20 Questions: Maury Povich

Hello, everyone. This is the story of a survivor. Maury Povich, in his last year as the host of the tabloid TV show "A Current Affair" on Fox, can say that he beat the odds and outlasted the critics who called his show trash and who saw in its non-network-news style little more than gossip and innuendo. Instead of fading away, Povich became the grand master of the wry editorial smirk and the effective raised eyebrow. Contributing Editor David Rensin met with Povich at his New York office. Says Rensin, "Maury works in a private cubicle just off the overcrowded 'Current Affair' offices--hardly palatial digs. His floor is littered with newspapers, his desk overrun with everything from books to a piece of the Berlin Wall. Photos of his wife, Connie Chung, dress the walls. Maury is a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously, fears that he should, worries about getting older, wishes people could just lighten up and would rather be golfing."

11:29 AM 11/2/20101.

[Q] Playboy: A Current Affair airs its share of other people's dirty laundry. Tell us about your own underwear.

[A] Povich: I wear Current Affair underwear. [Laughs] I do! You want to see it? It reads Current affair and has the big triangle logo. I'm serious. Look, you paint pictures with words. [Laughs, drops his trousers] See? All cotton. Hundred percent. [Pauses] That's as dirty as this interview gets, right?

2.

[Q] Playboy: We'll see. After you helped break the Rob Lowe story, how upset were you that he didn't talk with A Current Affair when he finally went public about his home-video adventures?

[A] Povich: When he got back into the movie business, promoting Bad Influence, I asked for an interview. His publicity people went bananas. They said, "You have the audacity? You are the show that spread this malicious tape all over the country." Yeah. As if we had stood behind the camera in Atlanta. They were downright mean. They said, "We don't know whether to cry or laugh," and hung up. It was very ungenteel. A couple of days later, Rob went on CNN and was quoted as saying, "The problem is, the country doesn't know the difference between Dan Rather, who's a serious journalist, and Maury Povich, who's an idiot." What Rob didn't know is that that gave us an excuse to run the whole thing again, including his quote. [Laughs]

3.

[Q] Playboy: What pisses off the news establishment most about A Current Affair? Do you get the respect you deserve?

[A] Povich: They write it off by saying that they don't consider it news because it's successful. In other words, no news show is successful, just reputable. [Laughs] They have blinders on. When they get hit with something different, or unique, or not taught in the Columbia journalism school, the immediate reaction is negative. I've known Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, Shaw--all those guys--for years. [When I see them] they have a tendency to slap me on the back and say [quietly], "Gosh, it's really going well for you." And I say, "That's OK. You don't have to whisper. It's all right." You can't say I sold out, because I didn't have anything to sell out to. We created this thing. But if they want to insist . . . well, then, so have they [sold out]. You can see the imprint of A Current Affair on every news show in the country now. They cover stories they never would have.

4.

[Q] Playboy: What's the etiquette for the Maury Povich smirk, on and off the air?

[A] Povich: On the air, it's organic to the show, but it's not scripted, since there's always a danger of parodying myself. I've always been an instinctual sort. I can't pull it off unless it's spontaneous. I don't believe a lot of the silly stories--and that can be anything from UFOs to dogs that talk to some of the wet-T-shirt stuff--and I use the smirk then. The smirk happens with serious stories, too. If I just don't believe it, I don't think the viewers believe it and I want them to have a stake in this.

Off the air, well . . . it's been a part of me since I've been in this business. The juices of a journalist emanate from cynicism and skepticism.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like you might feel miscast on A Current Affair.

[A] Povich: No, but I am going to leave the show next year and do a syndicated talk show for Paramount. Five years is a long time. It will be thirteen hundred shows. Fox wanted me to stay and I will say that were it not for Fox and A Current Affair, I'm not too sure I would have my family name back. I mean, I would be known as Mr. Chung. Fox has been great for me. But I also felt it was time to start fresh.

I'm not too sure whether I'll next get into the pit with Phil, Oprah and Geraldo, or Arsenio, Koppel and Carson. All I can say is that it will not be a six-transvestites-on-a-stage kind of show; it will be more news-oriented, like A Current Affair. On most talk shows, you may have a feeling for the subject; you may be shocked by the subject, but you don't have any real feeling for the people up there. To me, news is still an intimate subject. You can talk about all the institutions you want to, but in the end, it's people.

6.

