Who is Larry King Talkshow Legend Dies: Biography, Profile, Media Career, Health Problems
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| Larry King, the longtime CNN host who became an icon through his interviews with countless newsmakers and his sartorial sensibilities, has died this Saturday morning. He was 87. |
Larry King, the suspendered talk show host whose interviews with thousands of newsmakers and entertainers made him a broadcasting legend, has died. He was 87.
King died Saturday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, said in a statement.
No cause of death was given, but he had been hospitalized with a COVID-19 infection, according to several media reports.
"For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster," the statement said.
Larry King’s biography
Larry King, original name Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, (born November 19, 1933, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died January 23, 2021, Los Angeles, California), American talk-show host whose easygoing interviewing style helped make Larry King Live (1985–2010) one of CNN’s longest-running and most popular programs, according to Britanica.
King grew up in Brooklyn, where he remained for several years after high-school graduation to help support his mother, who had been widowed when he was a young child. In his early twenties King left New York for Florida in the hopes of breaking into radio.
Larry King’s media career
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| Larry King has interviewed every sitting president since Gerald Ford. Here he is with President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore before the 1996 presidential election. Photo AFP. |
He worked as a disc jockey in South Florida, honing his conversational interview style doing on-location interviews with random citizens. In 1960 he broke into television with a Miami-based talk show. King also wrote for a number of Miami newspapers during that period.
In 1971 King was arrested and charged with grand larceny for allegedly having stolen money from a former friend. Though the charges were dropped the following year, the scandal left King temporarily unable to secure radio or newspaper work. In the early 1970s he worked in public relations and as a sports commentator, and in 1975 he started to regain his foothold in Miami media.
"For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster," the statement said.
King, who hosted CNN's award-winning "Larry King Live" for 25 years, interviewed everyone from world leaders and celebrities to criminals and conspiracy theorists during 6,000-plus episodes of the evening show from 1985 tthrough 2010.
"Instead of goodbye, how about so long," King told viewers when he signed off from his final CNN show.
King went on to work on a variety of projects, including co-founding Ora TV in 2012.
| Five notable moments from King's career He hosted the 1993 debate between then Vice-President Al Gore and Texas billionaire Ross Perot on the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which shattered ratings records at the time, reaching more than 16.3 million viewers, BBC reported. In 1995 he interviewed at the same time the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan. After the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, King interviewed more than 700 guests, including first responders and survivors and more than 35 world leaders and dignitaries. He won awards for his interviews in jail, including with convicted mother-and-son murderers Sante and Kenneth Kimes; Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas; and disgraced boxer Mike Tyson. Legendary singer Frank Sinatra, who was rarely interviewed, gave his last interview to Larry King in 1988. King later said that this, and interviewing actor Marlon Brando - who also hardly ever agreed to interviews - were among his career highlights.
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Interview famous and infamous persons
For 25 years, he hosted "Larry King Live" on CNN, a span that was highlighted by more than 30,000 interviews, including every sitting president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama, and thousands of phone calls from viewers.
The show made King one of the faces of the network, and one of the most famous television journalists in the country. His column in USA Today, which ran for nearly 20 years until 2001, showcased King's distinct style in print, inviting readers down a trail of non-sequiturs that served as a window into his mind.
“I just wanted to be an announcer. I wanted to be anything. I wanted to talk into a microphone,” he told Columbia Journalism Review in July 2017. “I don’t know why, I must have had a good voice pre-puberty. Because people kept telling me, ‘You gotta be on the radio.’ So I would imitate radio shows. I would listen to [radio show] The Shadow, and then I would go into my bathroom — we were very poor in Brooklyn — and I would go, ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. A tale well calculated to keep you in…suspense!’ I was driven by the sounds. Still am.”
King explained in that same interview that he hadn’t gone to college, and that he worked a number of odd jobs before landing that first radio job at a small station in Miami.
King performed a one-man comedy show and hosted online series Larry King Now for the network RT America, on which he made headlines in 2016 for a controversial interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He also asked the questions on PoliticKING with Larry King from 2012 to 2019. The veteran broadcaster even announced plans for a podcast featuring celebrity interviews in May 2020.
Larry King’s health problem
King battled a number of health problems, suffering several heart attacks. In 1987, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery, inspiring him to establish the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to provide assistance to those without insurance.
More recently, King revealed in 2017 that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure in 2019 to address angina.
King has Type 2 diabetes, has confronted a series of medical issues over the years, including several heart attacks and quintuple bypass surgery in 1987. In 2017, King revealed he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure in 2019 to address angina.
His own medical issues inspired him to start the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, a non-profit aimed at helping those without health insurance afford medical care.
King had been hospitalized with Covid-19 in late December at Cedars-Sinai, a source close to the family said at the time.
Larry’s King marriage
He was married eight times, to seven women, beginning with a high school sweetheart in his late teen years, up until his most recent wife, from whom he was estranged at the time of his death.
Despite the marital ups and downs, he relished in fatherhood.
King had five children, including two sons with Southwick that he famously welcomed in his 60s. Sadly, two of his older children died over the course of three weeks in July and August 2019.
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