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 King had been hospitalized in
Los Angeles with a COVID-19 infection, according
to several media reports. He died at Cedars
Sinai Medical Center, Ora Media, a television
production company founded by King, said in a
post on Twitter.
"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," it said.
Millions watched King interview world leaders,
entertainers and other celebrities on CNN's
"Larry King Live", which ran from 1985 to 2010.
Hunched over his desk in rolled-up shirt sleeves
and owlish glasses, he made his show one of the
network's prime attractions with a mix of
interviews, political discussions, current event
debates and phone calls from viewers.
Even in his heyday, critics accused King of
doing little pre-interview research and tossing
softball questions to guests who were free to
give unchallenged, self-promoting answers. He
responded by conceding he did not do much
research so that he could learn along with his
viewers. Besides, King said, he never wanted to
be perceived as a journalist.
"My duty, as I see it, is I'm a conduit," King
told the Hartford Courant in 2007. "“I ask the
best questions I can. I listen to the answers. I
try to follow up. And hopefully the audience
makes a conclusion. I'm not there to make a
conclusion. I'm not a soapbox talk-show host...
So what I try to do is present someone in the
best light."
PRESIDENTS AND PRIME MINISTERS
King's guests included U.S. presidents dating
back to Gerald Ford, international leaders such
as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, and Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev, and entertainers ranging from Bob
Hope to Snoop Dogg.
King never hid his old-fashioned proclivities
and liked to reminisce about performers such as
Frank Sinatra and Arthur Godfrey. In 2006 he
admitted to a guest that he had never searched
the internet, saying: "“What do you do - punch
little buttons and things?"
But by 2012 King was on the internet himself
with his "Larry King Now" show on Ora TV, and
later Hulu's streaming service. He also was a
regular presence on Twitter, promoting his
interviews and tossing out random thoughts - "I
have no desire to eat an artichoke," "My
favorite flavor of Jell-O is lime" and "I love
to say 'sacre bleu!'" - in what was essentially
an online version of the column he had once
written for USA Today.
King was an established radio talk-show host
when he made his first television broadcast for
CNN from Washington on June 3, 1985, five years
after Ted Turner started the network.
[to top of second column]
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 “"Larry King Live" would become
one of CNN's highest rated shows. He left CNN
amid falling ratings in 2010 after 25 years with
the news network, but stayed busy with his Ora
TV show.
"I've known a lot of people who were experts in
six or 12 things but Larry seems to be an expert
in everything," Don Hewitt, creator of "60
Minutes", told the Hollywood Reporter. "He's
also never confrontational, which is majorly
important. In an age when so many people are
miserable, he seems to be one of the happy
ones."
MIAMI RADIO BEGINNINGS
King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on Nov. 19,
1933, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
He said at age 5 he knew he wanted to be on the
radio and in 1957 he moved to Miami, which he
had been told had a burgeoning radio market.
King started doing odd jobs at a Miami station
and one day was asked to fill in for an
announcer who walked off the job. Before he went
on the air, the station manager urged him to
change his last name to King because it was
easier to pronounce and less ethnic than Zeiger.
King became a fixture in Miami but as his
reputation grew, so did his troubles.
In 1971 he was arrested on a grand larceny
complaint filed by Miami financier Lou Wolfson,
who had been in trouble with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Wolfson allegedly paid King
in hopes of gaining influence on the
administration of then-U.S. President Richard
Nixon.
The charge against King was dropped because the
statute of limitations had expired, but the
scandal knocked him off the air for some three
years. He did public relations work for a
Louisiana racetrack until station WIOD in Miami
hired him.
King rebounded and the Mutual radio network gave
him a nationwide audience in 1978. He relocated
to Washington, a move that led to the CNN job.
He suffered a heart attack and had bypass
surgery in 1987, prompting him to start the
Larry King Cardiac Foundation a year later. He
had surgery in 2007 to clear a blocked artery,
was treated for prostate cancer in 2010 and said
in 2017 that he had been treated for lung
cancer.
King was married eight times to seven women,
most recently to singer Shawn Southwick, who was
26 years younger. He had five children, two of
whom died in 2020.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Scott Malone and
Bill Trott; Editing by Dave Gregorio, Rosalba
O'Brien and Alex Richardson)
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