Playboy Interview: Jerry Springer

On this particular morning, Jerry Springer is on a cell phone in a limo speeding toward Mickey Mantle's Restaurant and Sports Bar in New York City with his bodyguard, Steve, the bald security guy who separates the fighters on America's wildest TV spectacle, the "Jerry Springer Show." Springer is talking to his agent in Hollywood. (He's since signed a $2 million movie deal with "Dumb and Dumber" producer Steve Stabler.) When the limo pulls in front of Mantle's, it is greeted by a camera crew and reporter from "Access Hollywood." They ask to tail Springer for the day, one that will take him to "The RuPaul Show," then to "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," then on to a late flight back to Chicago so Springer can tape episodes of his own show the next day. Springer agrees, but first there is lunch at Mantle's, his favorite hangout when he's in Manhattan.

Before he can enter the restaurant, a delivery van careens past the parked limo. A beefy passenger leans out of the cab with an Instamatic, shouting, "Hey, Jerry!" The star of TV's most controversial show swivels to smile and wave as if on cue. It's a scene that's repeated wherever Springer goes. His public loves him, his ratings are skyrocketing, he's making a fortune. There's a problem, though. Jerry Springer may well be one of the most despised men in America, blamed for a surprising percentage of America's ills and often called, by otherwise smart people, a harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it.

It's easy to see why. No show in the history of television has ever sunk quite so low:" I Stole My 12-Year-Old's Boyfriend," "I'm Pregnant and Have to Strip," "I Slept With 251 Men in Ten Hours," "My Girlfriend Is a Man " and "My Man Wears a Dress." If that weren't bad enough, Springer's guests, generally depicted as a gathering of inbred ne'er-do-wells who live in trailers while planning their next infidelities and sex-change operations, behave badly--language is coarse, fistfights are frequent and some guests seem to have trouble keeping on their clothes. Any given hour of "Springer" features more "expletives deleted" than does Nixon's entire Watergate oeuvre.

As a result, the host everyone loves to hate (and hates to love) has become an easy and frequent target--critics and comics tear him to shreds. "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" called the show "an emotional snuff movie that debases the people who are on it, the people who watch it, even the TVs on which it airs." On "Politically Incorrect" Bill Maher suggested that "one more mistress, and Clinton's going to have to give his State of the Union Address on 'Jerry Springer.'" And one understated critic, writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times," said, "Springer doesn't seem much perturbed by the widespread opinion that he's a despicable, loathsome entity." ("I don't think he likes me," shrugs Springer.)

It's a formula that works as well as offends. The "Springer Show" has become one of the country's favorite guilty pleasures, its popularity fueled in part by a top-selling (more than half a million to date) video of outtakes, "Too Hot for TV." In February 1998 Springer pushed past Rosie, Sally, Jenny, Montel and Ricki and became the first talk show host to overtake the once-invincible Oprah Winfrey in the ratings since she hit number one in 1987. In Los Angeles, Springer beats Letterman and Leno. His ratings have jumped 183 percent in the past year. Despite this leap, even the show's owners, USA Networks Studios, have publicly voiced reservations about the show's violence.

Not that the star takes any of it too seriously. His staff doesn't either. Indeed, the bulletin board down the hall from Springer's office in Chicago's NBC Tower features bumper-sticker mottoes written by the show's employees:

The shallow end of the gene pool

We talk to freaks so you don't have to

You don't have to live in a trailer--But it helps

It's klantastic!

Rosie who?

Putting the T and A back in talk show

One critic observed that despite the fact that Springer lives on the 91st floor of Chicago's John Hancock Center, with an awesome view of the Loop and Lake Michigan, everybody seems to look down on him.

In truth, Springer is less America's most controversial star than he is its unlikeliest. He was born on February 13, 1944 in London, where his German parents lived after fleeing the Holocaust. The Springers moved to New York City when Jerry was five. He attended Forest Hills High School, received a B.A. from Tulane University, then graduated from Northwestern University Law School. In 1969 he moved to Cincinnati and joined a law firm. Through a woman he was dating, he became active in a local referendum to lower the voting age in Ohio to 19. Though the referendum failed (and the romance faltered), Springer impressed area Democrats. In 1970 he ran for Congress. He was a good campaigner but narrowly lost the election. The next year, he was elected to one of nine at-large seats on the Cincinnati city council. Through the Seventies he won reelection as a popular populist.

In conservative Cincinnati, Springer was a rare liberal politician and apparently ahead of his time. He was a city councilman who was (a) Jewish, (b) a transplanted New Yorker and (c) someone who was caught writing checks for sex and who resigned from the council in disgrace. Incredibly, he remained in Cincinnati and staged a political comeback that not only returned him to the city council but also whisked him into the mayor's office in 1977. Though the mayor's post is a cloutless, honorary one (Cincinnati adopted a city-manager form of government in 1925), Springer's second political coming was astounding.

In 1982 he ran for Ohio governor, acknowledging in a TV advertisement that he once paid for the services of a prostitute: "Nine years ago I spent time with a woman I shouldn't have," he said. "And I paid her with a check. I wish I hadn't done that. And the truth is, I wish no one would ever know. But in the rough world of politics, opponents are not about to let personal embarrassments be laid to rest."

The ad was a gamble. "But you have to remember I'm not running for God," he told "The Washington Post." "I'm running for governor. What's wrong with the public's knowing I'm a human being with warts?"

He lost the primary, and instead of becoming governor, Jerry Springer was out of work. He signed on as commentator with WLWT-TV (Channel 5), thethird-place station in town. "It's like the excitement of the night before an election, every single day," he told "Cincinnati Magazine." "I'm incredibly lucky. I keep running into exciting things to do, and I get paid." In March 1984 Springer was named news co-anchor with Norma Rashid, and by May 1987, the Springer--Rashid team had taken over first place. But it was his nightly commentaries that made Springer's reputation in Cincinnati. They were two-minute reflections, always liberal Democratic in their thinking, delivered calmly. Some thought he would return to politics, but by the late Eighties the question in Cincinnati wasn't "Will Jerry run again?" Rather, it was "Did you hear Jerry's commentary last night?"

