Jerry Springer and the London Underground: How the talk show host was born in a Tube station to refugees

For Jerry Springer, who has died aged 79, life began deep undergound in a north London Tube station.

The pioneering American talk show host was born on February 13, 1944 to German Jewish refugees who had fled Poland.

The family lived in Belvedere Court, East Finchley, near Hampstead Garden Suburb, before emigrating in 1949 to the United States, where Jerry would become one of television’s biggest stars.

In conversation with the BBC in 2012, he recalled spending his early life fueling his obsession with buses, watching the numbers 58 and 102 drive past.

“My birth was a little out of the ordinary,” he said, “because I was born at Highgate - you call them Tube stations, I would say subways.

“The reason, my mum told me, I was born at a subway station is because this was during the war, and during the war women who were in their ninth month would often spend the night in the subway stations, because those were the bomb shelters.”

It is understood Springer died on Thursday (April 27) at his home, following a “brief illness”.

Jene Galvin, spokesperson for the family, said: “Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word.

“He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humour will live on.”