Breezy American talk show host Larry King kept things simple doing some 50,000 interviews over 25 years. A minimalist.
King was not confrontational and talked plainly to his guests on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live’, exclaiming “Great!”, “Terrific!” “Gee whiz!” – rarely plumbing topics deeply.
His questions might have been brief and friendly but the host of CNN’s The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer, regards him as one who “made news, broke news and broke ground.”
King, who died on Saturday at the age of 87, was idolised by newspeople and had a wide following among television lovers globally from 1985 to 2010 when he signed off from CNN’s highest rated, longest running programme.
He even captured pop culture in Malaysia, prompting certain local television hosts to imitate his style in vain, one of them going to the extent of wearing his trademark suspenders, a button-up shirt, tie and glasses; and trying hard to mimic his raspy voice.
King’s style of interviewing however is distinct: He gently poked his guests to say interesting things about themselves and bragged that he almost never prepared for an interview.
In his memoir, ‘My Remarkable Journey’, he wrote that there were many broadcasters who would recite three minutes of facts before they ask a question as if to say: Let me show you how much I know.
“I think the guest should be the expert,” he said, adding, that he viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programmes.
His questions to an author promoting a book on his show would typically be: “What’s it about?” or “Why did you write this?” That’s because he did not read the book.
King was not known for his investigative chops which would explain why he asked such simple questions to the following leaders:
“When you drive by Watergate, do you feel weird?” (to former president Richard Nixon).
“Is it, for you, frustrating to not remember something?” (to former president Ronald Reagan).
“Does it have to be buildings?” (to Donald Trump when he was best known as a real estate mogul).
In a video clip to market his ‘Greatest Interviews’ DVD, King asked: “What makes a great interview?’, and answered himself, “The guest, of course.”
He said his job was to get inside the head of fascinating and famous people and to find out what makes them tick. “What makes a star a star? “Is living a larger than life existence, all that it’s cranked up to be?”
As a curious guy asking questions impulsively, he also delivered bursts of cheekiness and humour.
His 1994 interview with Marlon Brando ended with one of TV’s most memorable kisses ever – the legendary actor kissing him on the lips.
Brando chose ‘Larry King Live’ to fulfil a provision in his contract to do at least one interview to promote his book, ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’, because he thought the host was “forthright, sincere, direct and unexploitative”.
In 1988, at the beginning of the interview with Robert Randall – the first person in the US to get legal marijuana for glaucoma – King held a joint on air.
He provoked Randall: “You could smoke it now, legally. Do it for me.” Randall smoked weed as King continued the interview.
In 2003, King was surprised when Heather Mills, the ex-Mrs McCartney took off her artificial leg on air and let him hold it. “Paul’s gonna get upset, you touching my leg, Larry,” she quipped.
She removed her appendage again in 2010 to promote raising money for artificial limbs in the wake of the Haiti earthquake.
King, who organised the all-star Haiti Telethon that raised US$10 million to help the relief effort, auctioned off his suspenders – one of 150 pairs he owned.
The ‘Chairman of the Board’, Frank Sinatra, who did not do interviews, was a huge get for King in 1988. ‘Ol Blue Eyes famously called writers of kiss-and-tell books “pimps and whores” on the show.
The O J Simpson car chase in 1994 and the subsequent trial of the American football star had an incredible impact on his show and King once told his viewers, “If we had God booked and O J was available, we’d move God.”
If King is associated with any major news story, it has to be the sensational slow-speed pursuit by police, a juicy incident made for a 24-hour news network.
He never claimed to being a journalist although he landed many exclusives such as when Ross Perot announced his presidential candidacy on his show in 1992.
Another big story was Lady Gaga’s confession that she has tested borderline positive for Lupus, the connective-tissue disease that killed her aunt in 1976.
In the New York Times obituary, the writer Robert D McFadden noted that King might have made a fascinating guest on his own show.
“The son of European immigrants who never went to college was the delivery boy who as one of America’s most famous TV personalities rubbed shoulders with world leaders, royalty, religious and business figures, crime and disaster victims, pundits, swindlers, and ‘experts’ on UFOs and paranormal phenomena.
He was a newspaper columnist, the author of numerous books and a performer in dozens of movies and television shows, mostly as himself,” he wrote.
McFadden noted that King’s personal life was the stuff of supermarket tabloids – married eight times to seven women, a chronic gambler who declared bankruptcy twice; arrested on a fraud charge that derailed his career for years.
In an interview with Reuters after he co-founded Ora TV, a television production studio and on-demand digital television network in 2012, King was asked: Any big mistakes in life that you would like to have back?
King: “If I could have one day back. I would go back to when I was 17, the day I started smoking. By the time I had my heart attack, I was smoking three packs a day. I didn’t think I could ever stop.
What is the one interview that got away?
King: J D Salinger (the late author who went into seclusion after publication of his best-selling 1951 novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’). Apparently, he watched my show and was very familiar with it. His wife said he was seriously considering it. That would have been the greatest get of all time.”
This empowering quote by King will do us all good: “If I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening”.