King, Larry 1933-

(Larry Seltzer, Larry Zeiger, Lawrence Harvey Zeiger)

PERSONAL: Born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Edward (a restaurant owner) and Jennie Zeiger; married Freda Miller, 1952 (marriage annulled); married Alene Akins (a Playboy bunny), 1961 (divorced, 1963); married Mickey Sut-phin, c. 1964 (divorced, c. 1966); remarried Akins, 1967 (divorced, c. 1971); married Sharon Lepore (a math teacher), September 25, 1976 (divorced, c. 1982); married Julia Alexander, October 7, 1989 (divorced, 1992); married Shawn Southwick (a country singer, model, and actress), September, 5, 1997; children: Larry, Jr.; (with Akins) Chaia, Andy; (with Sutphin) Kelly; (with Southwick) Chance Armstrong, Cannon Edward. Politics: Independent. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES: Office—1755 S. Jefferson Davis Hwy., Arlington, VA 22202. Agent—Bill Adler, 551 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10018.

CAREER: Broadcaster and writer. WAHR-AM, Miami, FL, janitor, 1957, morning disc jockey, 1957-58; WKAT-AM, Miami, FL, drive-time disc jockey, 1958, host of interview show from Pumpernik’s Restaurant, 1958-62; WIOD-AM, Miami, FL, host of Pumpernik’s interview show, 1962, host of interview show broadcast from a houseboat, 1963-71; freelance writer and broadcaster, 1972-75; interview show host, 1975-78; Mutual Broadcasting System, Arlington, VA, host of The Larry King Show, 1978—. Television talk-show host, WLBW-TV, Miami, FL, 1963, and WTVJ-TV, Miami, FL, 1964; WJLA-TV, Washington, DC, host of Larry King: Let’s Talk, 1985; Cable News Network (CNN), host of Larry King Live!, 1985—. Also worked as color commentator on radio and television for baseball, football, and hockey teams in Miami, FL, New Orleans, LA, Baltimore, MD, and Washington, DC; anchor for CNN’s telecast of the Goodwill Games, 1990. Appeared in films Ghostbusters, 1984, Lost in America, 1985; voice of Ugly Stepsister in Shrek 2, 2004; has appeared on numerous television programs. Also chairman of the Larry King Cardiac Foundation; honorary trustee of the American Women in Radio and TV; member of the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism, the Read-American Advisory Board, and the Heart Assist Foundation Board.

MEMBER: American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Friars Club.

AWARDS, HONORS: Man of the Year, City of Hope, 1977; Peabody Award, University of Georgia, 1982; Jack Anderson Investigative Reporting Award, 1985, Radio Award, National Association of Broadcasters, 1985, and Best Radio Talk Show Host, Washington Journalism Review, 1986, all for The Larry King Show; ten CableACE Awards, for Larry King Live!; Annual Cable Excellence Awards, 1987, 1988, 1989, for Larry King Live!, 1990, for excellence in cable television; Father of the Year, National Father’s Day Council, 1988; Broadcaster of the Year, International Radio and Television Society, 1989; Emerson Hall of Fame and Broadcasters Hall of Fame, 1992; named talk show host of the year, National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts, 1993; Scopus Award, American Friends of Hebrew University, 1994; Man of the Year, American Heart Association, 1992; Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement, 1996; Mahoney Award, Harvard University, 2000; Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award, March of Dimes, 2000, for efforts on behalf of volunteerism; Unity Award for excellence, Lincoln University of Missouri, 2001; public service award, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2001; journalism award, Caucus of Television Producers, Writers & Directors, 2005; True Grit Award, John Wayne Cancer Institute, 2007; honorary degrees from George Washington University, New England Institute of Technology, and Pratt Institute.

WRITINGS:

(With Emily Yoffe) Larry King by Larry King, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1982.

(With Peter Occhiogrosso) Tell It to the King, Putnam (New York, NY), 1988.

(With B.D. Colen) “Mr. King, You’re Having a Heart Attack”: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Peter Occhiogrosso) Tell Me More, Putnam (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Marty Appel) When You’re from Brooklyn, the Rest of the World Is Tokyo, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1992.

(With Mark Stencel) On the Line: The New Road to the White House, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Bill Gilbert) How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication, Crown (New York, NY), 1994.

