Miss Cleo

Miss Cleo was the on-air persona of Youree Dell Harris (1962–2016), the television spokesperson for the Psychic Readers Network, a pay-per-call service. In her commercials she presented herself as a shaman from Jamaica, reading tarot cards in a thick accent and urging viewers to phone in for a reading. From roughly 1997 to 2003 the spots saturated late-night and daytime cable, and her catchphrase and persona became a piece of shared pop-culture shorthand.

The business behind the face came apart in 2002. The Federal Trade Commission moved against the network — not against Harris herself, who was never indicted, but against the company's owners and her promoters, Steven Feder and Peter Stolz, for deceptive advertising, billing, and collection practices. The settlement included a $5 million fine to the FTC and roughly $500 million in combined debt forgiveness and refunds, after the network had billed its customers an estimated $1 billion.

A lasting twist emerged from a Florida lawsuit: it came out that Harris had been born in Los Angeles to American-citizen parents — the Jamaican identity, like the readings, was a performance. She died in 2016. What endures is the persona itself: a late-night-TV icon whose 'call me now' became one of the most-quoted infomercial lines of the era.