Broadcast Pioneer Larry King Dead At 87
• Larry King, whose unique personality and insatiable curiosity about his guests changed the face of radio and television over the course of an amazing six-decade broadcasting career, died Saturday morning, Jan. 23 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 87. King had been battling COVID-19 since mid-December.
King’s production company, Ora Media broke the news of his passing in a statement, posted to Twitter, that read, in part, “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… Larry always viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programs, and himself as merely an unbiased conduit between the guest and audience. Whether he was interviewing a U.S. president, foreign leader, celebrity, scandal-ridden personage, or an everyman, Larry liked to ask short, direct, and uncomplicated questions. He believed concise questions usually provided the best answers, and he was not wrong in that belief.”
As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, NY, Larry Harvey Zeiger was a self-proclaimed “radio freak,” who spent hours listening to baseball games on the radio. The HuffPost’s coverage recounts a passage from King’s 2009 autobiography, My Remarkable Journey, where he noted, “By the time I was in junior high school, I already knew. You could see it in the school yearbook. They asked me what I wanted to be, and I told them: a radio announcer.” When he was 23, King took a train from New York to Miami to pursue his dream of working in broadcasting and landed his first radio job at WAHR (now WMBM), doing odd jobs around the station. His big break came just weeks later when the morning jock suddenly quit, and King was tapped to fill the open spot. Moments before going on air for the first time, however, the station manager called him into his office to suggest the new guy drop “Zeiger” in favor of a less “ethnic” last name — an so, on May 1, 1957, “Larry King” made his radio debut, and he legally changed his last name two years later.
In 1977, while working at WIOD/Miami, King got the call that would propel his career to that mythical “next level” — Ed Little, then the President of the Mutual Broadcasting System, offered him his own overnight radio talk show. The show, which ran until 2010, captured the attention of Ted Turner, who in 1985 hired King to host a nightly hourlong show on his fledgling TV network, CNN. Over the course of 25 years and more than 6,000 episodes, King, sporting his trademark suspenders, interviewed nearly everyone worth noting and averaged more than 1 million viewers nightly.
CNN President Jeff Zucker released a statement about King, accurately describing him as “a scrappy young man from Brooklyn” who had “a history-making career spanning radio and television.” Zucker said, “His curiosity about the world propelled his award-winning career in broadcasting, but it was his generosity of spirit that drew the world to him. We are so proud of the 25 years he spent with CNN, where his newsmaker interviews truly put the network on the international stage. From our CNN family to Larry’s, we send our thoughts and prayers, and a promise to carry on his curiosity for the world in our work.”
King is survived by his sons Larry Jr., Chance, and Cannon King. He was preceded in death by a son, Andy King and a daughter, Chaia King. Funeral arrangements and a memorial service will be announced later in coordination with the King family.
• Benztown has made available an Audio Tribute to Larry King, written and voiced by Bill Royal and produced by Adam Hood.