The Best of Larry King Live: The Greatest Interviews, Turner Publishing (Atlanta, GA), 1995.

(With daughter, Chaia King) Daddy Day, Daughter Day (children’s book), illustrated by Wendy Christensen, Dove Kids (Los Angeles, CA), 1997.

(With Pat Piper) Future Talk: Conversations about Tomorrow with Today’s Most Provocative Personalities, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Rabbi Irwin Katsof) Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People, Renaissance Books (Los Angeles, CA), 1998.

(With Pat Piper) Anything Goes! What I’ve Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2000.

(Compiler) Love Stories of World War II, Crown (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Thomas Cook) Moon over Manhattan (novel), New Millennium (Beverly Hills, CA), 2003.

Taking on Heart Disease: Peggy Fleming, Brian Littrell, Mike Ditka, Walter Cronkite, Joyce Carol Oates, Eddie Griffin, Mike Wallace, Kate Jackson, Ed Bradley, Tommy Lasorda, Pat Buchanan, Victoria Gotti, Regis Philbin, and Others… Reveal How They Triumphed over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can, Too, Rodale (Emmaus, PA), 2004.

Why I Love Baseball, New Millennium (Beverly Hills, CA), 2004.

My Dad and Me: A Heartwarming Collection of Stories about Fathers from a Host of Larry’s Famous Friends, Crown (New York, NY), 2006.

(Editor) The People’s Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, from Those Who Knew Her Best, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 2007.

Former columnist for Miami Beach Sun-Reporter, Miami Herald, Miami News, and Sporting News; weekly columnist for USA Today, 1983-2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Larry King has the ear of the American people. As the radio host of the Larry King Show on the Mutual Broadcasting System and the television host of Larry King Live! on the Cable News Network, he reached more than three million listeners and another million viewers nightly by 2000. One of the most respected figures in radio history and a highly regarded television interviewer, King has talked on the air with some of the most provocative and influential figures in American politics, arts, business, and sports. He has drawn on this wide experience to write several books of anecdotes, reminiscences, and opinions, as well as more personal books about his heart attack, being a parent, and prayer.

In interviewing authors, politicians, entertainers, athletes, and other celebrities, King likes to put himself in the position of his audience, playing the role of an interested layman. To achieve this, he avoids learning too much about the person featured on that night’s program. As he told John Pekkanen in a People profile: “This way the audience and I can learn together.” King went on to note: “I never ask a question when I know the answer.” The result, Nightline’s Ted Koppel told Richard Zoglin for a Time magazine article, is that “Larry listens to his guests.” Koppel added: “He pays attention to what they say. Too few interviewers do that.” King also avoids reading the books being promoted by his author guests so he can stay curious about the book and the guest. His audience appreciates the approach and so do his guests, often opening up in ways they would not with news reporters or other talk-show hosts.

The story of King’s rise from a troubled Jewish kid in Brooklyn to one of the top personalities in radio and television is a tale in itself. As Larry Zeiger, he left Brooklyn for Miami, Florida, in 1957 to pursue his dream of becoming a radio disc jockey. He started by sweeping floors for WAHR-AM in Miami because it was the only job he could land. When the morning disc jockey quit, the station manager called on the young janitor to step in, suggesting only that he change his last name to King. On May 1, 1957, Larry King began his career on the air. During the next few years, he established himself as one of Miami’s leading radio show hosts. He hosted an interview show from a local restaurant, first for WKAT and then for WIOD. He interviewed a wide variety of guests, sometimes ordinary people, sometimes local talent, and sometimes nationally known personalities. The list included Bobby Darin, Lenny Bruce, Don Rickles, Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Hoffa, and Ed Sullivan. Over the next decade, King became a celebrity himself.

However, his fortune did not keep pace with his fame, and King began to spend beyond his means and to gamble. In 1971, he lost his job in a scandal that involved his debts and allegations of larceny made by Louis Wolfson, a Miami financier who claimed he had employed King as a courier for money intended for Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney investigating the John F. Kennedy assassination. King was never prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired, but no one in Miami wanted to employ him. He spent the next few years working at odd jobs, and then returned to Miami and WIOD when new management at the station offered to give him another chance.