The owners of Channel 5 saw promise in Springer and built a talk show around him. The "Jerry Springer Show" premiered on September 30, 1991 in Cincinnati and four other cities. At the time, Springer was being groomed to replace the retiring Phil Donahue, and the early shows had a serious tone: Waco survivors, AIDS issues, homeless people. But the high road led to low ratings, and the show began to experiment with such topics as "I Performed My Own Abortion" and "I'm Leaving My Husband for a Fat Man." While critics scoffed, viewers began to tune in to a parade of strippers, hookers, porno junkies, Klan thugs, women who sleep with their sisters' husbands, drag queens, nudists, faith healers and cross-dressers--and those are the good guys.

In August 1992, for its national debut on 93 stations, the show moved to Chicago. It now airs on more than 150 stations and in more than 30 countries. The studio audience is mostly college-age kids and housewives who file through a metal detector, take their seats and start chanting, "Jer-ry! Jer-ry!" In 1996 Springer signed a multimillion-dollar contract through the 2001-2002 season. (He reportedly makes $3 million a year.)

Controversy follows Springer wherever he goes. When a Chicago TV station hired him to do commentary on the evening news, both anchors refused to introduce him on the air. One, Carol Marin, quit before his first appearance, calling Springer "the poster child for the worst that television has to offer." Springer told "The New York Times" that Marin was "being tremendously rude to me. She ought to write me an apology. What kind of lesson is this for her children?"

"Just say Jerry Springer's name, and it is a statement of the kind of television that descends to the lowest rung," said Marin.

After just two appearances, Springer resigned, saying, "I walked into a civil war." (There had already been disputes between Marin and the show's management over news practices at the station.)

Another criticism is that some of Springer's shows are rigged. He says some fakes may slip through, but insists "that 99 percent of our guests are absolutely legitimate."

How did this unlikely politician segue into his current role as a synonym for sleaze? Playboy dispatched writer John Brady to find out. Brady reports:

"After tailing Jerry for several days on the road doing PR, I hung out for three days to watch him in action as he taped segments of his show. Later I accompanied him on a visit, to Cincinnati, where he returned to some of his old haunts--the TV station where he was a news anchor and the city council, where he was applauded and spoke to old political colleagues. That evening he spoke to a packed auditorium of cheering students at the University of Cincinnati.

"The next morning, back at his office in Chicago--it's filled with baseball memorabilia, a veritable shrine to Mickey Mantle and Yogi, Berra--Springer produced a couple of great cigars from the humidor his staff gave him for Christmas. He is taller (six feet), trimmer ('a perfect 42 regular') and more casual (jeans and a denim shirt) than the little guy he seems to be on TV, running around the aisles in fashionably baggy Armani. "The truth is, I didn't know about Armani till my first producer said, "Here, put this on,"' he says, laughing at what he calls his 'Ted Baxter wardrobe.' His face looks youthful for a guy who's 54, though craggy stress lines are starting to peek through the stage makeup on his cheeks. He is bright and witty and is impervious to his depiction in the media as a slimemaster.

'"Doesn't that hurt?' I asked. 'I would rather be known as something else,' he said as though he had no illusions of grandeur. 'But does it affect my life? No.'"

[Q] Playboy: How would you describe what you do for a living?

[A] Springer: I'm the ringleader of a circus. My show isn't a talk show. There's no talking. There's just yelling, cursing and throwing whatever's at hand. Some people would be less upset if we didn't call it a talk show--if we said it's professional wrestling.

[Q] Playboy: Are you able to explain the show's success?

[A] Springer: I have no idea why it's successful. It's crazy. I think home viewers with remote controls get to our show and suddenly stop and say, "What's going on? What's that about?"

And young people get it. They are not sitting there watching the show and saying, "Maybe this is how I should live." No. They've been in class all day, they want to free their minds for an hour. When I was in law school, we used to get out of class and run home to watch Batman. I can't tell you that we thought we would one day put on capes and race around town. OK, maybe some of us did.

[Q] Playboy: The Too Hot for TV video has only intensified your reputation of being irresponsible, don't you think?

[A] Springer: Sure has.

[Q] Playboy: How did the video come about?

[A] Springer: I take no credit. In fact, I totally misread it. I didn't want to do the tape. I thought it would just increase the heat. I thought every columnist in America would look at the tape and say, "Aha, the trashy Springer is at it again." And we'd have another round of what a slimebucket I am. I also thought no one would buy it. So we'd get all this heat, and for what? I signed off on it for a nominal fee. No percentage of sales.

[Q] Playboy: Who is your business manager, or, should we say, ex--business manager?

[A] Springer: I did it on my own. And the video has become an all-time best-seller. What a schmuck. We're making sequels, however, and I'll have a piece of those.

[Q] Playboy: How many outtakes of nudity and fights do you have?

[A] Springer: As many as you want. We're here to make your life good.

[Q] Playboy: A common criticism of you is that some of the shows are rigged.

[A] Springer: I'm not aware that they are. I can't look into everybody's mind. The premise of the show is that it's all real, but we've been involved in suits when it hasn't been. If during a show I believe someone isn't telling the truth, I'll say, "I think you're making up this story." I've even kicked people off the stage and said, "I'm sorry--this just isn't believable." We've sent people home when we've found out that their stories are garbage.

Have we ever been duped? I believe all the people who work for us are honorable. I can tell you, with God listening, that I--me, personally--have never put someone on the show who I knew wasn't telling the truth. I can speak to my own honor on that issue. If someone three years from now says, "Well, I once got a guest to say this...," I'll be as surprised as anyone. It's entertainment, so I don't think there are any truth requirements. But I think the show has more of an edge when the stories are truthful. So that's what we try to do every day.

[Q] Playboy: How did Jerry Springer become so famous?

