By Adam Bloodworth
It seems incongruous that Jerry Springer, legendary US talk show host, was British-born during the Second World War.
But Springer, who has died aged 79, lived his first days in a subterranean war bunker during German bombing. He was born in Highgate Tube station, which had been refashioned as a bomb shelter as many of the capital’s stations had been.
He grew up in East Finchley, the son of two German-Jewish refugees, Richard Springer, a shoe shop owner, and bank clerk mother Margot.
Springer spent the first four years of his life living in London before emigrating to New York with his parents where he would spend the rest of his life.
Springer’s parents had emigrated to London just before the outbreak of war, but many of his family including both of his grandmothers perished in the concentration camps.
It was a sharp growth into mainstream politics for a young Springer, who studied political science at Tulane University in the mid-sixties and went on to become a political adviser to Robert F. Kennedy before making a move into politics himself in the 1970s.
Jerry Springer in London
Although Springer spent his life in America it remained an odd quirk about the presenter that he had British heritage.
He would make return visits to his birth city of London over the years, most notably performing in Chicago as Billy Flynn in the West End in 2009, when he joked: “When I sing, the audience really gets involved because they will have to guess where the notes were supposed to have been.”
He added: “I don’t think it’s a stretch for the public to suddenly see me doing that. Whether its the lawyer thing, the Chicago thing, the entertainment thing, it all kind of works – I ‘get’ Billy Flynn.”
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