In 1978, the Mutual Broadcasting System hired him to take his late-night interview and phone-in show to a national audience. The Larry King Show debuted on twenty-eight stations in 1978 and had spread to more than three hundred within a decade. The format for the show is this: King interviews a guest, listeners call in to ask the guest questions, and then after the guest leaves, King presides over “Open Line America,” a phone-in forum for graduate students, shift workers, insomniacs, and other people of the night. “In picking guests,” King told Alvin P. Sanoff in a U.S. News and World Report interview, “we look for someone passionate, with an ability to be brief and analytical and with the facts to back up what they believe. We also want some anger in a guest—not unbridled anger but somebody mad at the system.” King added his television show, Larry King Live! on CNN, to his schedule in 1985. It quickly became one of the top-rated shows on cable and spread to reach more than 120 countries.

In his years on the national scene, King has interviewed some of America’s most influential, intelligent, intriguing, and egotistical personalities. He has written about many of these encounters in such books as Tell It to the King and Tell Me More. In his 1992 book, When You’re from Brooklyn, the Rest of the World Is Tokyo, King provides some background on himself as an “Everyman” via his memoir of growing up in Brooklyn. A Publishers Weekly called the book “heartwarming, sometimes uproarious.” King’s recap of the 1992 presidential campaign, On the Line: The New Road to the White House, received considerable attention. The campaign itself was marked by several unusual elements, including businessman Ross Perot’s announcement of his candidacy on King’s television show. King’s insights into the campaign and its personalities, according to Ronnie Dugger in the New York Times Book Review, are a “mismash of banal political analysis” and reveal the author’s reluctance to provoke any real controversy. A contributor to Publishers Weekly also felt that the book “ offers few new insights,” but relished it as a “brisk recap” and a “lively account” of an unusual political race.

Political insights also inform Anything Goes! What I’ve Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents. Though King writes about his encounters with such celebrities as Marlon Brando, the Dalai Lama, and Judge Lance Ito, many reviewers found the book’s comments on politicians to be the heart of the book. While New York Times contributor Peter Marks criticized the book’s superficiality, he appreciated its humorous episodes. “Essentially,” he wrote, “it is a chatty, slapped-together scrapbook of an extraordinarily successful decade in the life of a profoundly unflappable talk show host who has a knack for getting almost everyone to agree to spend an hour with him on CNN.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews deemed Anything Goes! a “light but likable commentary on politics and the media” during the Clinton years; a reviewer for Publishers Weekly considered the book “breezy” and “entertaining.”

Although King has primarily focused on writing memoirs and relating anecdotes told him by famous and infamous people, he took a different approach in his 1994 collaboration with Bill Gilbert on How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication. Noting that How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere “is somewhat different” from King’s other works, Electronic News contributor Robert Sobel observed that “it contains many yarns written in an engaging fashion…. The focus here is on helping readers become better talkers, or to be more accurate, talkers and listeners.” To instruct the reader, King provides examples from many influential speakers and leaders, such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and from notable political debates. He also discusses his philosophies on choosing and interviewing guests. “Larry King’s short book can be finished in one sitting,” noted Sobel. “It is amusing, entertaining, and not very deep. But along the way you will receive a great deal of sound counsel from a master.” A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that the book is “filled with practical advice… [and] amusing anecdotes.”

A discussion about future trends forms the basis of Future Talk: Conversations about Tomorrow with Today’s Most Provocative Personalities. In this book, King questions forty-eight specialists in various fields, from education and arts to technology, about what may await society in the twenty-first century. His interviewees include Bill Gates and Esther Dyson on technology; Lester Thurow on business and economics; Tim Russert on politics; and Dr. David Satcher and Dr. Everett Koop on medical research and health care. Futurist contributor Jeffrey H. Epstein observed that “by asking common questions that many people would ask, King teases out powerful and thoughtful comments from his subjects.” Praising King for his ability to ask “the sort of futuristic questions that elicit information one wants to know about, ” a Publishers Weekly contributor deemed the book “interesting and eminently worth pondering.”

