Springer still bouncing around with radio show

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “There are no second acts in American lives.” Thomas Wolfe wrote a book called “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

But they both wrote fiction. And neither ever met Jerry Springer.

Springer has had and played host to so many acts, and not only on his three-ring circus of a TV talk show, that he titled his autobiography “Ringmaster.”

Now, at 61, he has gone back to his adopted hometown of Cincinnati to start yet another act by serving as host of a three-hour radio show five days a week. At a point in life when he could be contemplating retirement, as a millionaire several times over, he might be facing his biggest challenge.

In a field dominated by conservative talkers, in a city that’s been called the place where the Old South meets Germany, he’s the local headliner on a station billed as a “revolution in talk radio” because it leans left.

So far the show has to be a disappointment to the people who predicted he would flounder, flop or wallow in trash talk – unless calling the Iraq war “immoral” qualifies as that.

One caller hails Springer as the most dynamic mayor Cincinnati ever had, recalling when he brought rock concerts to Riverfront Stadium. Another remembers when he opened shelters to the homeless in Operation Deep Freeze in the 1970s.

He is unfailingly polite to everyone – no hang-ups, no rants.

“If you deal directly with regular people, you’re going to win,” he says. “And I enjoy people. It sounds hokey, but I do. You couldn’t do my TV show for 14 years if you didn’t like people. I find people fascinating.”

Springer is fascinating himself. He’s been a lawyer, campaign aide to Robert F. Kennedy, five-term city councilman, mayor of Cincinnati, failed gubernatorial candidate and Emmy-winning news anchor and commentator – in addition to being the host, since 1991, of what he calls his “stupid television show.”

There is speculation he is using the radio show to repair his image for another run at statewide office, but insiders say his radio contract would rule out a run for governor next year.

“This is just a wonderful opportunity to offer alternative points of view on a medium that is overwhelmingly conservative,” Springer says. “I talk about this stuff every day anyway, so I might as well be doing it in front of a microphone.”

Springer hopes to syndicate the show nationally. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, he broadcasts from Cincinnati, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from Chicago, where he tapes his TV show – which he readily admits “has no relevance to real people’s lives.”

“We haven’t gotten one phone call (about) the TV show, not one,” he says. “We get calls from people who disagree with the politics, but no one says anything about the TV show, because it has no relevance to what they’re calling about.”

The birthday bunch

Actress Kim Novak is 72. Actor George Segal is 71. Musician/actor Peter Tork (The Monkees) is 63. Actress Carol Lynley is 63. Actress Stockard Channing is 61. Talk-show host Jerry Springer is 61. Singer Peter Gabriel is 55. Actor David Naughton is 54. Singer Henry Rollins is 44. Actress Kelly Hu is 37. Actress Mena Suvari is 26.