[Q] Playboy: What is A Current Affair's most memorable story and its most regrettable one--in terms of the people involved?

[A] Povich: The most memorable is the [Robert] Chambers ["The Preppie Murderer"] tape. Haven't topped it. It really made the show. It came right when we were first going into syndication. We had only about twenty stations, and within months, we had a hundred. Most regrettable? I'd say the Jessica Savitch tape, when we did re-creations badly. And yet the result was positive. We now realize that if we're going to do re-creations, we have to do them as central to the story. We had given Savitch's parents the opportunity to recapture their daughter's honor because of the book written about her that laid bare her life. In the middle of her parents' explanation, we showed a car that's all yucky coming up out of a canal and a shadow of a figure behind it. There was no reason for it, just none. It was tasteless. And we learned.

7.

[Q] Playboy: On David Letterman's last anniversary show, there was a short film of Dave hanging out with your wife, Connie, while she shopped for your shoe trees. And (continued on page 163) Maury Povich (continued from page 141) recently, he used your voice on his show but never mentioned your name or showed your face. How do you feel about being the butt of his jokes?

[A] Povich: Letterman is, I am dead sure, in love with my wife, and he resents me terribly. It's shtick with him. [Every time he has talked about me] he has called me Murray, Morley Safer, Morton Downey, Jr., the three-hundred-pound gorilla and the guy who does that icky show. And every time he says Murray, Connie says Maury. I didn't know anything about the film clip until I saw it on the air. I thought it was very funny, especially when he said, "I'm out with this guy's wife and he rolls by on a bus." [Laughs] That actually happened, because it was sweeps time, with posters of my mug on every bus in the city.

As for using my voice, his writers came over [to my office] for this skit. That's typical Letterman. He just doesn't want to see me. I did it because I thought he would give me a great compliment at the end of the piece or something, and he could change our whole relationship. And he never mentioned my name. Not one moment of credit came from his lips. [Laughs] I guess they'll do anything at that show for a gag, even go into the enemy camp. [Grimaces] And I accommodated them.

8.

[Q] Playboy: It must be great fun when the three of you are together.

[A] Povich: He's never shown any friendliness toward me. I've been in his show's green room. I've been at his Christmas parties and he won't say hello to me. He has told my wife, "I don't want to say hello to him. Don't bring him over." I think what happens is, he likes to invite me to his parties and not speak to me. For the last annual David Letterman party, I was conveniently out of town. One reason [I don't think he likes me] is his obvious attraction to my wife . . . he wants me out of the picture. Instead of the usual obsessive fan, I think I've got an obsessive host on my hands. [Laughs] I think there's no question that he lusts after my wife. And she knows it. And she's flattered. I handle it. I would never tell her not to go on his show. Noooo. Unhunh. I want to catch them.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Seriously. Do you think there's a problem here?

[A] Povich: No. This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Letterman has been terrific with Connie, because he's allowed people to see her marvelous, funny side. And she works with him so well. I mean, she's been on Letterman as much as Marv Albert has.

If there's any problem, it's that she thinks Letterman owes her. She wants him to do one of the few interviews he's ever done, on her show. And the son of a gun won't go on. I told her that to really show the world what he's like--because he won't reveal his personal life--she should put a cardboard cutout of him in the chair and interview it. But she won't do that. I think what turned him off is that she interviewed Arsenio Hall on her show and got the highest rating of the night. So he has not consented yet, and there may be a war going on at this moment.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most recent advice you gave your wife about her TV show?

[A] Povich: The only advice I've given was during the onslaught of all that bad, negative criticism about re-enactments. I now am a veteran of criticism. I can't take the advice of a lot of actors who used to say to me, "I never read the reviews." I have to read the reviews. So I told her you can read them, but, boy, you just can't react to them. You cannot let them get under your skin. That was the first time in her life that she was ever faced with that kind of criticism. The initial wave about the show would have toppled most mortals, including me--and I think she's taken it terrifically. She's absorbed it, shrugged it off and moved on. The show continues to evolve. Quite frankly, I think that my wife has dealt a hell of a lot better with the criticism of her show than maybe the two anchors on Prime Time Live have dealt with theirs.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Does TV reflect its audience, or does it create its audience?

