Talk:Larry King

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On the episode of the NBC game show "1 vs 100" which aired on 2/9/2007, the final question of the first round was "who had more wives?" The answers were a) Henry VIII b) Larry King and c) Michael Jackson. The correct answer was b) Larry King. They indicated he had seven wives. Henry VIII only had six. It seems to me that as of 2/9/2007 this wikipedia article indicates he only had six wives. I just wondered which was right?

He's had six wives, but he's been married seven times. He married one woman twice. Ydorb 19:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what Larry King's religion is? I heard rumors that it was Roman-Catholic but can't find anything online.

He has said, on air, many times in the past that he was agnostic. "He doesn't know." He was born Jewish. His current wife is Mormon.

40,000 interviews? If he interviews 1 person per day on average, it would take him 109 years; if 2 persons per day, it would still take him 54 years. --A Reader

He's been on the air for over 45 years. For many of those years he would be on the air for 4 hours/day. I think 2-3 interviews per day is not unreasonable. The 40,000 number was on his bio page at CNN. To quote from that page, In 2000, King's 37 consecutive days of political coverage during the election recount in Florida featured 348 guests. So, during that stretch he averaged almost 10 interviews/day. Ydorb 00:14, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Zing!* Even today, he has a lot of guests every day, so it doesn't appear totally unreasonable. Note though that Larry has some regular interview partners, who come back many times, so the number of guests is of course smaller than the number of interviews. 84.115.129.76 09:19, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Parents

I reverted an edit claiming King's parents were from Austria. According to this site [1] they were from Russia as the article originally claimed. --W.marsh 02:50, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sandy Koufax

I've heard it attributed to Sandy Koufax that he's "never met" Larry King. Can anyone find a reference one way or the other?

Here's a source:

http://www.usatoday.com/community/chat_03/2003-02-20-leavy.htm

Jane Leavy, author of 'Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy' says during a chat with the USA Today Book Club:

 Gainesville, GA: Would Sandy ever consent to being on the Larry King Show? What an 
 hour that would be!

 Jane Leavy: Not likely considering their divergent accounts of their high-school    
 relationship.

 Dell, OH: Did Sandy really know Larry King?

 Jane Leavy: They attended the same high school in Brooklyn and had friends in common. 
 They were not in the same grade or class and if they knew each other at all, it was  
 not well.

So, can we at least qualify the claim about Larry King & Sandy Koufax being childhood friends?

[edit] Celebrities and sensationalism

I appreciate the work done here, but the article is utterly devoid of the less 'esteemed' aspects of his work. I understand the need for a NPOV biography to not include a debate about entertainment-as-news, but what I'm addressing here is a lack of accuracy in the overall picture the article portrays. It is not representative of his entire career, and absent the equally large but largely irrelevant portions of his work, from Richard Simmons to the Scott Peterson jury, the article creates a misleading impression of Mr. King's career. To suggest that his sitdowns with celebrities involved only people of actual cultural significance (Jordan, Gleason, Carson, etc.) is obviously not accurate. --Knuckle Bean 19:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Legal and Financial Troubles

Can anyone explain why the section on "Legal & Financial Troubles" was removed on 17 November 2005? The section was removed in its entirety with no comment. The section discussed King's involvement with Louis Wolfson & Jim Garrison.

The section previously read:

In the early 1970s, he was entangled in legal and financial troubles. He was arrested on December 20, 1971 and charged with grand larceny. The charges stemmed from a deal he had made with Louis Wolfson. In 1968, Wolfson was convicted of selling unregistered stock.

The circumstances are unclear. According to King, he told Wolfson that he could arrange a special investigation by John Mitchell, the incoming US Attorney General, to overturn the conviction. Wolfson agreed, and paid King $48,000. King never delivered, and couldn't pay back the money. When Wolfson was released from prison, he went after King. According to Wolfson, King served as an intermediary between Wolfson and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Garrison was investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, but needed to raise funds for the investigation. Wolfson offered to pay $25,000 to help fund the investigation. The arrangement was that Wolfson gave Larry King cash (about $5,000 per visit). King was supposed to give this to Richard Gerstein, the State Attorney for Dade County. Gerstein was to transfer the money to Garrison. This took place over a year or two. Wolfson eventually found that not all the money he gave to King made it to Garrison.

The larceny charge was dropped, because the statute of limitations had run out. But King pled no contest to one of 14 charges of passing bad checks.

As a result of these troubles, he was off the air for three years. During those three years he worked several jobs. He was the PR director at a race track in Louisiana and he wrote some articles for Esquire Magazine, including a major piece on New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.


I restored this and some other deleted text to the article. The deletion appears to be the work of a vandal. Thanks for catching this. Ydorb 18:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


I removed this text:

King attempted to sue syndicated radio host Leonard Romano for supposedly ripping off his style. Romano and King came to terms on the situation when Romano promptly said, "Up yours, suspenders boy!" and kicked him in the crotch.

If this is true, please add a date, court, etc. When did King sue him? Which court? What is the source of this? Ydorb 18:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Guests

I think the list of notable guest appearances on his show needs to be revised. Former president Bill Clinton isn't even listed. Also, Larry has received thousands of journalism and philanthropic awards, which should probably be covered.

Someone removed Malcolm X from the list of people he has interviewed. See http://www.usatoday.com/community/chat/0927king.htm for evidence that he did interview Malcolm X. Ydorb 19:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] named after koopa king thing

Took out the "named after koopa kid" thing. It was even taken out on the koopa kid page because it's just fan speculation, and not fact, which is what it's often passed off as in wikipedia.