[A] Springer: The job I have now requires no skill. Anybody could do what I do. I'm lucky I have the show. I have no particular talent in this area. The company that owned Channel 5 in Cincinnati when I was doing the local news also owned Donahue and Sally Jessy Raphaël. The company decided to start a new talk show and I got it. I didn't audition or beat out anybody else, and I've never pretended that my job requires any intellect or great talent. It's just a fun show. I get paid to go to camp.

[Q] Playboy: Recently your ratings have hit an all-time high, even beating out Oprah. How does that feel?

[A] Springer: Of course it feels good for now, but I'm not kidding myself. Thirty years from now people will remember Oprah and the impact she's had on our culture and on television. I'm a blip on the screen in terms of TV history, and I recognize that. My show is hot and very popular, and I enjoy it. Obviously a lot of viewers do too, but some people hate it. That's OK. This is America and we ought to have those choices.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a say in what goes into the show, or are you merely following orders?

[A] Springer: There are no orders to follow; we all agree that our show is about out-rageousness. As long as the subjects are outrageous and the guests are outrageous, I don't interfere. It's escapism. It's entertaining.

[Q] Playboy: How do you define "entertaining"? Your show has been called "Stupid Human Tricks."

[A] Springer: I think I said that. I love being quoted. I want to say the show is interesting rather than entertaining. While most of our shows are entertaining, occasionally we have a serious subject, and no one out there is laughing. The show has to be interesting. It has to grab you. You have to say, "Whoa--don't hit the remote, what was that?" And sometimes what's interesting is silly. Why do you watch Letterman's "Stupid Pet Tricks"? Not because it's deep. It's funny as hell.

[Q] Playboy: Your show is often accused of using violence to fortify its ratings. As it has become more violent, the ratings have risen. Isn't that irresponsible TV?

[A] Springer: It's still tame compared with the rest of television, where murders, robberies and rapes are routine. I've seen more violence in hockey games. On my show, most of the fighting is done by the security guards who run onto the stage to stop the shoving or to get someone out of a headlock.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think there's a difference between dramatized violence on NYPD Blue and the barroom-style fights on your show?

[A] Springer: There's nothing on our show that's attractive, nothing that would induce people to say, "This is how I'm going to behave, this is good." I would argue that they make violence look attractive on soap operas and even on prime-time television, where everything is made to look exciting. The people on those shows are attractive, even the music is enticing. Nothing on our show is enticing--we're obviously a cultural cartoon. OK, it's kind of dangerous, but that's the price we pay for the First Amendment.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you hiding behind the First Amendment in order to make a lot of money?

[A] Springer: First of all, I don't know that anyone has to hide behind the First Amendment. I think we should celebrate it. If you have a job, you're entitled to be paid. And this is what the company wants to pay me for. I pay taxes on my salary, I don't steal it. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you worried about someone losing an eye or otherwise getting seriously hurt? Are there any rules of war for your guests?

[A] Springer: Of course, no weapons are allowed, and as soon as someone hits someone else, the security guards break them up. So far we've lost only hair, in a few girl fights. Hey, men go bald, why not women? Has it gone too far? Yes, probably. But we're treading that edge, and that's the risk that makes it exciting. Otherwise everything's vanilla.

[Q] Playboy: This has to be the only show in the history of television that has six security guards on the sidelines.

[A] Springer: One for every guest's chair.

[Q] Playboy: Who are those guys?

[A] Springer: They're mostly off-duty Chicago cops, great guys, and they've become celebrities themselves. People all seem to know Steve, the bald guy. He's got his own fan club. So does Todd. They're young, good-looking guys, and I think the girls like them.

[Q] Playboy: Has anyone ever been seriously hurt during or after your show? Any unreported deaths?

[A] Springer: No, more people have died from watching our show than from being on it.

[Q] Playboy: You appear ready to fight a neo-Nazi Too Hot for TV video.

[A] Springer: I kind of lost it. But did you see me hit anyone? No.

[Q] Playboy: It looks like they are holding you back.

[A] Springer: That's the only time I really got pissed, but, again, no punches were thrown. Play that again in slow motion and you will notice that I go after the guy only when he's fully in grasp, because I'm a chicken. I don't think I've ever hit a person.

[Q] Playboy: How would you have handled the Jenny Jones incident in which a guest killed another guest who had revealed his secret crush on the guy?

[A] Springer: With our show the guest is always told ahead of time what the parameters of a surprise are. For example, you could get a list of 20 possible surprises, and you have to approve every one before you sign to be on the show. The only people who are on our show are those who are ready for any possibility. Now, we didn't start doing that because we thought what happened with Jenny Jones would happen to us. We just don't want our guests angry at us. We want people to want to be on our show. So that was a business decision we made early.

[Q] Playboy: Does the show have a fistfight quota?

[A] Springer: We like 2.7 fights by the second commercial break [laughs]. Actually, we go through phases. A year ago everyone on the show would say, "Don't even go there." And that became a catch-phrase. The only way you get on our show is by calling us--the phone number is given on the screen. Therefore, anyone who comes on our show has seen how people have behaved on the show before them. They assume they can behave the same way. In a few months it won't be fighting anymore, it'll be something else.

[Q] Playboy: What about the announcement by the company that owns your show that it plans to limit the fisticuffs?

[A] Springer: Management came to town last week and I got nothing out of those meetings except a lot of money. They came out and said, "God bless you and here's a bonus." It was amazing. They said, "Keep doing the show, God bless you, couldn't be happier." Their concern was that no one get hurt. So far no one's gotten hurt. We've been lucky. Let's keep that going. Their suggestion was that we beef up security. They own the show. They're the boss. They can have whatever kind of show they want. I'm fine. I have no objections with anything. All we're going to do is have more security guards to make sure nobody gets hurt. We want to make sure the fights don't get out of hand.

[Q] Playboy: Is the rough stuff going to be edited out in advance of broadcast?

[A] Springer: We edit every day. You watch. You be the judge.

[Q] Playboy: You don't feel you are being muzzled?

[A] Springer: Not at all.

[Q] Playboy: So does that mean you're a go-along kind of guy?

