By T. Rees Shapiro, Washington Post
Larry King, the suspendered impresario of cable television whose popular CNN interview program — 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 Jan. 23 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 Mr. King was hospitalized 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, Mr. 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.
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CNN founder Ted Turner called Mr. King “the most famous interviewer in the world,” which, at Mr. King’s peak, was closer to understatement than hyperbole. His show, with its colored-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 Gaddafi, the Dalai Lama and Marlon Brando, who, at once playful and bizarre, sang an old pop song and planted a kiss on Mr. King.
Others to appear included sex therapists, ufologists and Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. The Muppets donned suspenders in the host’s honor.
Audiences responded to Mr. 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, Mr. King’s show was a plush chaise longue.