Though King claims he is not a religious person, he teamed up with Rabbi Irwin Katsof of New York City to write Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People. As with many of King’s previous books, this one incorporates a multitude of celebrity interviews into the larger theme of a book on prayer. Library Journal contributor Leroy Hommerding appreciated the “bold questions” the authors pose in the book as well as the “provocative, often entertaining” discussions about incorporating faith and spirituality into contemporary life. Though Booklist contributor Ray Olsen found King’s questions and comments somewhat “commonplace,” he also commented that Powerful Prayers “is not a bad inspirational book at all.”

King collaborated with his daughter, Chaia, to write the children’s book Daddy Day, Daughter Day, illustrated by Wendy Christensen. The story is told through dialogue and concerns a day that King and his Chaia spent together after King divorced her mother. “Though my father has become very famous, I wanted to show his other side, that he’s been a really good parent, and that he’s a very down-to-earth man,” Chaia noted in an interview with Roxane Farmanfarmaian in Publishers Weekly. The story follows a typical day that King and Chia spent together those many years ago, including a trip to the “Monkey Jungle,” the movies, and then dinner. “This story is both happy and, at times, a little sad,” wrote a contributor in U.S. Kids.

King is also the compiler of Love Stories of World War II, published in 2001. The book features stories about fifty couples whose romances began during the war. From stories of love at first sight to wounded men falling in love with their nurses, they “are sweet and remarkable tales,” according to Donna Seaman in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: “A master interviewer, King has captured the earnestness of youth, the dreams of glory and the sense of urgency of these young lovers.”

In 2003, King ventured into fiction writing with Moon over Manhattan, a novel written with Thomas Cook. “The book took about eight months” King noted in an interview with Andrea Billups in People. “Each week I’d throw in my ideas. He did the writing.”

“King deserves credit for being a catalyst in encouraging the public to come to terms with heart disease,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor of King’s book, Taking on Heart Disease: Peggy Fleming, Brian Littrell, Mike Ditka, Walter Cronkite, Joyce Carol Oates, Eddie Griffin, Mike Wallace, Kate Jackson, Ed Bradley, Tommy Lasorda, Pat Buchanan, Victoria Gotti, Regis Philbin, and Others… Reveal How They Triumphed over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can, Too. Written in cooperation with the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, the book features King and others commenting on their experience with heart disease. Their stories are then expanded by their private doctors, who are among the best in the nation. They explain the medical aspects of each case. Noting that the well-known names will attract readers and that important information is contained within the book, Brad Hooper went on to write in Booklist that the stories “remind people [about important health information], without being gloomy or cloying.” Reviewing Taking on Heart Disease in the Library Journal, Janet M. Schneider called the work “an absorbing read.”

Though known by most people for his television and radio shows and appearances, King continues to write popular books, including My Dad and Me: A Heartwarming Collection of Stories about Fathers from a Host of Larry’s Famous Friends, in which King begins by presenting his own recollections about his father, who died when King was nine. His personal story is followed by numerous other stories about fathers by other notable figures, from Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe to musical satirist Al Yankovic. Writing in Booklist, Brad Hooper stated that King “has gathered pithy comments, ranging in length from a paragraph to a few pages, about the importance of fathers.”

King is also editor of The People’s Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, from Those Who Knew Her Best. Published in 2007, the book includes reminiscences from those who knew the late princess extremely well, such as her secretary, as well as causal acquaintances, such as actor Joan Collins. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a “warm collection.”

In 2007, King celebrated his fiftieth year in broadcasting. King told Hollywood Reporter contributor Ray Richmond: “I have curiosity for life. The enthusiasm hasn’t died. I’m blessed to have it so long. I mean, this is an amazing gig to have, and I know it. I’ve been able to see the world. To drive down Sunset Boulevard and see a billboard with my picture on it still flips me out. I still have to pinch myself every day, ’cause I’m just a guy from Brooklyn doing what he loves.”

The secret of King’s success, many believe, is his genuineness. “Unlike more confrontational interviewers,” wrote a contributor to U.S. News and World Report, “King listened intently to guests and drew questions not from a prepared checklist but from what he heard. One of his great assets was his ability to check his own ego at the studio door, ensuring that his visitors’ views, not his own, got aired.” As Thomas J. Meyer characterized him in a New York Times Magazine profile: “He doesn’t pose as an intellectual, just as a curious man who likes to ask questions. In a society that has grown skeptical of didactic experts and suspicious of the mass media, King is Everyman with a microphone, the average Joe with a talk show of his own.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Volume 63, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2005.

