LARRY KING Biography - Socialites, celebrities and People in the fashion industry

 
 

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LARRY KING

Name: Lawrence Harvey Zeiger                                                         
Born: November 19, 1933 Brooklyn, New York, USA                                     
                                                                                     
This article is about the television show host. For the 15-year-old murder           
victim, see Lawrence "Larry" King.                                                   
                                                                                     
Larry King (born November 19, 1933) is an award-winning American television/radio   
host. Since 1985, King has hosted a nightly interview program on CNN called         
Larry King Live.                                                                     
                                                                                     
King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jennie (née 
Gitlitz), a garment worker, and Edward Zeiger, a restaurant owner and defense       
plant worker.[1] He was raised in a "very cultural[ly] Jewish" family.[2] His       
father died at 44 of a heart attack when King was nine, [3] and his mother had       
to go on welfare to support Larry and his younger brother. His father's death       
affected King greatly, and King lost interest in school, ruining his chances to     
go to college. After graduating from high school, he worked to help support his     
mother.                                                                             
                                                                                     
A CBS staff announcer, whom King met by chance, told him to go to Florida, a         
growing media market where openings still existed for inexperienced broadcasters.   
King rode a bus to Miami. After initial setbacks, King got his first job in         
radio through persistence. The manager of a small station, WIOD in Miami Beach,     
hired him to clean up and perform miscellaneous tasks. When one of their             
announcers quit, they put King on the air. His first broadcast was on May 1,         
1957, when he worked as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon. He also did two         
afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. He was paid $55 a week. He acquired the       
name Larry King when the general manager said that Zeiger was too ethnic and         
difficult to remember, and instead suggested the surname King, which he got from     
an ad in The Miami Herald for King's Wholesale Liquor. He started interviewing       
on a midmorning show for WIOD, at Pumpernik's Restaurant in Miami Beach. He         
would interview anyone who walked in. His first interview was with a waiter at       
the restaurant. Two days later, singer Bobby Darin, in Miami for a concert later     
that day, walked into Pumpernick's as a result of coming across King's show on       
his radio; Darin became King's first celebrity interview guest.                     
                                                                                     
His Miami radio show launched him to local stardom. A few years later, in May       
1960, he hosted Miami Undercover, airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV     
channel 10 (now WPLG). On the show he moderated debates on important issues of       
the time. WIOD gave King further exposure as the color commentator for the Miami     
Dolphins broadcasts during the Miami Dolphins' perfect season of 1972.