Maury Povich was in total disbelief when he was told he’s receiving Lifetime Achievement honors at the Daytime Emmys.
“I thought it was a prank,” he tells Yahoo Entertainment. “I’m serious.”
With 67 years in broadcasting, Povich spent the last 31 hosting TV’s The Maury Povich Show, later rebirthed as simply Maury, which he retired from in 2022. The talker was reality TV long before the genre existed — more so a mashup up of soap opera, reality and WWE trash talk — as its signature became a “Who’s the Daddy?” segment in which Povich read paternity test results on air and the audience erupted.
“I never thought I was going to win an Emmy because the show was considered too edgy, pushing the envelope and, according to some critics, very trashy,” says the 84-year-old, who nonetheless was nominated in Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2020 and Outstanding Talk Show in 2017. “I never expected anything like this.”
The award is being handed out during the 50th Annual Daytime Emmys festivities, which take place this weekend in L.A. after a strike delay. Friday is the TV broadcast of the gala awards ceremony, at which his fellow honoree, Susan Lucci of All My Children fame, gets her lifetime award, and Povich presents. On Saturday, Povich is the honoree with his award being presented by his wife, journalist Connie Chung, at the Daytime Creative Arts & Lifestyle Emmy Awards Luncheon.
“I never know what the hell’s going to come out of her mouth,” he says of his better half. “We’ve always been kind of a George Burns, Gracie Allen couple” with a playful banter. Would she ever go the sentimental route at the podium? “She better not,” he says. “I mean — that would be a first.”
Povich — who will also be accompanied by his L.A.-based daughter Amy Agus and her family, as well as friend Judy Hart-Angelo (who co-wrote the Cheers theme song) — doesn’t have a speech prepared because Chung thinks he’s better off when he’s not reading something. He does know one thing he’ll say in his “stream of consciousness,” a reference to what “the late great Gregory Peck once said when he got one of these awards: It has an ‘ominous ring’ to it,'” he says with a laugh.
Chung will be on his thank you list. Professionally, “I was just a local guy until this unbelievable television journalist married me in 1984,” he says of his second wife and Weekends with Maury and Connie co-star. “Within two years, I started on this 35-year national career. I know for a fact that would have never happened if I hadn’t married her.”
‘You are not the father’
Povich covered news and talk for 25 years before being hired to host A Current Affair, from 1986 to 1990. The primetime newsmagazine, produced by 20th Century Fox under tabloid king Rupert Murdoch, focused on entertainment, crime and gossip. A hit with viewers, the teletabloid influenced mainstream news to cover those topics and Povich’s eyes were opened to what audiences wanted to see.
“A Current Affair was basically touching on all those Shakespearean themes — about lust and love and betrayal and greed,” he says. “I always thought that was one of the reasons it appealed to viewers. So once I started the talk show, I could tell particularly on the paternity tests and the lie detector tests, [that the same themes were in play].”
Doing paternity tests on Maury was also influenced by soap operas. Daytime dramas had long leaned into “Who’s the Daddy” storylines, playing out over months or years. Povich recalls thinking, “I could do it in 12 minutes and get a result” using real people. It took off.
He says “the smartest thing I ever did,” however, was to learn the results at the same time as the audience.
“I just thought: I don’t want to know the result,” he says. “I don’t want to know anything more than our audience or guests. I always felt myself as an extension of the audience in terms of asking the questions they would ask. And that’s how the whole signature ‘You are not the father,’ ‘You are the father’ came about — because I was as surprised as anyone.”
Povich is obviously aware of the criticism, but has long seen it in a different way.
“I always justified it: I figured if I could get a lot of these fathers into the lives of these kids, then they would be much better off,” he says. “I’m not sure that happened on several occasions,” but often it did. The show — which explored everything from conquering phobias to exorcisms — was known for having reunions of past guests, including positive stories of fathers establishing relationships with a once-estranged child.
Karamo Brown picked up the baton as the Maury replacement — and Povich recently appeared to read a paternity test.
“I don’t want to say he does a softer version, but he gives out advice. He has a knack for getting into the subject much deeper than I did. He tries to help [guests], over and over again,” Povich says. “I really left that to our psychological counselor who we always had there.”
‘The golden age of talk’
Povich says he’s “rooting” for Brown, whose show was renewed for a second season. “Anytime talk shows get renewed it’s a big win because there’s so many” jockeying for spots. It’s certainly a different era of talk, in more ways than one.
“When I started my talk show in the early ’90s, it was the golden age of talk. We had 10 or 11 shows on the air between Oprah [Winfrey], [Phil] Donahue, Geraldo [Rivera], Sally Jessy [Raphael], Jenny Jones, Joan Rivers, Montel Williams,” he recalls.
“I remember NBC had a primetime special for Donahue on his 25th anniversary and he invited all of the talk show competitors to come and do a skit,” he continues. “So we all showed up … but we all sat in the greenroom and not one of us spoke to each other. Talk show hosts,” he laughs. “I mean — our egos were so big. I just always remarked on that. We are really egocentric assholes.”
Though at the end of the day, “we were all civil” with one another, he says. He was friendly with Jerry Springer, as they started out at the same time and tread the same ground in many ways, as well as Williams. He “really liked” Phil. He was “fine” with Raphael, as they worked for the same company. Povich says of Oprah, “We’ve always gotten along.”
As for the stardom that came from his show, “I was always overwhelmed by all the attention,” he explains. It’s nothing he could escape, especially his signature catchphrases that fans ask him to recite pretty much “every time anybody recognizes who I am,” he says. “Do you know how many selfies I’ve done with guys who say: ‘You are not the father. You are the father.'”
Milestone anniversary with Chung
It’s been over a year since Povich retired from daytime, but his plate is full. For starters, he still owns the Montana news outlet Flathead Beacon, near a ranch he and Chung owned there for 25 years.
“About a year ago, we had to go from print to digital, but it’s still a terrific paper,” he says. “It went from a weekly paper to hourly, so that’s good for the community and I’m involved in that.”
He’s in the early stages of co-producing a documentary about A Current Affair and “how it changed television news forever. … I was very fortunate. Me and all these Australians were just thrown together — and it came out to be quite a groundbreaking show.”
He still creates new content for his show’s social media accounts, citing the number of followers he has on each, including 2 million on TikTok. He’s been approached about a podcast — doing interviews, which was how he started his career — but isn’t sold. (“Everybody’s doing a podcast. Why should I?”) He also works on his golf game, remaining hopeful that it will improve — though “that’s a fantasy,” he laughs. His two wedges are imprinted with “‘You are not the father’ and “‘You are the father,” a gift from golf company Titleist.
And personally, Povich and Chung will celebrate 40 years of marriage in 2024. They haven’t traveled much due to COVID and Chung has been busy writing her memoir, which he promises will a “barn burner” as the groundbreaking TV anchor has stories, but “we’ve talked a lot about going back to our favorite country, which is Italy,” to mark the milestone.
As for the key to a long-lasting marriage, “We have differing views of that. I always say whatever arguments or discussions we had during the day or evening, they all end once the head hits the pillow. She says it works because she has grudges,” laughs the father of three.
While Chung’s the “neat freak” to him being a “sock thrower,” it just works. “Somehow it does.”
The 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be broadcast live on Friday, Dec. 15 at 9.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
