Larry O'Connor (radio host)

Larry O'Connor (born 23 June 1967, Detroit, Mich., United States) is an American talk radio host, editor of the news/commentary website Breitbart.com, and frequent television guest on Fox News Channel's early morning show Fox and Friends^[1] as well as FNC's Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.^[2]

Early life

Born in Detroit, Mich., O'Connor grew up in the suburban township of Plymouth located between Detroit and Ann Arbor. In 1980 he moved to Newport Beach, Cal., and attended Corona del Mar High School along with actors Reg Rogers and Kellie Rutherford, Rock star and TV personality Mark McGrath, and film director/producer McG.^[3]

Career

Theatre

From 1986 to 1999, O'Connor worked for The Shubert Organization.^[4] During his tenure as general manager of the Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles (1991–99), O'Connor oversaw the renovation of the 2,100-seat theatre specifically to accommodate the American premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's SUNSET BLVD. starring Glenn Close.^[5] He helped create the Ovation Awards, the competitive theatre awards in Los Angeles modeled after Broadway's Tony Awards. He served as executive producer of the awards show in 1994 and 1995, and he served as president of the governing body for the awards, Theatre LA, the league of Los Angeles Theatres.^[6]

After leaving Shubert in 1999, O'Connor served as general manager/producer for several major productions including Sweeney Todd, starring Kelsey Grammar; A Knight Out, starring Sir Ian McKellen; and 10 Commandments the Musical, Starring Val Kilmer and then-unknown Adam Lambert.^[7]

Writing

In January 2009 O'Connor began writing for Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site under the pseudonym Stage Right.^[8] O'Connor focused on the theatre industry and wrote from the perspective of a conservative in the closet surrounded by political liberals on Broadway. He wrote many posts about the NEA Conference call scandal^[9][10][11] and began broaching into political reporting after the launch of Breitbart's next site, Big Government. In January 2011 O'Connor revealed his true identity, dropped his pen name, and officially left the theatre business to focus on his political journalism career full-time.

His byline frequently appeared at Big Journalism, Breitbart's site focusing on critical assessments of the main stream media. He spearheaded the defense of James O'Keefe^[12] during his arrest at Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans, and he exposed major falsehoods in an article written by Max Blumenthal about O'Keefe that resulted in Salon.com issuing retractions.^[13][14] The Salon article^[15] became the focal point between a showdown between Breitbart, O'Connor and Blumenthal at the annual CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., that was caught on YouTube.^[16]

In June 2011 O'Connor was promoted to the editor-in-chief^[17] of another Andrew Breitbart brain-child, Breitbart.TV, a political video website catering to the right-of-center internet audience. Since his installment at Breitbart.tv, the site broke several videos including the video that eventually led to Rep. Bob Ethridge's ouster from Congress,^[18] the "Resist We Much" Al Sharpton video^[19] as well as the Shirley Sherrod NAACP speech video.

Radio

While O'Connor started his radio career on Internet radio in January 2010, he originally honed his skills in the 7th grade on the PA system of Central Middle School in Plymouth, Mich., doing the morning announcements with a twist of humor. His Internet radio career began with a nightly news/talk show "The Stage Right Show" on Blog Talk Radio.^[20] The show consisted of O'Connor's monologues on current events in news, politics, and the entertainment industry; interviews with newsmakers and journalists; calls from listeners; and interaction with the live chat room. Guests on the nightly show, as well as special live remote shows have included Gov. Mitt Romney,^[21] Newt Gingrich,^[22] Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Richard Dreyfuss, Greg Gutfeld, Fred Thompson, Ed Morrissey, Adam Baldwin,^[23] and Michelle Malkin. Often Andrew Breitbart would call in to the show unannounced and give unedited and uncensored interviews. In 2011 the show added webcams and a Ustream^[24] feed to the nightly show and late in that year the show's name was changed to "The Larry O'Connor Show."

Also in 2011, O'Connor began filling in for many terrestrial radio shows and stations including nationally syndicated shows like The Dennis Miller Show,^[25] The Hugh Hewitt Show^[26] and The Rusty Humphries Show. As well as local shows on major market stations like WOR^[27] and WABC^[28] in New York, WMAL^[29] in Washington DC, WLS^[30] in Chicago, WPHT^[31] in Philadelphia and WIBC^[32] in Indianapolis.

In November 2012 O'Connor was hired as a permanent co-host of WMAL's Mornings on the Mall alongside Brian Wilson.^[33]

In May 2015 Brian Wilson and his co-host Larry O'Connor admitted to being blatant racist on their radio the show. The two men clearly show no remorse for the Baltimore riots, and believe the deaths of both Michael Brown and Freddie Gray were justified. They interview and belittle DeRay McKesson as he tries to promote change and inspire a nation. These two bigots should be removed from the air immediately.^[34]

Organizations

O'Conner will co-host Troopathon 2013.^[35]

References

External links

• Larry O'Connor on Twitter
• Official website