King, Larry, When You’re from Brooklyn, the Rest of the World Is Tokyo, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1992.

King, Larry, and B.D. Colen, “Mr. King, You’re Having a Heart Attack”: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1989.

King, Larry, and Emily Yoffe, Larry King by Larry King, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1982.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1994, Ilene Cooper, review of How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication, p. 370; February 15, 1998, Ilene Cooper, review of Future Talk: Conversations about Tomorrow with Today’s Most Provocative Personalities, p. 946; September 1, 1998, Ray Olson, review of Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People, p. 4; October 15, 2000, Ilene Cooper, review of Anything Goes! What I’ve Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents, p. 387; September 15, 2001, Donna Seaman, review of Love Stories of World War II, p. 162; March 15, 2004, Brad Hooper, review of Taking on Heart Disease: Peggy Fleming, Brian Littrell, Mike Ditka, Walter Cronkite, Joyce Carol Oates, Eddie Griffin, Mike Wallace, Kate Jackson, Ed Bradley, Tommy Lasorda, Pat Buchanan, Victoria Gotti, Regis Philbin, and Others… Reveal How They Triumphed over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can, Too, p. 1242; February 15, 2006, Brad Hooper, review of My Dad and Me: A Heartwarming Collection of Stories about Fathers from a Host of Larry’s Famous Friends, p. 4.

Bookwatch, December, 2004, review of Taking on Heart Disease.

Broadcasting & Cable, March 21, 2005, “King Still Reigns at CNN,” p. 20; June 19, 2006, George Winslow, “Talk Much?,” p. 5.

Daily Variety, December 29, 2005, Laura Grefe, “King Draws Caucus Kudos,” p. 3.

Electronic News, February 27, 1995, Robert Sobel, review of How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, p. 46.

Entertainment Weekly, November 18, 1994, Vanessa V. Friedman, review of How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, p. 98; June 9, 1995, Bruce Fretts, “An Audience with the King,” p. 45.

Futurist, June-July, 1998, Jeffrey H. Epstein, review of Future Talk, p. 59.

Good Housekeeping, October, 1989, Alan Ebert, “We Talk to Larry King,” pp. 131, 215-216; September, 2002, “Larry King Talks Back: The CNN Host on Melons, the Mafia, and More,” p. 196.

Hollywood Reporter, December 29, 2005, “King High,” p. 3; March 19, 2007, “Healing for Larry,” p. 6; April 16, 2007, Ray Richmond, “Asked and Answered: Fifty Years, 50,000 Guests—There’s No One Larry King Won’t Talk to and No One Who Won’t Talk to Him,” p. 18.

Insight on the News, September 28, 1998, Dave Boyer, review of Powerful Prayers, p. 41.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2000, review of Anything Goes!, p. 1466.

Library Journal, September 15, 1998, Leroy Hommerding, review of Powerful Prayers, p. 86; April 1, 2004, Janet M. Schneider, review of Taking on Heart Disease, p. 117.

New York Times, November 5, 2000, Peter Marks, review of Anything Goes!; April 5, 2007, Jacques Steinberg, “When the Subject Is Larry King, CNN Can Be Jittery,” p. 1.

New York Times Book Review, December 26, 1993, Ronnie Dugger, review of On the Line: The New Road to the White House, p. 12; November 5, 2000, Peter Marks, “Be My Guest: Larry King Has Ways of Making People Talk,” p. 18.

New York Times Magazine, May 26, 1991, Thomas J. Meyer, “The Maestro of Chin Music: With a Face Made for Radio, Larry King Has Become America’s Premier Yakker on the Airwaves,” p. 20.

People, March 10, 1980, John Pekkanen, “While Most of America Sleeps, Larry King Talks to Six Million People All through the Night,” pp. 49-56; October 23, 1989, William Plummer, “All Alone by His Telephone, Big Talker Larry King Reaches out and Marries Someone,” pp. 115-117; December 28, 1992, “Larry King,” p. 60; June 16, 2003, Andrea Billups, “Larry King Sounds Off,” p. 58.

