John McLaughlin, host of the political roundtable show The McLaughlin Group, died Tuesday at the age of 89, the show announced on its Facebook page.
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John McLaughlin, the US talk-show host whose rowdy panel discussions on political issues entertained television viewers for more than 30 years and drew comparisons to professional wrestling, has died. No cause of death was mentioned, but an ailing McLaughlin had missed the taping for this past weekend’s show – his first absence in the series’ 34 years.
His former office manager, Linda Dean, filed a $4 million lawsuit against McLaughlin in 1988, claiming she was sacked after protesting his unwanted sexual advances. He will always be remembered.
“I am under the weather”, McLaughlin wrote.
The show became enough of an institution to inspire a “Saturday Night Live” parody, and continued into the 21st century. The most recent episode, which was taped and aired on August 12th, featured the host in voiceover.
Born in 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island, McLaughlin became a Jesuit priest but stepped down in 1975, after getting increasingly involved in politics and punditry. “My spirit is strong and my dedication to this show remains absolute”, the note read.
Ordained a priest in 1960 after earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at Boston College and a Ph.D.at Columbia University, McLaughlin worked in the Nixon and Ford administrations, then created “The McLaughlin Group” in 1982.
He switched from Democrat to Republican during the Vietnam War, which he came to support, and ran for U.S. Senate in his home state.
McLaughlin knew he was breaking the traditional mold of television political talk shows as staid and restrained forums for polite disagreement.
The syndicated talk show paved the way for today’s panel-style political talk shows featuring pundits and journalists. But with its gimmickry and phony drama, its relentless emphasis on who’s up and who’s down, its pointless predictions and rankings of everything from one to five, “The McLaughlin Group” has contributed materially to the trivialization of Washington journalism.
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In 1997, the 70-year-old McLaughlin married Cristina Vidal, 36, but the pair divorced in 2010.