[A] Springer: Unbelievably go-along. I'm hosting the Jerry Springer Show. They just gave me a ton of money, signed me on for five years. But it's their show. If tomorrow they want me to do basketball games, I'll do basketball games. I'm totally fine. It's their show. If it were my show, we'd do Yogi Berra and politics.

[Q] Playboy: Do you pay your guests?

[A] Springer: No, because they'd make up the stories if we paid them. Plus, there's no need to. We get about 2000 calls a day from people who want to be on.

[Q] Playboy: Do guests think they will find a real answer on the show?

[A] Springer: I can't believe there is a human being on the planet who would come on our show thinking, Aha! This will solve my problem. I meet these people after the show. They don't think we're a replacement for a psychologist. And let's face it, 99 percent of the shows we do have nothing to do with anything serious, other than who is dating or dumping whom. People come on our show because they know they're going to get on the air for 15 minutes to have fun, yell and scream.

[Q] Playboy: What sort of goals do you have for the show?

[A] Springer: My greatest goal is that my child will never be on my show [laughs]. I have no goals for it. This is a ride. I mean, sometimes I feel like my life has been a ride. I have had all these great jobs, totally unrelated to one another, and I'm just passing through, having a great time. Now that I have this show, I want it to be the most successful show on television. That's my goal.

[Q] Playboy: How much money do you make these days? We hear $3 million a year.

[A] Springer: Why, you need some? I knew it would eventually come down to that. I was just wondering when you'd ask.

[Q] Playboy: Four million? Five?

[A] Springer: It's a lot, yeah. Considerably more than I ever dreamed of making in a lifetime. After a while it just doesn't matter much. I'm paid to be an entertainer. And entertainers are paid based on market value, not on what we do for society.

[Q] Playboy: If you weren't the host, is yours the sort of show you would watch?

[A] Springer: No, this isn't my interest at all. I've never watched the show. Except for sports, I rarely watch television. It's horrible to admit, but I've never seen ER, and I've seen Seinfeld only a few times, on United Airlines flights. They show that and Mad About You on long flights.

[Q] Playboy: Has success cost you much of your privacy?

[A] Springer: I'm uncomfortable. I can be anyplace--shopping, standing in line for a movie--and I can't even scratch because someone's always looking. Plus, people are constantly talking about me. I'll check into a hotel and turn on the TV, and they're talking about me on a show that has nothing to do with me. Or I'll pick up Newsweek, as I did recently, and they're comparing the White House to the 'Jerry Springer Show. The Jerry Springer Show has become an idiom. All you have to do is say that and you don't have to define anything else. It's weird, because I don't see myself as that. I make no apologies for the show. I'm having the time of my life. I love it. But I think it's silly when I see myself being defined by my show, the good or the bad.

[Q] Playboy: Where's the good?

[A] Springer: Chicago has, in a sense, adopted me. You wouldn't know that from the newspaper reporters; that's their job. But the regular people are great. Everywhere I go I hear, "Come on in." If I felt that people thought I was loathsome, I'd say, "Oh shit, what am I doing?" But I get on airplanes, go to restaurants, and go anywhere, and people are so damn nice to me.

[Q] Playboy: You started in TV on a local newscast. What makes a good anchor?

[A] Springer: I certainly wouldn't assume that a TV anchor is a good journalist. What anchors are hired for has nothing to do with journalism. They're hired because they look good, have the right voice and read well. You can be the brightest person in the world, but if you don't look believable when you're reading, stations won't hire you. It's primarily a cosmetic job. If you can't read off a Teleprompter, you're not an anchor. It infuriates those in the business when they hear that. But I was there. They know it's the truth. That doesn't mean all news anchors aren't bright. Some are. Not most, but some. They're not always the brightest because the brightest young people usually wind up in serious professions. The best students, those who get the highest scores on their SATs, don't usually become news anchors. The reporters in a newsroom are invariably snickering in the background at the news anchors. It's not a very respected profession.

[Q] Playboy: What about someone like Ted Koppel?

[A] Springer: He's excellent. Could other people do what he does? Probably. What I find interesting is that his guests are never there. It's a technique that puts Ted at an advantage. You and I are sitting here talking. I can challenge anything you say and we've got a debate. He doesn't permit that. The only person I know of who sat alongside Ted on Night-line was Gary Hart, because that was the only way he would go on. But virtually no one ever sits at the desk with Ted Koppel, because being separated from his guests puts Koppel in a superior position. They can't see whether he is frowning or agreeing--and that's why his guests always look guilty. He's sitting there with total control. He can shut you off. He's excellent, but anyone in that setting would look powerful.

Most anchors are uncomfortable with live interviews, because they are used to being able to edit anything that makes them look not smart, or that refutes their original premise. What is left on the cutting-room floor, what they do with interviews, news programs, magazine programs, is almost criminal. It is unbelievable.

[Q] Playboy: Getting it down to the sound bite?

[A] Springer: You can talk for 20 minutes and they'll take one sentence.

[Q] Playboy: Has that been done to you?

[A] Springer: When we were first being attacked, I remember doing interviews for network news programs and challenging them, saying, "You're talking to me about hurting people? Look what you do when you jam a microphone in the face of people who don't want to be on TV, without worrying if it will ruin their career, embarrass their children, humiliate them. You run to a family that has been involved in a horrible tragedy, and you just fire off your questions, having no regard for their privacy. How dare you talk about who I'm hurting!" Not one station ran that answer. Not one. And if they did that to me, what has been left out of other interviews? Have I been forming judgments about people because TV news departments edit and I don't get the full story? Was I wrong in disliking Nixon? Maybe Nixon had an answer.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you blaming the messenger for the message?

[A] Springer: Yeah, because the messenger is creating a message when it's no one's business. I am blaming the messenger. I'm not blaming human beings for being human. Otherwise no one could ever run for public office. God says, "Everyone sins." Now, the question is, how are we going to choose our leaders? How about choosing them based on their performance, on whether they do the job they were elected to do. Stop talking about all the other stuff, unless the person chooses to let you know about it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you fear the media might become a kind of Big Brother?

