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Larry King's Death
- Larry King
- Broadcasting – Talk Show Host
- November 19, 1933
- January 23, 2021
- Undisclosed, Covid-19 suspected
The life and death of Larry King:
He was a legendary broadcaster for decades, gaining fame early as a national overnight radio talk show host and then later moving on to television, doing his talk show on CNN.
Larry King was born in Brooklyn and the name on his birth certificate was Lawrence Harvey Zeiger. His parents, Aaron Zeiger and Jennie Gitlitz Zeiger, were Orthodox Jews who moved to the United States from Belarus in the early 1930’s.
Larry lost his dad when he was nine years old when Aaron, a restaurant owner and defense plant worker, died of a heart attack. His mother went on government welfare to support herself and Larry and his brother.
Larry lost interest in school after his father died but did graduate Lafayette High School in Brooklyn and soon went to work.
From the start, he was interested in broadcasting and had a chance meeting with a radio pro who told him to go to the growing radio market in Florida, where inexperienced broadcasters had a chance to get some work.
So, Larry moved to Miami Beach and was hired at what’s now WMBM to do low level, behind the scenes tasks.
Destiny called in May 1957, when one of the station’s announcers quit and Larry was plugged into a late morning disc jockey slot. He earned $50 a week.
When the station manager said his last name was not memorable, Larry changed it to King … off a liquor store ad. Larry started doing interviews on his next job at WIOD and interviewed Bobby Darin – his first of thousands of celebrity interviews.
His Miami radio won him notice and he was soon doing Sunday night TV shows on WIOD. King credited Jackie Gleason, who had a Miami based TV show, with mentoring him and furthering his TV ambitions. He also did color commentary on Miami Dolphins football games…but lost his gig when he was accused of grand larceny by a former business partner.
Those charges were dropped.
But radio beckoned again, and in January 1978, he began a long running, nationally broadcast overnight talk show – midnight to 5:30 am Eastern on the Mutual Broadcasting System.
By 1985, he was also doing a 9pm to 10pm talk show on CNN, travelling from studio to studio.
He remained at CNN until June 2010 but reappeared in June 2013 with “Larry King Now.”
Larry estimated that he did 60,000 interviews… thousands of celebrities from the political and entertainment world...
…using his straightforward, down to earth style.
But no one is perfect…and sometimes, Larry’s guests were not too happy with him.
Nevertheless, Larry won two Peabody Awards, an Emmy award and ten Cable ACE awards
Larry founded a non-profit charity – the Larry King Cardiac Foundation - and was married 8 times and had five children, two of whom died in the year preceding his own death.
A lifelong Dodgers fan – first in his childhood home in Brooklyn and later in Los Angeles…
…he frequently had seats behind home plate at Dodger Stadium.
Larry had several major health related events, including quintuple heart bypass surgery and he passed away at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles shortly after it was announced he was being treated for COVID-19, although the official cause of his death was undisclosed.