Maury Povich is retiring after 31 years in daytime television — and the daddy of TV paternity tests is amazed that his catchphrase has ingrained itself into Americana.
“Who would have thought that when it comes to slogans and monikers that “You are not the father/You are the father … would become part of pop culture,” Povich told The Post. “The memes that people have used … I’ve seen postcards that say, ‘And Joseph, you are not the father!’ when it comes to Christmas cards.
“It just goes on and on.”
Povich leaves the the television arena after an unprecedented 36-year run, first as the host of “A Current Affair” followed by two talk-show iterations in daytime: “The Maury Povich Show” and “Maury,” the latter of which will continue to air in repeats for the foreseeable future.
“It better, because I have a [financial] interest in the show,” Povich said. “There are over 3,000 shows and, quite frankly, according to the NBC sales department, it’s already been sold [for next season]. I think I’ll have a healthy [syndicated] run for a long time.”
Povich, who turned 83 in January, said his retirement, announced last month, was years in the making.
“Six years ago I told NBC that I was ready for assisted living and they said, ‘You can’t do that,’ and so we made a two-year deal,” he said. “And then, four years ago, I said, ‘OK, that’s it’ and they said, ‘No, you’re so popular, we can sell [‘Maury’] for another two years.
“Then, two years ago, I said, ‘OK, that’s it’ and they said, ‘No, we’ll make one more two-year deal and then you can end it.’ The reason I continued to do the show — I had fun and I liked doing it — but most of my staff, you’re talking about 100 people, have been with me 20 and 25 years and some of them for 31 years,” he said. “And they kept telling me, ‘Now that I have a child and have to pay for college, you’ve gotta keep doing the show.’ Then [their kids] got out of college but now they’re having kids.
“There was a lot of internal pressure!” he said with a chuckle. “My family got so funny about [his retirement]. They call me G.O.A.T. and sent me a couple of toy goats.”
Povich taped his finale episode March 19 in the “Maury” studio in Stamford, Ct.
“All of my kids and my wife [Connie Chung] came to the last taping,” he said. “I was fine, because I don’t think of myself as being retired — I would normally be ending the season around now, anyhow … I wasn’t tearing up until my family and staff started. They all stood around at the end of the taping and started crying — and that was too much for me.”
Povich said he and Chung, who’ve been married for 37 years years — their son, Matthew, is 26 — will devote more time to the Flathead Beacon, the weekly newspaper in northwest Montana they started 15 years ago.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time helping that paper have a significant future,” he said. “My editorial staff out there have been there the entire 15 years and the paper has been well-received. I kind of started it as a tribute to my father [Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich] and I think he would’ve been proud of it. The greatest thing about the paper is it doesn’t matter what your political stripe is in the community. Everybody loves it.”
His agents have floated the possibility of Povich writing a book about his life and career — but, if that idea comes to fruition, they’ll have to wait a bit.
“They said, ‘There’s a book there’ and I went, ‘Well, I’m not writing a book.’ My wife’s been writing a book for three or four years and I am not going to one-up her,” he said. “I’m thinking about maybe teaching a class called ‘The Art of the Interview,’ so I might do that.”
Povich has another reason to spend more time in Montana — his son, Matthew, lives in the Treasure State.
“He was a commercial tuna fisherman but it became difficult for him; he’s now building a house in Montana near mine and he’s the co-owner of a machine shops that makes fishing rods,” Povich said. “This is a very blue-collar guy … who went to Riverdale Country Day School. He has his girlfriend and he loves it out there.”
And, unlike others (actors, athletes, etc.) who’ve retired only to return to the fold, don’t expect to see Povich reappear with a new television endeavor.
“My hero, when it came to retirement, was [Johnny] Carson, because he never appeared anywhere after his last show,” he said. “That’s my hope — that I’ll never have any kind of thirst to do something else on TV. I’ve been around this business since I was 16 … and always looked upon it as the greatest job in the world — and when it ends, it ends. The thought of doing something else and failing, that’s the worst.
“I never want to be caught in that circumstance.”