[A] Springer: Oh, they're already there, and if you talk to anyone in public life they'll say they feel it. There is a fear of the media. People care about what the media are going to find out or what the media will say about them. Clinton doesn't go to bed worrying about Gingrich--that's not the problem. It's the damn newspapers. The political talk shows. And who are these people? On Sunday mornings at their little roundtables before the camera, they determine the agenda for America. And these aren't even brilliant people.

[Q] Playboy: Are they like news anchors--good on camera?

[A] Springer: I know some of them and, without mentioning names, they're not at the head of the class.

[Q] Playboy: There are straight news programs and tabloid-style news shows such as Hard Copy. Are their rules different?

[A] Springer: It's a little different, but I draw the same line. I don't believe you should ever talk about somebody who doesn't want to be spoken about on television--unless the public has a need to know. Let's assume your reputation is your personal property. Why should someone else be able to make money off of your property? If the media want to talk about Marv Albert, they should pay him. A television program sells commercials and pays salaries, and if it's going to talk about Albert against his wishes, it had better pay him for it. It's his personal property.

[Q] Playboy: That's ludicrous. Marv Albert wanted to be in the public eye. He hired publicists to put him there.

[A] Springer: There's a difference. Again, you're volunteering--to get publicity.

[Q] Playboy: In becoming a public person, don't you have to take your chances?

[A] Springer: Where is that written? Can you show me that law?

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of your fellow talk-show hosts?

[A] Springer: It's not fair to put the others in my category, because most of them try to be serious. I think. At least there's the appearance of being serious. I don't think the others have a circus, as I do. Oprah deserves to be respected for being a great talent, for running a serious talk show. In terms of talk shows, it's not fair to mention Oprah and me in the same sentence.

[Q] Playboy: You don't think so?

[A] Springer: Not in terms of our show. She does a serious talk show. And she's a great talent. I'm not a great talent.

[Q] Playboy: Oprah started a book club. Any plans for a Jerry Springer book club?

[A] Springer: Can you imagine the day I announce my book club? I'd be ripped to shreds. Most people would think it's a porn club. I think the sincerity of anything I do right now is going to be questioned. If I try to talk about something important, no one's going to listen. So I'm going to ride this out for a bit, let everyone take their shots.

[Q] Playboy: Gut reaction: Geraldo?

[A] Springer: Edgy. I could not do what he does. I'm always in the background. I can be the ringleader, get them going, but when Geraldo is on, no matter what show he's doing, it's Geraldo. He's very good at that. That's not easy to do.

[Q] Playboy: He's gotten into at least one fist-fight with guests.

[A] Springer: Well, he's a street fighter in personality and I'm not. I'm the kid he would have attacked on the way home from school. He would have thrown me into the bushes, taken my briefcase and run away. We're totally different. He's going to get into a fight because he can win. I'm not going to get into a fight because I'd have my clock cleaned.

[Q] Playboy: Montel Williams?

[A] Springer: I know he wants to be taken seriously. And there's a niche for that. I don't know him well enough to say if he's sincere or not. I'll take him at his word. You can see that he's trying to mark some ground. My strategy is to let it all hang out, to be outrageous. His seems to be more disciplined; nothing's out of place. Be neat, be serious, furrow the brow.

[Q] Playboy: What do you anticipate with Roseanne's entry into the daytime talk-show wars?

[A] Springer: She could be great. We'll see. She has incredible talent; she's an unbelievable presence. Sometimes there's baggage that comes with her because she's so controversial. If you put 20 people in a room, you'll notice her first.

[Q] Playboy: Rosie O'Donnell?

[A] Springer: Great comedic instinct. Others think they can put a desk up there and be Rosie. They can't. They're not that funny. She's funny.

[Q] Playboy: Don't these shows seem boring after a while?

[A] Springer: The difficulty is that we're on every day for an hour. That's a lot. Who isn't boring after an hour, five days a week? You know, you look at some people on television more than you look at someone you live with. Everything on TV gets old. Dave Letterman's routines get old after a while. And he's a great talent. I don't know anyone who can stand up to that standard. Who can be funny five hours a week?

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you can keep your show from going stale?

[A] Springer: Yeah, because I don't do anything. What do I do? We've done it for seven years, and I'm doing it for another five. There's no trick to it. If I had to stand there for an hour a day and entertain people by myself, they'd tune off in five minutes.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any strategizing in terms of the content of the show?

[A] Springer: No. The only things I've ever said are: I want to go for a young audience, and I want to be outrageous. Once you hit 30, your interests are the same for the rest of your life. But if you aim for 18-year-olds, each year you get a new bunch. You guarantee a new class of viewers every year. That's how you stay on the air.

Here's what I do know: There's no formula. If there were, every show would be successful. We pretend to know. People are paid lots of money based on their most recent success, and more often than not, their next effort fails. And so when people ask, "Why don't you quit your show and do a different kind of program?" I say, "Wait a second, just because I'm successful at this doesn't mean I'm going to have another great show. You crazy?"

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about "Politicians Who Pay Prostitutes With Checks--on the next Springer!"

[A] Springer: Yeah, and let's get it straight. A lot of people get it wrong.

[Q] Playboy: What is your version of the episode?

[A] Springer: In 1969 I moved to Cincinnati, where I ran for city council and was elected. I later joined a "health club" across the Ohio River in Kentucky. It was a real health club in some ways, but it was also a front for prostitutes. The club was raided and records were confiscated. In the spring of 1974, I started getting phone calls. "We know you were at the club," this voice said, and I got scared. I thought, Oh Jesus, is this going to be blackmail?

I was young, I felt stupid for what I did and I had to get my life in order. I just wanted it behind me, whatever it was. I didn't want to live the rest of my life thinking, One day they're going to find out . So I thought the easy way out was to resign from the city council.

[Q] Playboy: Who was making the phone calls? Political enemies who had access to the materials from the raid?

[A] Springer: I would be speculating. I can't imagine they were friends of mine. I think I surprised them by announcing my resignation and explaining why. That took the wind out of everyone's sails. Suddenly the issue was gone.