PrimeZone Media Network, April 30, 2007, “Larry King Celebrates 50 Years in Broadcasting and 20th Anniversary of Heart Attack Survival at the Larry King Cardiac Foundation Fundraising Gala, an Evening with Larry King and Friends.”

PR Newswire, March 1, 2007, “Broadcast Icon Larry King to Be Honored with the ‘True Grit’ Award at the 22nd Annual Odyssey Ball on Saturday, April 14 Benefiting the John Wayne Cancer Institute.”

Psychology Today, May 1, 1996, “The Every Man Who Would Be King,” p. 30.

Publishers Weekly, July 13, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Tell Me More, p. 47; July 20, 1992, review of When You’re from Brooklyn, the Rest of the World Is Tokyo, p. 242; November 8, 1993, review of On the Line, p. 67; October 17, 1994, review of How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, p. 75; May 5, 1997, Roxane Farmanfarmaian, “A Few Words with Larry & Chaia King,” p. 24; February 16, 1998, review of Future Talk; October 23, 2000, review of Anything Goes!, p. 68; October 8, 2001, review of Love Stories of World War II, p. 57; March 29, 2004, review of Taking on Heart Disease, p. 55; February 13, 2006, Hilary S. Kayle, “Do Mom and Dad Know Best?,” p. 54; February 27, 2006, review of My Dad and Me, p. 43; May 28, 2007, review of The People’s Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, from Those Who Knew Her Best, p. 50.

San Jose Mercury News, January 15, 2007, Charlie McCollum, “CNN to Honor Larry King’s Fifty Years in Broadcasting.”

Saturday Evening Post, July 1, 1997, Cory SerVaas, “The Turn-around King,” p. 36; May 1, 2007, “Larry King,” p. 12.

Sports Illustrated, July 29, 1985, William Taaffe, “He’s the King of the Airwaves,” p. 58.

Time, July 22, 1985, Richard Zoglin, “Nighttime’s Master of the Mike; In a Tower of Babble, Larry King Is Riding High,” p. 71; October 5, 1992, Stanley W. Cloud, “A King Who Can Listen,” p. 74; June 1, 1998, Joel Stein, “Q&A: Larry King,” p. 88; September 25, 2000, “Should You Stay Together for the Kids? A Controversial Book Argues That the Damage from Divorce Is Serious and Lasting, but Many Argue That the Remedy of Parents Staying Hitched Is Worse than the Ailment,” p. 74; September 17, 2001, Joel Stein, “Long… e… King!,” p. 109.

UPI NewsTrack, January 10, 2007, “Larry King Approaches 50th TV Anniversary”; March 17, 2007, “Larry King Recovering from Surgery”; March 29, 2007, “Larry King to Receive True Grit Honor”; April 4, 2007, “Larry King to Receive Award”; April 12, 2007, “King May Owe Alzheimer’s Apology.”

USA Today, January 10, 2007, Robert Bianco, “CNN to Celebrate Larry King’s 50th Year in Broadcasting,” p. 6; April 16, 2007, Peter Johnson, “Go Ahead, Larry: A Chat with King,” p. 4; April 20, 2007, Al Neuharth, “Why Larry King Still Is ‘The King’ on Air,” p. 13.

U.S. Kids, September, 1997, review of Daddy Day, Daughter Day, p. 32.

U.S. News and World Report, January 16, 1984, Alvin P. Sanoff, “Radio Talk Shows: Where the Real American Speaks Up,” pp. 55-56; January 15, 1990, Lynn Rosellini, “All Alone, Late at Night, Larry King Has Found the Formula for Success and Self-Protection,” pp. 54-55.

Variety, April 16, 2007, Anna Stewart, “Larry King Braces for Success,” p. 7.

World Entertainment News Network, March 16, 2007, “Larry King Surgery a Success; September 13, 2007, “Larry King Honoured with City Block.”

ONLINE

BookPage.com,http://www.bookpage.com/ (January 6, 2001), James L. Dickerson, “Backstage and on the Page with the King of Television Talk.”

CBSnews.com,http://www.cbsnews.com/ (November 5, 2007), “Larry King: Insurance Scammers Got Me.”

CNN.com,http://www.cnn.com/ (October 4, 2001), “Larry King.”

Salon.com,http://www.salonmag.com/ (November 21, 2000), Amy Reiter, review of Anything Goes!*