Jerry Springer

Best-known for his long-running and infamously trashy TV talk show, U.K.-born Jerry Springer first entered the public eye as a politician, running a failed congressional campaign and later serving briefly as the mayor of Cincinnati, OH. Springer segued into TV news in the 1980s with a series of on-air editorials before becoming Cincinnati's most-watched anchor on the local NBC affiliate, a gig he held on to until 1993.The Jerry Springer Show premiered in 1991 and was at first a straight-forward political and current-event show. However, before long, Springer upped the sensational aspects of the show in an attempt to boost ratings. And while he garnered plenty of criticism for the lowest-common-denominator antics, the show did indeed become a hit. In 1998, Springer lampooned himself and his show in Ringmaster, a feature film that was met with low box-office performance and unanimous critical panning. He also played himself in a brief appearance in the hit film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.In 2007, after an unsuccessful stab at liberal talk radio, Springer appeared on the fourth season of ABC's hit reality competition Dancing with the Stars. While he was declared one of the season's worst dancers, Springer stuck with the genre, taking over for Regis Philbin later that year as host of the reality talent show America's Got Talent. - Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide