CNNers Remember Larry King:‘He Was Vital To The Network’s Ascent’

“He treated every guest the same,” said Wendy Walker, former executive producer of CNN’s iconic prime time interview program Larry King Live, as she remembered her friend and colleague Larry King, whose death at 87 was announced Saturday morning. Walker remembered King—an iconic figure in CNN’s history, whose suspenders and voice were as distinctive as his guests—in an interview Saturday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“It didn’t matter if it was a president or…somebody off the street. That’s why he was as good as he was. He never worried about ‘I have a president, I have to do something different.’”

Walker said while King was a voracious reader who was exceptionally well-informed, he didn’t prepare for interviews, preferring to be spontaneous. “He wanted to hear his guests talk and then come up with his questions. The two things he always said was, to be a good interviewer, listen—and keep your questions short.”

King’s death was announced with a message posted to social media Saturday morning. “With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,” the statement said. “For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster.”

CNN announced that it would air a special, Remembering Larry King, on the network at 9 p.m. ET Saturday, the same time slot King occupied on the network for more than a quarter century.

King had been an established radio host when CNN founder Ted Turner hired him for his new cable news network in 1985. Through a quarter century, King interviewed celebrities and politicians, approaching every interview with a sense of humor and curiosity—as comfortable sitting across from a world leader as he was with movie stars and newsmakers.

“Picking up somebody like Larry King made a lot of sense,” said Bill Carter, a longtime TV writer for The New York Times
NYT
. “Because he had established himself kind of as a guy who would get big guests, they could have big names and promote it and it became sort of the linchpin of their prime time lineup.”

CNN carried the news of King’s death, from Covid-19, on CNN Newsroom:

King’s interviews through the years became part of the historical record. In a 1987 interview, Donald Trump told King “I don’t want to be president.”

CNN journalists, including Christiane Amanpour, shared their memories of King in messages posted to Twitter:

“It’s not very often in my life I’ve been without words,” King said on his final CNN show in 2010, struggling with emotion. “When I started 25 years ago…I never thought it would last this long or come to this.” To the audience, he said, “instead of goodbye, how about so long?”