BROADCASTER'S CNN SHOW WAS PLATFORM OF CHOICE FOR MANY POLITICIANS
AT HIS PEAK, MOST AVIDLY WATCHED TV PERSONALITY
Larry King, the former host of CNN'S Larry King Live who died Saturday at age 87, was an American success story — the boy from a poor immigrant family who struggled his way up to become the “Pope of Talk” — the most avidly watched television personality in the world.
On the way King had been through disgrace, bankruptcy and eight marriages (two to the same woman). At his peak in the 1990s, however, the “little Jewish Kid from Brooklyn” not only ruled American television but personified the very notion of the electronic global village, his craggy features, loud braces, smoothed back hair, horn-rimmed glasses and Brooklyn drawl was reported by PR Week to reach 170 million households worldwide. Saddam Hussein was said to be a fan, as was Slobodan Milosevic; Milosevic once even sent King his personal congratulations on the birth of a son.
Everybody who was anybody wanted to talk to King. Washington power brokers and world leaders queued up for a slot and the program became a mandatory stop for celebrities promoting a project or agonizing about their latest personal crisis. When the billionaire Texan Ross Perot announced his decision to stand as a presidential candidate in 1992, he did so on Larry King Live.
Marlon Brando gave his first interview in 20 years to King. The day after he was acquitted of murder, O.J. Simpson rang in for a live chat.
Altogether King claimed to have conducted interviews with more than 30,000 people, including six American presidents and their wives. The Pope and Jackie Onassis were two of the very few of the world's famous and powerful who failed to respond to King's invitation.
CNN billed King as “the Muhammad Ali of the television interview,” but as a description of his style this was several leagues wide of the mark. Among the Washington press corps he was viewed as a suspect figure who fawned on the rich and powerful (one media watcher called him “our great national suck-up”) and gave his interviewees a free ride.
A common criticism levelled at King was that his questions were “softball.”
Typical King exchanges began “How does it feel ..?” or “What is it like?” Authors promoting their latest work were told their books were “tremendous”, even though King admitted he never read them. Politicians got much the same treatment.
“If you come off Larry King looking bad,” the Republican Pat Buchanan observed, “you've only yourself to blame.”
King never pretended to be the brightest spark on television, but claimed that his chummy non-confrontational approach could lull interviewees into allowing personal truths to come out.
Larry King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on November 19 1933 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of Jewish immigrants from Minsk in Belarus. He was 10 when his father, a bar owner, died, leaving the family living on welfare in a slum attic.
Larry was not a good student and barely got through high school. But he knew he had a “kinda gift” from his bar mitzvah when he had held guests spellbound with his “today I am a man” speech.
He dreamt of being on the radio and, after leaving school, took a job as delivery boy in the mailroom of a New York office that was also occupied by a radio station, hoping to talk his way on to the air. But things did not work out and in 1957, with a few dollars in his pocket, he hopped on a bus to Miami after hearing that prospects were better there.
After touting himself round several radio stations, he was finally given a job sweeping floors with WAHR radio Miami and when, shortly afterwards, a disc jockey at the station resigned, he convinced the management to try him out as a replacement. His manager told him the name Zeiger was “too German, too Jewish and not show business enough,” so he changed his name to King. Within two years he had his own morning talk show.
By 1970, King had both radio and television shows, a US$70,000 a year column in the Miami Herald and a spot as colour commentator for the Miami Dolphins football broadcasts. He lived a playboy's life, married a former Playboy bunny, Alene Akins, had extramarital affairs, drove a Cadillac, and gambled on the horses.
But King found success harder to handle than poverty and in 1971 he was charged with stealing US$5,000 from a business partner. The charge was eventually dropped, but the unfavourable publicity cost him his jobs — as well as his marriage. It would take four years before he worked regularly in broadcasting again.
The Larry King Show eventually grew to be the first nationwide call-in show and one of the most popular radio shows in American history. King's audience appeal led the fledgling Cable News Network in 1985 to book him for Larry King Live and again he scored an enormous hit. Soon Larry King Live became CNN'S highest-rated program.
Larry King was married for the eighth time, in 1997, to Shawn Southwick. They separated last year; she survives him along with their two sons and a son from a previous marriage. Another son and a daughter predeceased him.
CNN BILLED KING AS `THE MUHAMMAD ALI OF THE TELEVISION INTERVIEW.'