success with “The Jerry Springer Show”, launched in September 1991, a symbol of American “trash TV” (trash TV), which has become cult.
The show, often described as highly touted, was initially a classic talk show, focusing on social issues and American political life.
Jerry Springer was maneuvering in a relatively polite style, but after a few years to improve the audiences he had radically changed the tone of his program, switching to the quest for the spectacular at all costs.
In the majority of episodes, guests came to talk about their couple or family problems, to expose adultery, deceit and baseness.
Guided by the care of Mr. Springer, the discussion regularly ended in tussles, the protagonists being held back, only occasionally, by security agents.
White-hot, the public reacted instantly, and often ended up chanting “Jerry! Jerry!”, euphoric.
By the end of the 1990s, the show had the highest ratings among daytime programs, ahead of “Oprah,” host Oprah Winfrey’s go-to talk show.
Its popularity was fueled by a few episodes that had become benchmarks, such as a fight between prostitutes and their pimps or between members of the Ku Klux Klan and representatives of the Jewish Defense League, described as a “terrorist group” by the FBI.
The Jerry Springer Show left its mark on Anglo-Saxon popular culture so much that it inspired a musical, “Jerry Springer: The Opera”, performed successfully in London, particularly from 2003.
The show hasn’t been talked about as much since the early 2010s, but was still broadcast daily across most of the United States until its final shutdown in 2018.