Jerry Springer dead: career highlights of talk show host and former Cincinnati mayor who passed away, aged 79

Best moments from the life of The Jerry Springer Show host following his death
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Jerry Springer, the host of the iconic and chaotic eponymous talk show, The Jerry Springer Show, died died today, (27 April) aged 79. A spokesman for the family said that Springer died peacefully at his Chicago home.

He had been diagnosed with cancer several months earlier, and his health took a turn for the worse in recent days. He is survived by his daughter Katie, and sister Evelyn.

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From unlikely beginnings, coming into the world during the Second World War, to a short-lived political career, and onto a hugely successful run as a reality TV personality, Springer made a huge, if controversial, impact both in the US and the UK.

As tributes to the host of possibly the weirdest talk show in the world pour in, we look back at the career highlights of Jerry Springer’s life.

Jerry Springer has died, aged 79Jerry Springer has died, aged 79
Jerry Springer has died, aged 79

Underground birth

This isn’t really a career highlight, as it was literally the first thing that happened to the talk show legend, but it is an interesting start to his life. Springer was born in the London Underground Highgate station in 1944 as his mother was sheltering there during a German air raid. Springer immigrated to the US with his parents when he was four years old and grew up in Queens, New York.  

Mayor of Cincinnati

It’s hard to believe that the host of a TV show that managed to be more trashy than the UK’s Jeremy Kyle Show, was once a serious politician. Although when you realise that a reality TV star became the 45th President of the United States it begins to make a little more sense. Springer served as the 56th Mayor of Cincinnati from 1977 to 1978. He didn’t make much of an impression during his brief stint in office, which was followed by a failed 1982 bid for the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio. 

Breaking the sex record

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It was for The Jerry Springer Show that the star became a household name across the US - the talk show, which ran for more than 3,000 episodes from 1991-2018, featured hundreds of insane feuds, bizarre revelations, and brutal bust ups. One of the strangest moments came when Jerry interviewed a guest who claimed to have broken the record for the most sex in a certain time frame - she had managed 251 conquests in 10 hours. Par for the course for the show.   

Jerry Springer: The OperaJerry Springer: The Opera
Jerry Springer: The Opera

Jerry Springer: The Opera

Jerry left such a mark with his talk show that his career inspired its own surreal opera, which opened in London in 2003 and ran until 2005. It was written by musician Richard Thomas and stand-up comedian Stewart Lee. A filmed version, starring David Soul as Springer was made in 2005. The fever dream of a movie, which received 50,000 complaints when it was broadcast on the BBC, sees Jerry get shot whilst presenting his show, enter Hell, where he meets Satan and a group of tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members. It hasn’t been broadcast on the BBC a second time. 

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

By 1999, Jerry Springer had already made a name for himself in the UK, and had a hilarious cameo in the spy spoof sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, starring Mike Myers and Seth Green. The scene sees Dr. Evil and his son Scott Evil, have a heart to heart on Jerry’s show - a Klansman and Nazi are also present. Scott claims ‘my father is evil and wants to take over the world’. As Jerry tries to mediate a piece between the pair, Dr. Evil begins a fight with the other guests, which leads to a brawl, and even Jerry gets involved, as security drags him off Dr. Evil.

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