RED INK MAGAZINE
LARRY KING Iconic Television & Radio Interviewer for half-century, dies at 87
arry King is a name that people all over the world recognize. He was an interviewer whose career started in radio, but blossomed on television with his syndicated show on CNN. He has interviewed every single United States President from Gerald Ford to Barrack Obama. He interviewed royalty, athletes, celebrities and people of power and influence from all edges of the Earth. He was known for his raw and sometimes sarcastic way of speaking, but also for his endurance and fearlessness when it came to asking the hard, influential questions to some of the most powerful people on the planet. Larry King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, on November 19th, 1933. He was raised by his mother after his father died when he was 10. He focused on his talent of communicating and did everything he could to make his mother and the memory of his father proud of him. Larry grew up being a huge sports fan, so big that it is Larry Zeiger got his start in media in 1957 when he took a job as a DJ for WAHR-AM in Miami. It was here that he got his new moniker. His boss told him with 5 minutes to air time, that he did not think Zeiger was going to work out and that it
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was too ethnic and too difficult for listeners to spell and they needed to come up with a new name. On the table in front of them was a copy of the Miami Herald and on it was a full page advertisement for King’s Wholesale Liquors. So king was chosen and two years later, Lawrence made it official and legally changed his name. And that is where the name King came from, as described by Larry King in his Autobiography. After spending some time in Miami, he was offered a second job as a columnist in the Miami Herald. Unfortunately,in 1971, a criminal charge caused both the radio station and the newspaper to fire King, and even after being exonerated they would not take him back. So, he moved and became a freelance journalist. In, 1978 however, the radio station offer him a new position and he came back to Miami and he launched his syndicated late night radio show called The Larry King Show under the radio stations new id WIOD. This show was the start of Larry King’s legendary recognition. It aired in 28 cities, but over the course of 5 years was picked up by over 118 cities across America. The show won a Peabody Award in 1982, and was his true launch to success.
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