Paul Prudente

Ms. Gokturk

Journalism

Maury Povich was born the second of three children to the former Washington Post editor Shirley Povich. His father was a journalist. Journalism was a family tradition. Povich�s sister later became a senior editor of Newsweek Magazine.

After high school, Povich attended the University of Pennsylvania. He had a tough time in college because he was constantly getting into trouble. He was eventually kicked out of school because of low grades. His father set him straight and Povich finally graduates college at the age of 23. After graduation, he married Phyllis Minkoff, a girl he dated throughout college. They had two daughters, but later filed for divorce because the importance of his career was rising. After the divorce, Povich began working as the host of a popular daytime talk show called Panorama. It was here that he met his future wife Connie Chung. Chung was working as a copygirl for the station.

In 1976, Povich was hired by NBC affiliate station in Chicago. Povich took the job. This move turned out to be a bad decision. All he did the duration of his time working there was ague his contract with station management. After a few months of these difficulties, Povich moved to another job in Los Angeles at a station named KCBS. Povich was fired from this job because of a lack of good ratings. "I was shattered to the core. I began wondering whether I should be selling shoes", said Maury. Not only was he upset about losing his job, he was afraid of telling his father because his father was strict and he feared the type of response he was going to receive. " I was just devastated and embarrassed." After he told his father, there was a long silence and then his father said, " Well, son, let me tell you one thing: get all of the sharp objects out of the house." After that statement, Maury was no longer upset.

Povich�s career was unstable for a while. After he worked in San Francisco, he went to Philadelphia, and then back to Washington D.C. and worked at Panorama. He was rehired to be the host.

Around 1984, Povich�s career began to level out and his feelings for Connie grew stronger. "The more stable I felt, the more I thought about Connie and tying the knot." Chung felt the same way and they were married in 1984. Their busy schedules made it hard for them to see eachother. Chung commuted from New York to Washington so they could see eachother once a week.

Later on, media mogul Rupert Murdoch offered Povich the host spot on A Current Affair, a new journalistic program. Povich was very successful with this show because of his many years of journalistic work. The most popular thing that he brought to that show was his smirk. If he did not believe a story, he would flash his smirk. "I don�t believe a lot of silly stories�And I use the smirk then. A few months after working on the show, it aired on from 20 stations to well over 100 stations.

In 1991, Povich left A Current Affair after 5 years and over 1000 shows. He then decided to start a career in daytime talk shows. He shared airtime with many famous people. Such people were Montel Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Jenny Jones and Phil Donahue. Working beside all of these people made Povich�s job much more difficult. In the beginning, his show was struggling and he received many bad comments that upset him. But this did not stop him. Povich�s strong will and attitude eventually overcame those comments and put his show on top once again.

One of Povich�s greatest successes was the fact that he could keep a strong show playing as well as keeping his relationship with Connie strong. Povich said that Connie always made more money than he did and they used to argue about that all the time. But in the end, they always worked things out. While his wife�s fame came to her easily, he says his success can be explained "the same way you explain yourself when your in a deli and it�s crowded and you take a number: If you hang around long enough, they gotta call it.

1) "Maury Povich." Biography Resource Center

2) "Maury Povich"