With his trademark suspenders and Brooklyn-accented baritone, King spoke with world leaders, celebrities, authors, scientists, athletes — everyone.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Larry King has died. He was 87. And in a career that spanned 60 years, Larry King interviewed just about everybody. Reporter Jeff Lunden has this appreciation.

JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: With his trademark suspenders and his deep baritone voice tinged with a Brooklyn accent, Larry King spoke with presidents...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")

LARRY KING: George Bush is our honored guest for the full hour - next on "Larry King Live."

LUNDEN: ...World leaders...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")

KING: Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the nation of Libya.

LUNDEN: ...Celebrities...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")

KING: The brilliant Barbra Streisand.

LUNDEN: ...Authors, scientists, comedians, athletes, and on and on and on.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE TURNAROUND")

KING: I'm always engrossed in the guests.

LUNDEN: Larry King spoke with Jesse Thorn on "The Turnaround" podcast in 2017.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE TURNAROUND")

KING: I'm always listening to the answer. I'm always learning. So I guess I'm better every day at learning.

LUNDEN: The Brooklyn-born King actually was an indifferent student but said he always had an innate curiosity.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KING: When we would go to Dodger games, all my friends wanted autographs at the end. I never asked for an autograph. But I would walk with the players as they're going to their cars, asking questions. Why did you bunt? Why did they do this in the third inning? My curiosity is still insatiable.

LUNDEN: King began his career as a DJ in Miami, and it's where he got his name as well. When a station manager told him his given surname, Zeiger, was too ethnic, he chose King from a liquor ad in a newspaper. By the late 1970s, King had an overnight talk show on national radio. Then, in 1985, Ted Turner hired him for his new network, CNN. Media commentator and author Bill Carter, who's a CNN contributor, says the timing was perfect.

BILL CARTER: Picking up somebody like Larry King made a lot of sense because he had established himself kind of as a guy who could get big guests. They could have big names and promote it and became sort of the linchpin of their primetime lineup.

LUNDEN: And King stayed there for 25 years. Some critics complained that he was too chummy with celebrities and lobbed softball questions at his guests.

CARTER: His strategy was, I'm never going to make the guests uncomfortable. And that means not only will they come back, but they'll tell their friends. He won't ask you about that ugly divorce of yours. You know, he'll ask you about your favorite movie. So he didn't challenge people, but he did get information. He was pretty good at that.

LUNDEN: Like when he talked with ex-President Richard Nixon.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")

KING: Well, I don't want to dwell on the Watergate thing. That's been covered so well. But some personal things - when you drive by those collections of buildings - the hotel, the two apartment houses, the office building - do you feel weird? Funny?

RICHARD NIXON: Oh, no. I never give it a thought.

KING: Never give it a thought.

NIXON: Never give it a thought. That's one place where you just don't look back. As far as Watergate is...

KING: Yeah, I know. But you don't look up at the buildings themselves?

NIXON: Not at all. Not at all. As a matter of fact, I've never been in the Watergate.

LUNDEN: Larry King famously didn't do a lot of preparation before his interviews.

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KING: The less I know, the better. Now, that sounds strange to people. Like, if you wrote a book, I wouldn't read the book before I interviewed you because I would then know too much about the book. And I'm in the same boat as the audience. They haven't read the book.

LUNDEN: But King knew the national zeitgeist. He covered the first OJ Simpson trial every night, says Bill Carter.

CARTER: He basically started the cable monomania move. We're going to just cover this story. That's it. In a way, it was perfect for Larry because it was celebrity-oriented. It was in the news, but it was not political.

LUNDEN: Ultimately, CNN canceled King's show because it wasn't political. Competition from FOX and MSNBC took its toll on the ratings. But King was a survivor. He was married eight times and had quintuple bypass surgery after a massive heart attack. And King took his talk show to streaming video and kept on working.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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