“Forgotten Hollywood”- You’re On With Larry King…
Manny P. here…
“`Larry King was a longtime nationally syndicated radio host; from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN. The suspenders-sporting everyman broadcast interviews with world leaders, Hollywood actors, and ordinary Joes and helped define the American conversation for a half-century.
“`A fan of such radio stars as Arthur Godfrey and comedians Bob and Ray, King set his sights on a broadcasting career. He headed to Miami in 1957 and landed a job sweeping floors at a tiny AM station. When a deejay abruptly quit, King was put on the air. By the early 1960s, he went to a larger Miami station, scored a newspaper column, and became a local celebrity. He was signed in 1978 to host radio’s first nationwide call-in show.
“`On the Mutual Network, The Larry King Show was eventually heard on over three hundred stations and it made him a national phenomenon. A few years later, CNN founder Ted Turner offered King a slot on his fledgling network. Larry King Live debuted on June 1, 1985, and it became CNN’s highest-rated program. It was based in Washington, which gave the show an air of gravitas. He welcomed everyone from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama, Bill Gates to Lady Gaga. And he was known for getting guests who were notoriously elusive such as Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. He won a slew of honors, including two Peabody awards.
“`After a gala week celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary in June, 2010, King abruptly announced he was retiring from his show. Always a workaholic, King would be back doing specials for CNN within a few months. He found a new sort of celebrity as a plainspoken natural on Twitter when the platform emerged, garnering over two million followers who enjoyed his esoteric style. He continued to work into his late 80s appearing on online talk shows and infomercials as his appearances on CNN grew fewer.
“`The ubiquitous Larry King (above right) was eighty-seven.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2021 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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