Confessions Gain Ratings For TV Hosts

Things are getting downright predictable, talk-showwise. A microphone-wielding host, empathizing with a troubled guest, confesses total understanding because the audience gasps, the camera pulls in for the tight shot, guts begin to wrench I shared the experience. I know. I am Everyperson, except with better outfits.

The latest such revelation, occurring surely coincidentally during an intense publicity blitz on behalf of Oprah Winfrey, was the talk-show queen’s confession to a crack-using guest that “I did your drug.” (In the I-Can-Top-That Department, the winner will be the show host who confesses to a guest that “I did your brother.”)

But Oprah isn’t alone in the personal confessions department. There’s something about hosting a talk show that seems to force a certain amount of gut spillage, whether it’s on the airwaves, in a book or during an interview. Bonnie Kaplan, a survivor of executive producer duties for Oprah, Geraldo, Jenny and Bertice (last names? oh, please), feels that kind of openness is not only good but essential.

“When you’re a friend who comes into a home every day,” says Kaplan, “the ability to be spontaneous and personal - to open up - is what endears you to the public, and it can help them too.”

Hey, we’re as endearing as the next guy, and we’d like to help, too. Our spontaneous and personal way is the 1995 Incomplete and Unofficial but Extremely Alphabetical Guide to Personal Confessions and Revelations of TV Talk Show Hosts (not including Byron Allen, Richard Bey, Les Brown, Beverly deAngelis, Gordon Elliot, Leeza Gibbons, Kathie Lee Gifford, Kelly & Gail, Mike and Maty, Charlie Perez, Maury Povich, Susan Powter, Dennis Prager, Ron Reagan, Regis and Kathie Lee, Rolonda, Dr. Ruth, Shirley Solomon, Suzanne Somers, Jon Stewart, Faye Wattleton, Jane Whitney, Montel Williams and Carnie Wilson):

Bertice Berry

Personal confession: Cries for her “mommy” when she’s sick; mother was an alcoholic who “beat us for anything.”

Source: USA Weekend story written by Berry.

Personal confession: She and a sister took custody of three children of another sister who was a cocaine addict. “The timing was perfect” because “I didn’t want to become flighty or arrogant because I had a national show.”

Source: Another USA Weekend story written by Berry.

Comment: Berry’s national show has been canceled, but perhaps there’s something available at USA Weekend.

Phil Donahue

Personal confession: He was a virgin when he married.

Source: “Donahue,” his first book.

Comments: Let’s leave the poor guy alone. Anybody who’s married to Marlo Thomas doesn’t need any more hassle.

Morton Downey Jr.

Personal confession: “Mort doesn’t make personal confessions on his shows.”

Source: Publicist for his eponymous new talk show “Downey.”

Public revelation: He wears false teeth.

Source: Popped them out of his mouth upon being introduced to a reporter in the mid-‘80s.

Comment: No great revelations in “Mort, Mort, Mort,” his 1989 book, or in “Quiet Thoughts Make the Loudest Noise,” his book of poetry, or “Economic Effects of Abortion on a Capitalist Society,” upon which the musical was based.

Marilu Henner

Personal confession: She did the horizontal polka with John Travolta, Tony Danza and Judd Hirsch, among others.

Source: “By All Means Keep on Moving,” her 1994 autobiography.

Personal confession: She has been monogamous for nine years with her husband, Robert Lieberman; she loves Jewish men; she always admired Jesus and the Apostles; it took her three years to get pregnant.

Source: Interview to promote the book.

Comment: Most likely to be the one who says “I Did Your Brother.”

Jenny Jones

Personal confessions: After suffering numerous problems from six (count ‘em, six) breast-implant operations, she had the implants surgically removed, and her breasts are no longer symmetrical.

Source: “The Jenny Jones Show,” February 1992 (sweeps month).

Personal confession: Her father was a “breast man” who insisted she do exercises to make hers grow. Her second husband seldom touched her breasts when they were intimate.

Source: People magazine interview.

Public revelation: She went through nine (count ‘em, nine) hairdressers and two wardrobe consultants in the first few months of her new show.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder.

Comments: Her hair still looks pretty much like it did before the nine hairdressers, except maybe not so symmetrical.

Larry King

Personal revelation: Is close personal friend of every famous person who ever lived.

Source: His show, his columns, his books.

Comment: Is close personal friend of every famous person who ever lived.

Comment 2: Did we mention that Larry is a very close personal friend of every famous person who ever lived?

Geraldo Rivera

Personal confession: Claimed to have bedded Liza Minnelli, Margaret Trudeau, Judy Collins, Chris Evert and Bette Midler (on separate occasions).

Source: His 1991 autobiography, “Exposing Myself” (if you can consider the thought without getting nauseated, please seek professional help).

Comments: Several of the women said it didn’t happen; Bette said it did but he was “lousy.”

Personal confession: He arranged for an early girlfriend to have an abortion from a “gypsy lady”; with a different girlfriend, he can’t remember if he or she paid for that abortion.

Source: The same book.

Earth to Geraldo: The opening-up thing endears you to the public only if you’re likable in the first place.

Ricki Lake

Personal confession: She and hubby Rob Sussman got “naked two hours after we met.”

Source: Chatting with David Letterman and 7 million viewers.

Personal confession: She and Sussman have been going to couples therapy because she makes a lot of money and he doesn’t.

Source: People magazine.

Comment: Although Lake dropped more than 100 pounds before starting her talk show, the weight could be an issue again; it worked for Oprah.

Jerry Springer

Personal confessions: None. “I choose to keep my private life separate from my job; I don’t watch talk shows, and I’d never be a guest on one.”

Source: Interview with Springer.

Comment: Nationally, Jerry’s ratings are up 32 percent over last year, making him 10th among the talk-show crowd. This guy may be on to something.

Oprah Winfrey

Personal confessions: Childhood abuse, “real bad man troubles,” major weight losses in 1988 and 1994, engagement to Stedman Graham, used cocaine.

Source: TV show “Oprah.”

Public revelation: She experienced autobiographicus interruptus.

Source: Announcement to the press.

Comment: They’ve all been made.

Coming up soon, talk shows will be available from marginal celebrities Lauren Hutton, George and Alana Hamilton, and Tempestt Bledsoe, as well as not very famous people Stephanie Miller and Armstrong Williams, whose personal confessions are yet to be made.