[Q] Playboy: The direct approach.

(continued on page 149)Jerry Springer(continued from page 72)

[A] Springer: Well, maybe not. I wasn't thinking of myself as a hero. I was thinking of myself as someone who had done a foolish thing. In hindsight, every move was right, but at the time I wasn't thinking strategy. I was just thinking about what an asshole I was, and how to make myself whole as a person again.

[Q] Playboy: How did they get the canceled checks?

[A] Springer: I held them up and said, "Look, I was there."

[Q] Playboy: You volunteered your canceled checks?

[A] Springer: Absolutely. I was never arrested for anything. I was never on trial. At my press conference, when I announced my resignation, I held up the checks and said, "Here." I wanted it all out because there was a rumor going around that I was the head of a prostitution ring. Jack Gilligan, the governor at the time, said, "If Jerry's in charge of this ring, how come it had only one customer?"

[Q] Playboy: But why did you pay with a check?

[A] Springer: I belonged to the club. No one pays cash to go there for a visit. The health club was clearly a front, so writing a check was the wrong thing to do. I hope it's the worst thing I'll ever do. The public got the story, they got my admission and I said, "You decide. You want me in office? I would love to be your mayor." And they said, "Yeah."

[Q] Playboy: Weren't you married shortly before this hit the papers?

[A] Springer: Yes, I was married in 1973. In the spring o f 1974 I held a press conference and said that I was resigning from the council because I'd had sex with this woman.

[Q] Playboy: "This woman"?

[A] Springer: I had sex with a woman I shouldn't have been with, OK? And she was a prostitute. I had done this horrible thing--I had slept, I didn't sleep--it was half an hour and I was awake the whole time. Then boom, springer admits to sex with prostitute, etc. And I resigned from the council.

[Q] Playboy: Was this a one-night stand?

[A] Springer: OK, two visits, a total of an hour. The sin was that I did it at all.

[Q] Playboy: How did you explain this to your wife?

[A] Springer: I told her before I told anyone else, and I told her the truth.

[Q] Playboy: How did she react?

[A] Springer: Well, it was uncomfortable. Not a great day. But it wasn't the most horrible thing in the world either. I mean, a kid goes to a hooker. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, but it certainly wasn't mass murder.

I returned to practicing law.The next November I ran for city council again. And then in 1977 I ran for reelection and was elected mayor. That's the story.

I didn't lose the mayoralty because of the incident. I won after it. Number one vote getter, the largest plurality in the city's history. In 1979 I again came in first in the race. In 1981 I didn't run for reelection because I announced that I was running for governor. There's this distorted version--he lost the mayoralty because he was caught with a prostitute, and that's how he ended up with a talk show--that continues to be the folklore for many reporters. Excuse me, it was almost 20 years before I got a talk show, and I was a very successful mayor. You can check the record.

[Q] Playboy: What would your advice to President Clinton be on how to handle a sex scandal?

[A] Springer: [Laughs] Get a talk show! No, I would simply say on a serious note, "Continue to do a great job as president, and in terms of any personal issues, deal with Hillary. It's her business." I have no idea what they have agreed to. He's not answerable to me. He didn't marry me.

[Q] Playboy: You said that you quit politics. Didn't politics kind of quit you?

[A] Springer: No. After being mayor of Cincinnati, I thought of running for senator, but Ohio had Glenn and Metzenbaum, so that wasn't realistic. I didn't want to go back and be on the city council or run for secretary of state. So I ran for governor, and after that race I sat around for a while thinking, Gee, what do I do now? And that's when I took the job at Channel 5, to be a news commentator, then an anchor.

[Q] Playboy: So you said goodbye to politics?

[A] Springer: I did back then, yes.

[Q] Playboy: Somebody once said that politics exists "to make our days on earth somewhat better than they might be."

[A] Springer: Sure [laughs]. Jerry Springer said that when he was sworn in as mayor of Cincinnati. Isn't that great? I recognized my own speech.

[Q] Playboy: Is that still your political credo?

[A] Springer: Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I think today we're getting into the People-ization of politics. We're interested in personalities rather than great political issues. Twenty or 30 years ago it was the war in Vietnam, there was the civil rights movement. Now we're talking about who was doing what with whom. So personal.

[Q] Playboy: Is it possible to be an effective politician and have a conscience?

[A] Springer: Yes, as long as you're willing to lose the next election. If you choose not to make politics a career, you can always have a conscience. If you sell out to win an election, that's when you have to get out of politics. That's why I don't like politics as a career. I think it should be more like a religion--something you just believe in and work at. When it becomes the means of your livelihood, you will take whatever you are offered. So you'll compromise your values to win the next election. That's when career politics gets dangerous.

[Q] Playboy: What was your childhood like?

[A] Springer: I had the happiest childhood in the world. My family didn't have any money. My parents were German and didn't speak English well, so they launched this great campaign to thoroughly Americanize me. They did things to get me to fit in. I joined the Boy Scouts, I was in Little League, I took guitar lessons, in the summer I went to camp. I honestly don't remember a sad day in my whole childhood. I was a diehard Yankees fan--my heroes were Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle. A bad day was when the Yankees lost. Real bad.

[Q] Playboy: What was it like around the house?

[A] Springer: My parents were great. Dad was head of the household, but Mom was really in charge. There was no yelling, no fighting. It was nice. The house was not like my show.

[Q] Playboy: You lost relatives in the Holocaust. How did that affect you?

[A] Springer: I lost five direct relatives. The closest were my grandparents and my uncle--my dad's brother and both my parents' mothers. Auschwitz was the camp. My parents didn't share any of that agony with me during my growing-up years. Certainly not extensively. We didn't go there.

[Q] Playboy: Are you religious?

[A] Springer: I have a total belief in God. Because I was born Jewish, I follow the Jewish traditions, from the dietary restrictions--not eating pork--to the rules of Passover and fasting on the High Holidays. Am I Orthodox? No. But am I identifiably Jewish? Yes.

