By Mark Heim
Jerry Springer, the legendary talk show host, died, according to a statement from his family.
He was 79.
WLWT was the first to report the news.
Springer, the former Cincinnati mayor, died peacefully Thursday at his home in suburban Chicago, according to his family.
TMZ reports Springer had been diagnosed with cancer a months ago, and this week he took a turn for the worse.
“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,” Jene Galvin, a lifelong friend and spokesman for the family, told WLWT. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”
Springer for hosted the hit syndicated talk show “The Jerry Springer Show” for 27 years. The show was highlighted by outrageous guests, crazy fights and the audience cheering, “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!”
His last TV appearance came last season on “The Masked Singer.”
From The Associated Press: Gerald Norman Springer was born Feb. 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, in which other relatives were killed in Nazi gas chambers. They arrived in the United States when their son was 5 and settled in the Queens borough of New York City.
He studied political science at Tulane University and got a law degree from Northwestern University.
He entered the political arena as an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign. Springer, working for a Cincinnati law firm, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970 before being elected to city council in 1971.
In 1974 — in what The Cincinnati Enquirer reported as “an abrupt move that shook Cincinnati’s political community” — Springer resigned. He cited “very personal family considerations,” but what he didn’t mention was a vice probe involving prostitution. In a subsequent admission, Springer said he had paid prostitutes with personal checks.
Then 30, he had married Micki Velton the previous year. The couple had a daughter, Katie, and divorced in 1994.
Springer quickly bounced back politically, winning a council seat in 1975 and serving as mayor in 1977. He later became a local television politics reporter with popular evening commentaries.
Springer began his talk show in 1991 with more of a traditional format, but after he left WLWT in 1993, it got a sleazy makeover.