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WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG, AFP) – Larry King, the television interviewer whose non-confrontational style attracted celebrities and newsmakers as guests and made him the star of a premier American cable talk show, has died. He was 87 years old.
King died on Saturday morning (January 23) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a statement on his official Twitter account.
No cause of death was provided, but he had recently spent time undergoing treatment for Covid-19. He underwent bypass surgery after a heart attack in 1987 and was later treated twice for cancer.
King, the host of a popular late-night radio show in the 1970s and 1980s, rose to national fame after CNN owner Ted Turner convinced him to join their fledgling network in 1985.
His show, Larry King Live, became a popular television talk show whose fans included former President George HW Bush. King interviewed every sitting president, from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama.
After 25 years on cable, King announced in 2010 that he would be retiring, having lagged behind Sean Hannity on Fox News and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in cable ratings. When he left, he estimated that he had conducted about 50,000 interviews over more than half a century on radio and television. He won an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2011.
Informal approach
“His kind of informality has become common in the podcasting era,” Los Angeles Times television critic Robert Lloyd said in 2018 after King’s new show, seen on Hulu, was nominated for two Emmy Awards. daytime. “No one has done this job better or with more enthusiasm.”
On his CNN show, King garnered a peak audience from Ross Perot, who announced on the air in 1992 that he would run for president as an independent. In 1993, Vice President Al Gore and Perot debated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on King’s show, the highest-rated cable show for more than a decade.
King interviewed world leaders. including Russian President Vladimir Putin, artists like Lady Gaga, and a variety of athletes, actors, national heroes, and unknown people who suddenly found themselves in the spotlight. Marlon Brando kissed King on the lips in the air, as did his girlfriend Angie Dickinson, the sultry television actress.
King said he let the producers choose their guests and didn’t prepare much, preferring to ask simple questions and listen carefully to the answers.
President Putin offered his condolences on Saturday.
“King repeatedly interviewed Putin. The president has always appreciated his great professionalism and unquestionable journalistic authority, “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the state news agency RIA Novosti.
King, who featured a variety of products on radio and television, used his program to raise funds for disaster relief after natural disasters struck New Orleans and Haiti.
Legal scandal
His rise to prominence saw an epic comeback after he was charged with grand theft in 1971 for taking $ 5,000 (Singapore $ 6,642) from financier Louis Wolfson and using it to pay back taxes instead of giving it to the intended recipient.
Although he was never prosecuted, he was fired from his various television and newspaper column jobs in Florida. By the late 1970s, the incident was over and he was able to return to Miami broadcasts.
In 1978, he started a coast-to-coast radio talk show on the Mutual Radio Network, called The Larry King Show. It included guest interviews and calls from an audience listening to more than 500 affiliated stations.
After joining CNN, King published several best-selling books, including his autobiography, My Remarkable Journey in 2009. He also wrote a book on heart disease after suffering a heart attack.
He was inducted into the Radio, Cable and Broadcasting Halls of Fame and won 10 Cable ACE Awards.
Carlos Slim Association
King and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim started Ora.TV, a digital entertainment network and production company in 2012. Their shows include Larry King Now, Off The Grid With Jesse Ventura and Brown Bag Wine Tasting With William Shatner.
Larry King was born Lawrence Zeiger on November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrant Jewish parents.
He began broadcasting in the Florida market, where a friend had told him there was a talent shortage on the air. He started at WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach, initially as a cleaner. When an announcer withdrew suddenly, King went on the air.
He was married eight times, including twice to the same woman, and had five children, two of whom died in 2020.
King won a Peabody Award for live election coverage in 1992 “for providing a unique view of democracy to viewers everywhere CNN can be seen.”
The judges said that “while at one extreme the campaign was scrutinized ad infinitum by political experts, and at the other extreme it was trivialized by a seemingly endless array of national and local talk show hosts, Larry King Live took an important middle ground. . As an interviewer, Mr. King let the candidates speak for themselves and let his national and international viewers ask the questions that reveal the character of the people who would lead our nation. “
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