I'm not sure any one religion has cornered the market, but I don't think that's important. What's important is to be humble enough to believe that our lives are gifts from God. And whatever tradition you were raised in, follow that tradition to show your appreciation.

[Q] Playboy: If your parents were alive, what would they think of the show?

[A] Springer: Mom would not watch, where as Dad would hide in the back room and watch. In front of Mom he'd say, "This is terrible." Then he'd wink at me.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever meet any of your Yankees heroes?

[A] Springer: I went to the Yankees dream camp in 1988 and there they were: Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Bill Skowron, Hank Bauer, all those greats in Fort Lauderdale for one week. You got your own Yankees uniform, you had a locker next to theirs, you ate all your meals with them and you played a double-header every day. You got your own baseball card, and on the final night you played against the all-time greatest Yankees. I was a catcher. In high school, I always wanted to be Yogi. I was too small then. So here I am now, catching for Whitey. I'm behind the plate when all of a sudden everyone in that little stadium--maybe 10,000 fans--gets on their feet because out from the dugout comes Mickey Mantle. Mickey steps into the batter's box, Whitey's on the mound and I'm behind the plate. I've got tears in my eyes and I'm shaking, I'm so excited. I call time-out and I rush to the mound because my whole life is flashing in front of my eyes.

So I get to the mound and Whitey asks, "What are you doing?"

"I can't stop shaking," I say. He puts his arm around me like I'm a little boy in front of all these people. "Get behind the plate," he says. "Mantle hasn't hit in 20 years."

So I'm all right. I get behind the plate again and it was great. Mantle flew out to left. Deep left.

[Q] Playboy: Did you play sports in college?

[A] Springer: No. In high school I was too small. In college I wasn't good enough. My interests had shifted a bit, too. When I enrolled at Tulane in 1961, they were integrating the local schools, so I got involved in that. The parents were involved, and that was the first time I actually saw people screaming. It's one thing to watch it on the news, but to be there is kind of scary. Other than that, I became a typical college kid. It was a very innocent time. We didn't know anything about drugs. I mean, nothing. Oh, we used to "dex it"--take Dexedrine to stay up studying for exams--but I don't remember anyone ever saying, "Gee, this would be fun for recreation."

There was great activity with panty raids. The girls had an 11 P.M. dorm curfew during the week, midnight on weekends. Guys had no curfew. So if you had a date, you had to take her home by 11:00 or 12:00, then you'd go down to Bourbon Street. It was unfair to the girls. I think we were the last class of innocents.

[Q] Playboy: Can you recall your first sexual experience in college?

[A] Springer: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: Any details?

[A] Springer: Let me just say it was as clumsy as you would expect from someone totally inexperienced.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever thought that booking celebrities might increase the ratings for your show?

[A] Springer: Well, let me answer this way: I have never met a human being who couldn't be a guest on our show.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean?

[A] Springer: Everyone has at least one story in their life that would make the rest of the world say, "Whoa, that's strange." The only thing that makes our show different is our guests want to tell their stories. Many people wouldn't want to.

[Q] Playboy: What you're saying is that the show consists of exhibitionists who are playing to an audience of voyeurs. But celebrities might add value to it. Or is basic infidelity--even when it's Frank Gifford's--just too tame for the Springer audience?

[A] Springer: We all like to watch, sure. And we don't complain if it's a celebrity. But here's the point. If Kathie Lee and Frank chose to go on any talk show to tell their story, not one critic in America would say, "How dare they go on television to talk about their private lives." And yet if I've got people on my show who aren't Kathie Lee and Frank, the critics say, "Oh, isn't that degrading? Isn't Jerry Springer horrible?" That's elitism.

[Q] Playboy: Would Marv Albert be on the celebrity edition?

[A] Springer: He wouldn't even qualify for our audience.

[Q] Playboy: "Cross-Dressing Sportscasters Who Bite Women on the Ass--tomorrow on Springer!"

[A] Springer: Well, only if he called us and said, "Please put me on."

Volunteering to be on the show is not a minor point. If someone wants to come on and say, "This is what I've done, boy am I a fool," that's fine.

[Q] Playboy: How do you respond to the charge that you've sold out? As one of your former colleagues said, you could have been a Cronkite.

[A] Springer: There are always other people's expectations. And then one day we die. I enjoyed being a news anchor, I just didn't want to be one forever. Selling out is when you trade your soul, when you trade your philosophy, when you trade your principles to make a buck. I didn't trade my principles. No one will ever accuse me of suddenly becoming conservative. The politics on our show are absolutely consistent with the politics I have had as a commentator, as a mayor, as a lawyer. I'm about as liberal as you can get. And I'm making a hell of a living.

[Q] Playboy: As mayor, you were known as someone who stood up for the little guy. Now you're exploiting those same dysfunctional lives.

[A] Springer: How is that different from being a newscaster who makes a living reporting on the lives of unfortunate people?

[Q] Playboy: Maybe $3 million a year?

[A] Springer: That's it. When I was a newscaster I was hurting people every day. It's a horrible business, going to someone's home after a tragedy and asking, "How do you feel?" How many stories did we do like that? Our local news does it all the time. We feed on it. Great shots, then, "Uh, we have to go."

[Q] Playboy: Does that mean you think two wrongs make a right?

[A] Springer: I don't know that what I do is wrong. I'm suggesting our show is silly but absolutely voluntary. And I don't think I could ever say to someone, "You're not classy enough to be on television. You don't meet our standards." Look at the language critics use when they talk about the people on my show. They're always called trailer-park trash. The critics are always so prejudiced, as evidenced by the names they use to refer to these people.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think media criticism reflects elitism?

[A] Springer: No question, because the media themselves reflect upper-middle-class white America. Travel from city to city, and tell me what news you're watching. Boy, if we aren't clones.

[Q] Playboy: What possessed you to return to local news and do commentaries for WMAQ in Chicago last year?

[A] Springer: It all began as a conversation in an elevator. Seriously. The general manager said, "Hey, I heard about your old commentaries in Cincinnati. Would you do them on our broadcast?"

