One of the most famous and prominent Television hosts for talk shows in the United States is Larry King. Larry King has a reputation on the television networks in line with Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, and Howard Stern but the style and the line of questioning of Larry king has made him one of the most popular television talk show hosts in the United States.
Larry King was born on November 19th in the year 1933, and his real name is Lawrence Harvey Zeiger. When he came into the show business he took over his current name. Larry has to date conducted more than 40,000 interviews with entertainers, politicians, athletes and other newsmakers.
King started his carrier as a radio interviewer and local Florida journalist in 1950-60s. He acclaimed popularity as an all night national broadcaster in 1978, and later started hosting his own show called the Larry King Live show in 1985. He has won an Emmy award, ten Cable ACE Awards, and also has two Peabody Awards to his credit.
King's mother was a garment worker, and his father worked as defense plant worker who also owned a restaurant. His parents were Jewish and had migrated from Belarus and had moved to Brooklyn, New York city. Larry lost his father when he was nine, and he lost interest in school, and this ruined his chances of him going to a college. After his graduation from high school he started working. Larry always wanted to join the radio from an early age.
Due to coincidence Larry met a
CBS staffer who told him that there was a growing market in Florida for inexperienced broadcasters. He tried to get to get a job there, but every one turned him down. He got his first break in WMBM in Miami Beach where the manager of a small station hired him to clean up and perform extra tasks. Larry's first broadcast was on May 1st, 1957 as a disc jockey and he worked from 9 am to noon. King got his name changed when the General Manager Martial Cemen told him that his original name was too ethnic and tough to remember. Later he started mid-morning shows for WIOD and he started interviewing people. His first interview was a waiter working at the restaurant. His first celebrity interview was with singer Bobby Darin. This radio show made Larry a local star.
A few years later he hosted the Miami Undercover, where he used to debate on important issues of that time. WIOD gave a lot of exposure to King as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins during their 1971 season. Several years later he also hosted a talk show called "Sports-a-la King".
Later on when he started hosting the Larry King live show on
CNN, King started talking on a wide range of topics from sports, Entertainment to current affairs. His interviews are very frank and contain bursts of humor and irreverence. In his long career Larry had interviewed most of the famous people of his times. He has also been writing a regular column for the USA today for the last 20 years.
After a recent heart attack, King established the Larry King Cardiac foundation to help underprivileged people with this condition. Larry is also associated with a lot of charitable work and he aired a special show on January 18th, 2010 'Haiti: How you can help' to help the people of Haiti who were stuck by the devastating earthquake in 2010.