[edit] Farting

I removed this assuming it was an inserted joke:

"Larry has quietly persevered for many years, with great dignity, both in his daily life and professional career, despite suffering, since childhood, with severe gastric infections otherwise known as IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) or Malabsorption Syndrome. Never the one to be embarrassed by life's peculiarities, Larry has often been said to have a bit of a flatulence habit while on air at CNN, which isn't curbed by having guests in the studio. A favorite moment of his, and an often repeated story, involved an interview conducted with former President Jimmy Carter who, after some length of time in studio, chided Larry & asked him to please stop, or he'd have to end the interview. Larry ever present in the moment adeptly steered the conversation to global warming and the effects of bovine emissions on the ozone."

A transcipt of the show shows that the conversation never took place, and there are no Google references to Larry King and irritable bowel except for his guests. I am assuming this is the type of well written disinformation that creeps into Wikipedia and eventualy ends up being repeated (no pun) as canon. I would have not even read this section, but the ampersand caught my eye. Didn't anyone read it and get suspicious? Or does everyone just pass it bye? What d you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I also removed this:
In 2003, Larry was presented with The Jewish Journalists Federation of Greater Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Award, for distinguished careers in journalism. The award was presented by Larry's long time (childhood) friend, from Brooklyn, Dr. Philip Mermelstein, a renowned heart surgeon, who practices medicine in Buffalo, NY.
This was inserted, along with the farting nonsense, on 2005-11-29 [2]. Attempted to verify, but came up short. Also found a non–GFDL-compliant mirror site (http://www.worldhistory.com/articles/Larry%20King) in the process. — MSchmahl 19:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decline / No Longer the King of Cable News

I removed this unsourced assertion by User:160.136.109.105:

Larry King's loss of public interest is due largely to the advent of internet blogging and the unprecedented success of Fox News.

This may very well be, but we need a source for it. Cleduc 22:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't source that assertion as it's phrased - it's kind of common knowledge, like sourcing that the sky is blue - maybe a phrasing more along the lines that the rise of FNC has hurt King and CNN's ratings would be more appropriate? - but here are the latest ratings showing numerous cable news shows on Fox News and on CNN with more viewers:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_wednesday_october_11_45492.asp

Here's another - one year average ending in 2005: Larry King Live beaten by numerous Fox Shows:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/original/2005ranker.pdf

Reading the article as is, one is left with the impression that King was, and still is, the KING of cable news. He hasn't been for some time, and in this sense the article coud certainly be improved.

[edit] Radio Show

I distinctly remember (because it was odd phrasing) that, at least in the later years, King's radio show open topic segments were called by him "Open Phones Americas" not "Open Phones America" as it states in this article and others on the Web.

  • * *

Anyone listening in early 1987 (after he returned to the air from bypass surg.: March or early April), when he made a bizarre comment about Ecuador? King was suggesting that we could avoid confrontation with other countries (Iran-Contra was just splitting @its seams) by making an example of (as he saw it) a nondescript country like Ecuador: bomb it into oblivion; then whenever another nation got feisty, we could trot out the lesson of Edcuador. "Remember Edcuador," quoth Larry.

I also remember him having Angie Dickinson in the studio & how he used to go on this endless cadence about Duke Zeibert's, a jazzy D.C. bistro. Whatever his faults, Larry was more listenable on radio than on TV.

  • * *

Both on radio and on TV, if Larry gets a dead line or prank caller, he will never go immediately on to the next call - he will always ask the guest a question himself, go to a commercial, etc. Some kind of old school avoid two on-air mistakes in a row lest the show grind to a halt thing?


[edit] "Owl"?

"The Owl," while it might be a nickname for Larry King, is not widely used enough to appear in the bolded name right at the beginning of the article. People generally refer to him as "Larry King." It's not like "The Owl" is like an alternative or stage name. Acsenray 19:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] larry king

was paul harvey on larry king he is not mentioned here.Spiddy 18:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rumor

I heard a rumor that Larry King will be posing nude for Play Girl. Is this true!?

I hope so! Larry King is a sexy beast!!--MoMo the Pirate 05:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Here are the photos: http://p206.ezboard.com/f247forumfrm1.showMessage?topicID=444.topic

Barf!
Hurl!
Vomit!
Those are the worst photos I have ever seen!


[edit] Role in films?

Should we add a section about the various movies he has been in?(particularly in shrek 2 and 3 as Doris the evil stepsister)Coolchriswow 00:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] marriages

Will someone please explain why this sentence is passable?

"King has been married to six women, and has been married seven times."

so... King had 1 gay marriage? this makes absolutely no sense and I vote it gets removed. "so do it yourself" you say. well, I would, but I'm a bit of an novice around here so I'll leave the big articles alone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.101.98.236 (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC).


He married one of the women twice. Alene Atkins was his second and fourth wife. Ydorb 19:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Can someone add an infobox with some details and maybe a picture? I know many of the pictures of him around are fair-use, but in his millenia of existance, there must be some free ones around :). Shrumster 10:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Information I'd Like To See Added

When did Larry King stop interviewing people of any consequence and just focus on being a celebrity fluffer?--203.70.49.85 04:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] religion

Am I the only one who thinks a person's religion is an important part of an entry about them? Or is the author of this entry ashmed of King's being Jewish? It should certainly be mentioned. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kap1984 (talk • contribs) 09:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

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