And I said, "I can't, because I'm doing my show."

He said, "How about once a week?"

So I was going to do them on Mondays because I could write over the weekend. And I wasn't going to get paid--it was purely voluntary. So I said, "Yeah."

He said, "We'll start during sweeps--that way there will be a lot of attention." And was there attention! I show up and the anchor, Carol Marin, quits after 19 years of working there. Or she said she quit. I don't know exactly what the story is, but by the second day people in the newsroom weren't talking to me. It really went wild. There had been turmoil at the station; I just added more heat. I've never met Carol Marin. So it's not personal. She found other work. She's a reporter on another Chicago station. So now I'm hiring myself out to corporations that want to downsize. All you have to do is hire me and everyone quits. You can save on pensions.

[Q] Playboy: You became something of a national joke.

[A] Springer: Yeah, I became a target. I was caught up in the heat of the moment. I was naive. I let my ego get in the way. I didn't pick the fight, but I was in no position to make the fight. I didn't belong in that newsroom. I wasn't an employee. If they didn't want to let me in, how was I going to win? I have no problem with the position I took--who is any anchor to say whom he or she is going to share the dais with? That's absurd. I don't back down from that position at all. But how many other people were going to lose their jobs? Suddenly I wondered why I was taking all the crap. By the middle of the week it became clear that with one or two exceptions, no one in the media was listening to me. I was determined to have a serious commentary, no jokes in it, no one-liners, boom--make the point. And of course the media were saying the story was "Do transvestites who sleep with their uncles belong on the local news? Or the national news?" Of course not. That never was my position. I never thought crazy talk-show subjects belong on the news. I was asked to do commentaries on serious news items.

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider yourself a man of principle?

[A] Springer: As much as anyone else.

[Q] Playboy: So why did you resign from WMAQ?

[A] Springer: Well, there was no ethical issue from my side. I wasn't being paid, I wasn't an employee of the station. I had a regular job and I was obviously a lightning rod for turmoil, which existed before I arrived. Once I realized this, I sent my resignation in. "Have you ever seen me do sports?" I added.

[Q] Playboy: Some critics say your show demonstrates what's wrong with American society. Instead of something being evil or sinful or even just downright wrong, we talk about people being dysfunctional and antisocial. Have we lost our sense of right and wrong?

[A] Springer: No, I don't think so at all. I mean, I don't have a pessimistic view of American society. I think we're much more open about race than we used to be. Much more tolerant, much less elitist. I get a sense that we're living less-segregated lives than we used to. The idea of America is coming through. I think people still have a good view of what's right and what's wrong. Not everyone agrees, but that doesn't mean there's no right and wrong. Most people like to think of themselves as moral, and I'd like to think that we are a moral country. Do we sometimes do immoral things? Yes, but overall we have good consciences, and are basically God-believing and treat one another well. We feel guilty when we do wrong.

[Q] Playboy: You did a show on a woman who had sex with more than 200 guys in ten hours. You did a show on a man who set himself on fire to prove his love; another on a guy who cut off his penis to discourage a gay stalker. Are you ever afraid of encouraging copycat weirdos?

[A] Springer: No. If that's the standard, we can't report on murders, robberies or rapes. We can't make movies or soap operas or news programs that have any of that. We can't have any films about the Holocaust, because someone might copy that. There would be no exchange of ideas. In a free marketplace there are going to be all kinds of temptations thrown your way. We teach values so you're able to make good choices, to reject things that are destructive and accept those that aren't.

[Q] Playboy: Has doing the show changed your view of the human condition?

[A] Springer: No. Remember, I was a mayor. So I learned about the human condition in real life, not from a TV show. Being on the city council and being mayor for years, you know, what problems didn't we see? We dealt with shootings and murders and robberies and rapes and decay. If you want to get upset about things, that's what you get upset about. You don't get upset because somebody on television uses a bad word that is bleeped out. You don't get upset because people shove each other or put someone in a headlock.

[Q] Playboy: Your show covers a lot of fantasies. What's your best fantasy?

[A] Springer: Getting a call from George Steinbrenner, who says, "Jerry, would you do the games for us? " Yeah! If I could announce Yankees games, I would this up in a heartbeat.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think is your greatest extravagance?

[A] Springer: My Bulls tickets. I always wondered what it would have been like to be alive when Babe Ruth was playing, to see someone who's the greatest ever in his sport. Now I know: Michael Jordan.

[Q] Playboy: What's your advice to those who want to learn from your success?

[A] Springer: Survive. That's what life's about. Just hanging in. There's no formula for success because it either happens to you or it doesn't. It's luck, most of it. The trick is to be around so that when an opportunity is there, you can grab it. Don't burn bridges. Whatever is going on that day, all the flak, whatever it is, don't panic. Hang in and live to fight another day. Never say, "That's it." Just survive. I believe that's a philosophy of Holocaust survivors, frankly.

[Q] Playboy: Are you happy?

[A] Springer: I'm totally happy. I think 95 percent of what we are is a gift from God. We all compete for the remaining five percent, who's going to have the bigger house, the faster car, that kind of stuff. Beyond that it's all luck. There are people who work twice as hard as I do and don't have as much success. And there are people who work less than I do and are more successful. It's luck.

[Q] Playboy: Will there be a payback?

[A] Springer: It'll be in the next life. I just hope hell isn't too hot. I burn easily.

[Q] Playboy: How would you like to be remembered?

[A] Springer: I don't need to be remembered. I get great joy out of my mom and dad's memory. That's strength to me. And I want my daughter to always know that she had a dad who loved her. That is the only memory that counts. Everything else is just vanity. You know what? Fifty years after you're dead, unless you're George Washington and you're on the dollar bill, nobody remembers you. Nobody comes back because they were well remembered. God will do what he does to us when we're gone. My hope is that nobody remembers me.

The job I have now requires no skill. Anybody could do what I do. I'm lucky I have the show.

I'm not saying going to a hooker was the right thing to do, but it wasn't mass murder.