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. Jerry Springer has passed away peacefully in Chicago after “a short illness”, the gossip site says TMZ, citing a family source. It would be pancreatic cancer, diagnosed a few months ago, other sources told TMZ.
“He is irreplaceable”
“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 Jerry Springer in a statement quoted by CBS.
“He is irreplaceable and his loss is the source of immense pain but the memories of his intelligence, his heart and his humor will be etched in our memories,” 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.
A program described as “racolous”
But the animator found success with The Jerry Springer Show, launched in September 1991, symbol of the 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 at work 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 Jerry Springer, the discussion regularly ended in tussles, the protagonists being held back, only occasionally, by security guards.
White-hot, the public reacted instantly, and often ended up chanting “Jerry! Jerry!”, euphoric. At the end of the 1990s, the show had the best daytime audience ratings, ahead of “Oprah”, presenter Oprah Winfrey’s must-see talk show.
THE Jerry Springer Show marked Anglo-Saxon popular culture
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 marked Anglo-Saxon popular culture so much that it inspired a musical, Jerry Springer: The Opera, performed successfully in London, notably from 2003.
The show hasn’t been talked about as much since the beginning of the 2010s but was still broadcast daily on almost all of the American territory until its final cessation in 2018.