[A] Povich: Wow! Sometimes we give the viewers what they want, but what A Current Affair has resisted is giving them what researchers and marketers decide they want. We've never done research on the show. We don't have marketing surveys, focus groups. I came out of that network-newscast view of "What we know is best and we're going to tell you what you should know." But on A Current Affair, we have always, every day, tapped our gut and decided what works. What we think works.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Your dad is a respected sports-writer, your sister a senior editor at Newsweek. Was your career a matter of destiny?

[A] Povich: At five, I wanted to be a garbage collector. Some people say I've attained it. I wanted to be a ballplayer so badly when I was young; I was a bat boy for the old Washington Senators baseball team. That's about it. And the reason I'm in this end of it is strictly that I didn't want to drag on my father's coattails. I wanted to be judged on my own. But I desperately wanted to be in this business. It's all I've ever thought about from the age of fourteen on.

13.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most important thing a man can learn from his father, and when did you learn it?

[A] Povich: Even if you rebel against your parents and you feel estranged at times when you're young, it's gonna change. Believe me, you're not going to lose your love for them, and they're going to show you their love in many more meaningful ways. I probably learned that the first time I was fired. My dad had a great line. I had to call him up, because he was going to read about it in the newspapers. I was almost forty years old, and I was just devastated and embarrassed. It was a very tough call to make. After I told him, there was a long silence, and then he said, "Well, son, let me tell you one thing: Get all the sharp instruments out of the house." For my father to say something that funny destroyed all the terrible feelings I was experiencing.

14.

[Q] Playboy: USA Today said Connie was the newsperson people would most like to have to dinner. What are her most troublesome and her most attractive table manners?

[A] Povich: She's a wee sloppy. [Laughs] She'll splatter the pasta once in a while. If she's going to eat dinner, give her a big napkin. That's her only problem at the table. Otherwise, she's got a terrific sense of humor and she's a mimic. She has the most wonderful smile and laugh; it just cuts through any awkwardness. She is a regular-guy girl.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Does it bother you that people often mistake her for Kaity Tong, another New York newswoman?

[A] Povich: Everybody mistakes Connie for Kaity. In fact, when Kaity had a baby, I walked into my office and there was a big sign that said, Congratulations, Daddy!

16.

[Q] Playboy: When the two of you are at a cocktail party, who's listened to more? Whose friends are more interesting?

[A] Povich: We had a great moment recently, when CBS invited us to a gala at which Prince Philip was being honored. You have to be introduced to royalty, so finally, somebody introduced us. There was this kind of blank "Hello" from the prince and the person who introduced us told him, "They are big television people in the United States." The prince was nodding. There was an awkward silence, and I said, "I work for Mr. Murdoch," and the prince said, "Well, I guess some mugs have to do it," and left. [Laughs] We could have been mortified, but we just burst out laughing.

We have such long-term friends, and we had such a long-term courtship, that we know each other's friends. We don't even have new friends. My friends are highly critical of me and highly respectful of Connie. And her friends are the same.

17.

[Q] Playboy: How do you keep current?

[A] Povich: What you see on the floor are seven newspapers--The New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Washington Post--and it's eleven o'clock in the morning. And I watch CNN all day. I also read the weeklies Time and Newsweek. But what you find is that if you read so many newspapers a day, you kind of skim the national magazines, because, for the most part, you know it.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What's on your nightstand?

[A] Povich: Gore Vidal's book on Hollywood in the Twenties; Avery Corman's book Fifty; Robert A. Caro's latest volume on Lyndon Johnson; and a detective novel by William Murray, whom I like. Also a lamp and two alarm clocks. One I think is slowly developing a heart problem, so I'm setting them both. But the first one won't die. [Laughs]

19.

[Q] Playboy: What's better than watching yourself on TV?

[A] Povich: I don't watch myself, because I see the big nose, all the cavernous lines--my face looks like a road map--and I hear my voice, which is not good. People say, "Boy, you have a distinguished voice," and I say you don't know how many cigarettes and whiskeys it took to develop that voice. If I stop and look in a mirror, it's to find out whether I've gotten decent-looking yet. I think I need new lighting. Maybe that will give me back my youth, make the hair seem less gray and the lines in my face less cavernous. I always want to check if maybe a miracle's happened!

20.

[Q] Playboy: If your voice is bad, your face a road map and your nose too big, how do you explain having come so far?

[A] Povich: The same way you explain yourself when you go into a deli and it's crowded and you take a number: If you hang around long enough, they gotta call it.

tv's most infotaining man smirks at david letterman's crush on his wife, thumbs his nose at network news and explains why he's ending his current affair