Larry King Has Died At 87
Fly a pair of suspenders at half-mast because talk show icon and King of Suspenders™, Larry King, died today in Los Angeles after he was hospitalized with coronavirus. Larry was 87.
At the very end of 2020, Larry King tested positive for coronavirus and was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. It seemed like Larry was getting better because he was moved out of ICU and was breathing on his own. But sadly, Larry’s production company Ora TV, announced today that Larry King, who we all thought would outlive every living thing on earth, died at Cedars-Sinai this morning:
— Larry King (@kingsthings) January 23, 2021
Larry King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York on November 19, 1933. Larry’s father Aaron Zeiger died of a heart attack when he was only nine years old. Larry’s mother Jennie was forced to take care of him and his brother Marty alone and went on welfare. After graduating high school, Larry vowed to take care of his mother and went into broadcasting.
Larry’s first broadcasting gig was in 1957 when he got a job as a radio DJ for WAHR-AM in Miami. Larry wrote in his 2009 memoirs that right before he was about to make his radio debut, his boss told him that he could not use the name Larry Zeiger because it was “too ethnic.” Larry didn’t have a lot of time to process that or fully think about what his mother would say because he was going to be on the air in five minutes. Larry went with the last name “King” after seeing an ad for King’s Wholesale Liquor in a newspaper on his desk. Besides, Larry FuckYouAntiSemiticBitches probably didn’t have quite the ring to it. Two years later, Larry legally changed his name to Larry King.
By 1960, Larry had become a local celebrity in Miami and moved on to a bigger radio station and got a column in The Miami Herald. Larry was making a lot of money but spending more, and after going through some gambling, taxes, bad investment, and legal woes (he was charged with grand larceny but the charges were dropped), he lost his radio show and it seemed like his broadcasting career was over because he couldn’t find work in Miami. But the scandal had blown over by 1975 and another Miami radio station gave him a second chance. And in 1978, Larry got his first national radio show, which was broadcast every weeknight. Larry would interview a guest for the first part of the show and take questions from callers for the second part. It became a hit and was eventually heard in 118 cities. The show won a Peabody award in 1982.
While Larry King was a radio star, we were not able to get a glimpse of his sharp-as-fuck suspenders, but that changed in 1985 when he got his own talk show on CNN. Larry King Live debuted in June 1985 and throughout the show’s 25 years on air, Larry interviewed EVERYONE and created many, many TV moments of gold, like when he landed an interview with Frank Sinatra who did not do interviews:
https://youtu.be/2wY-bPHWgKc
And when he and Marlon Brando touched lips at the end of their interview:
And in 2007 when Larry interviewed Jerry Seinfeld and had no idea what a big of a hit Seinfeld was (HA!):
Not to mention Larry with LIZA!!!!, Don Rickles making Larry cry-laugh, and Larry’s time with Jehovah’s Sexiest Witness.
In 2010, Larry announced he was stepping down from hosting Larry King Live, which was regularly CNN’s most-watched show, and its last episode aired on December 16th that same year. Larry hosted specials for CNN and left the network in 2011. But Larry wasn’t about to retire and co-founded Ora TV in 2012 with Mexican billionaire mogul Carlos Slim. Larry hosted Ora TV’s Larry King Now from 2012 until his death. Larry King Now also gave us several magical moments like this viral one between Larry and Danny Pudi:
And when Larry came out as a member of the LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!! army after Kathy Griffin shit-talked Brit Brit:
Remember when Kathy Griffin tried to take a shot at Britney Spears but Larry King shut her down? Rest in peace, King. pic.twitter.com/2in4VIYa2U
— Emre. (@EmreAkn) January 23, 2021
On top of doing over 30,000 interviews during his career, Larry guest-starred on dozens of shows (usually as himself), wrote over 25 books, shared his streams of consciousness in a USA Today column that ran for over 20 years until 2001, and brilliantly gave his two cents on Twitter:
I don't Google, so who invented the fork?…#itsmy2cents
— Larry King (@kingsthings) July 13, 2015
Larry was also the Elizabeth Taylor of talk show hosts. He was married eight times to seven women including Freda Miller (1952-1953), Annette Kaye (1961), Alene Akins (1961-1963 and again from 1967 to 1972), Mickey Sutphin (1963-1967), Sharon Lepore (1967-1983), Julie Alexander (1989-1992), and Shawn Southwick, who he married in 1997. Larry and Shawn filed for divorce in 2010 and later got back together but then filed for divorce again in 2019.
Larry had five children (Chaia, Andy, Cannon, Chance, and Larry Jr.) nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Massive amounts of sadness hit Larry King last year when Andy and Chaia died within weeks of each other. Andy died of a heart attack at 65 and Chaia died from lung cancer at 51. Larry also battled several health problems including several heart attacks and lung cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2017.
Rest in peace, Larry King.
Pic: CNN