Maury Povich

A native of Washington, D.C. (born Maurice "Maury'' Richard Povich in 1939), talk show host Maury Povich grew up in the nation's capital as the son of Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich. After attending the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a degree in television journalism, and then starting a family, Povich entered the field of television news, initially as a reporter and sportscaster for local D.C. station WTTG-TV, then as the daytime host of that station's talk program Panorama (in 1967, at the age of 28). That assignment was, of course, prophetic: after years as a news anchorman at various stations (and a lucrative stint hosting the news magazine A Current Affair from 1986 to 1991, under the aegis of media mogul Rupert Murdoch), the television pundit attained his greatest recognition on a coast-to-coast level as the emcee of a number of small screen talk programs with a format similar to that of the original Panorama and (echoing A Current Affair) an emphasis on the über-sensationalistic, gossipy, tabloid-style material that began sweeping across the daytime airwaves during the 1990s. These syndicated programs (which drew large audiences) included the 1991 Maury Povich Show (1991-1998) and its nearly indistinguishable follow-up, Maury, which debuted in 1998. In 2006, Povich and longtime wife Connie Chung hosted the weekend news program Weekends with Maury and Connie on MSNBC; it folded after six months. - Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide