Geraldo

“Geraldo” was a talk-show hosted by "Geraldo Rivera" who interviewed many different guests and discussed things like, death, devil worship, domestic problems, exorcism, hate, law, neo-nazi skinheads, satanic cults, sexual abuse cases and many other topics. Geraldo himself always offered up his opinions on these and many other issues of the day. His topics sometimes bordered on the very extreme and because of this it was declared that his show was the first to be considered a “Trash-Talk” show. This was before “The Howard Stern Show” in 1990, “Jenny Jones” in 1991, “The Jerry Springer Show” in 1991, “The Montel Williams Show” in 1991, “The Maury Povich Show” in 1991, and “Rickie Lake” in 1993 ever came on the scene with their “Trash-Talk” like shows.

Geraldo was born on 4 July 1943 in New York City, New York and began his broadcasting career in 1970 for Eyewitness News on WABC-TV in New York City up to 1975. He was a host on "Good Morning, America” from 1973 to 1976. He was the host of his first own show in 1974 titled “Geraldo Rivera: Goodnight, America” until 1978. He was a correspondent for “Good Morning, America” from 1975 to 1977. He was also a correspondent and senior producer of “20/20" the newsmagazine show from 1978 to 1985 when he was fired. Then came his syndicated show “Geraldo” from 1987 to 1998. His very first guest on his premiere episode of his show on 14 September 1987 was Model “Marla Hanson” who had her face severely scarred up by a jealous ex-boyfriend. His most controversial show the first season was the episode titled "Men in Lace Panties and the Women Who Love Them”.

His biggest record breaking episode is said to be the one in 1988 when a brawl broke out with the leader of the White Aryan Resistance Youth and a black activist named “Roy Innis”. In this show a chair was thrown that hit Geraldo in the face and broke his nose. Since it was a taped show the media got wind of the excitement that night and many stories came out before the show finally aired that made a lot of people want to see what really happened for themselves. There was a close-up photo of Geraldo on the front page of the November 1988 issue of “Newsweek” magazine showing how badly his face and nosed looked after the fight. In a 1993 interview he gave to the “Seattle Times” he stated this: "I'm so much a part of the popular culture now. I'm a punch line every night on one of the late night shows I'm used as a generic almost in all the editorials and commentaries and certainly all the books about whether the news media has gone too far. It's just that, what is a review going to do to me? They either like me or don't like me, but I'm always interesting to watch”.

His live 2-Hour special broadcast on the opening of "Al Capone's" secret vault became TV's highest-rated syndicated special ever. In 1994 he began hosting another show on “CNBC TV” titled “Rivera Live”. In 1996 he decided to change a lot of aspects of his syndicated talk show to include renaming the show to “The Geraldo Rivera Show”. He signed a $30 Million 6-year deal in 1997 with “NBC TV” to be a news journalist. Because of either declining viewership or because of his deal signed with NBC in 1997 his syndicated show finally ended on 30 June 1998 after a 11 year run. He began working for the “FOX News Channel” in 2001 as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. In October 2005 he began another talk show on the “FOX News Channel” on Saturday and Sunday nights at 5 PM titled “At Large with Geraldo Rivera”.