Larry King, TV host who gave stars a cosy forum 

Larry King

American TV personality Larry King who died yesterday at the age of 87. His media company Ora Media did not state the cause of his death but media reports said King had been battling Covid-19 for weeks and had suffered several health problems in recent years.

Photo credit: Pool | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • King described himself as insatiably curious and said his favourite query was also the shortest: “Why?”
  • One of King’s chief talents was his ability to put guests instantly at ease.

Larry King, the suspendered impresario of cable television whose popular CNN interview programme — with its guest-friendly questions and conversational banter — was a premier safe haven for the famous and infamous to spill their secrets, hype their projects and soften their image, died yesterday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Ora Media, the production company he co-founded, announced his death but did not provide a cause, according to the Associated Press. CNN reported earlier this month that King was hospitalised for complications from covid-19.

The TV host, who was long beset by medical problems, such as diabetes and heart attacks, underwent an operation to remove early-stage lung cancer in 2017 and had a stroke in 2019.

In a career that included print and radio, King was best known for sitting behind a bulbous RCA microphone in the anchor chair of his prime-time CNN show Larry King Live from 1985 to 2010.

He began as a Miami disc jockey in the late 1950s, wrote a USA Today column of stream-of-consciousness musings for nearly 20 years, and hosted a late-night Mutual Broadcasting System radio show that was beamed to more than 200 stations. He played himself in dozens of TV shows and movies.

CNN founder Ted Turner called King “the most famous interviewer in the world,” which, at King’s peak, was closer to understatement than hyperbole. His show, with its coloured-dot map of the world in the background, garnered more than 1.5 million nightly viewers for segments with guests as varied as George H.W. Bush, Frank Sinatra, Snoop Dogg, Magic Johnson, Donald Trump, Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Moammar Gadhafi, the Dalai Lama and Marlon Brando, who, at once playful and bizarre, sang an old pop song and planted a kiss on King.

King's gentle probing

Others to appear included sex therapists, ufologists and Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. The Muppets donned suspenders in the host’s honour.

Audiences responded to King’s gentle probing, smoky baritone and casual manner. His CNN show served as an antidote to the network’s otherwise round-the-clock breaking news coverage and partisan shoutfests. If other interview programs could resemble beds of nails, with “gotcha” inquisitions of newsmakers, King's show was a plush chaise longue.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd referred to him as “the resort area of American journalism, the media’s Palm Springs, where politicians and other figures of controversy or celebrity can go to unwind, kick back and reflect.”

King said he preferred to avoid reading background material on his guests in favour of a spontaneous approach of asking questions on the fly. He described himself as insatiably curious and said his favourite query was also the shortest: “Why?”

One of King’s chief talents was his ability to put guests instantly at ease. He shunned the stiff suits favoured by other newscasters for a jacketless look and rolled cuffs. His shoulders hunched as he leaned toward his guests.

He seemed perpetually wide-eyed behind his windowpane glasses, keenly interested in what anyone sitting across from him had to say.

When nuclear physicist Edward Teller, a father of the hydrogen bomb, balked at an invitation to speak with King on his Mutual show, the host offered a deal: Stay for the first question and, if desired, leave afterward. At the interview, according to a 1980 account in People magazine, King asked Teller why high school students found physics so intimidating. Teller launched into a heartfelt response about the importance of scientific study — and then answered the rest of King’s questions.

Impromptu methods

His impromptu methods caught some subjects off guard. When Vice President Dan Quayle appeared on Larry King Live in 1992, the conservative Republican politician stumbled into a question about abortion.

“What if your daughter grew up, had a problem, came to you with that problem all fathers fear, how would you deal with it?” King asked.

“Well, it is a hypothetical situation, and I hope I never do have to deal with it, but obviously I would counsel her and talk to her and support her on whatever decision she’d make,” Quayle said.

“And if the decision was abortion, you'd support her?” King asked.

“I'd support my daughter,” Quayle said. 

Other times, King made news in spite of himself. Hosting Texas business magnate H. Ross Perot in 1992, King asked about his political prospects.

On the spot, Perot announced it was possible he would make an independent bid for the presidency, immediately shaking up the campaign in which he would tap into voters' frustration with the two major political parties.

Speaking with Richard M. Nixon that same year, King asked the former president what he thought about as he drove past the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington, the site of the political burglary and coverup that led to Nixon's resignation in 1974.

"Well, I've never been to the Watergate," Nixon replied. "Other people were in there, though, unfortunately."

The Washington Post