LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 23: Talk Show Host Larry King attends the 68th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards at the Television Academy on July 23, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Tullberg / Getty Images)
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Larry King, the legendary American broadcaster that was a staple of cable news for decades, has died. He was 87 years old.
King died Saturday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Ora Media, the company King started after leaving CNN. No information was available about his cause of death.
King hosted a CNN talk show that became one of the network’s most watched and longest-running programs.
King was hospitalized for the coronavirus in December. He has also faced many medical problems, including type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, five-fold bypass surgery, and lung cancer.
His medical problems inspired him to found the Larry King Cardiac Foundation in 1988. The non-profit organization aims to help people without health insurance to get medical care.
King began his career as a radio journalist in Florida in the 1950s and became known in the late 1970s as the host of “The Larry King Show,” a nationwide call-in radio program for all night.
CNN launched the television talk show “Larry King Live” in 1985, which ran until 2010.
His awards included two peabodies, an Emmy, and 10 Cable ACE Awards.
For the most part, King conducted his interviews from the studio and wore his signature suspenders. He was known for asking his guests simple, open-ended questions, which made him an attractive interviewer for important figures in politics and Hollywood.
In 2012, King founded a production company called Ora TV with Mexican media magnate Carlos Slim. It was through this company that King moderated the “Larry King Now” web series, which was made available via the Hulu streaming service.
King was married eight times to seven women and fathered five children. His children with then wife Alene Akins, Andy and Chaia King, died within a few weeks in the summer of 2020. Andy, 65, died unexpectedly of a heart attack in July, and Chaia, 51, died in August after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Akins, a former Playboy bunny, died in 2017.
King had three other sons: Larry Jr. from his brief marriage to Annette Kaye and the sons Chance and Cannon from his marriage to Shawn Southwick. King filed for divorce from Southwick in 2019.
