Larry King

Larry King has married eight times to seven women - Freda Miller, Annette Kaye, Alene Akins, Mary Francis Stuphin, Sharon Lepore, Julie Alexander and Shawn Southwick. He married to Alene Akins twice. He has eight children in total.

For most part of his early life, he has been a fervent smoker. In 1987, he suffered from a major heart attack and has gone through a number of surgeries to correct his heart disease issue.

He has authored two books about living with heart disease titled, ‘Mr. King, You’re Having a Heart Attack: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life’ and ‘Taking on Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can, Too’.

Larry King was born as Lawrence Leibel Harvey Zeiger to Edward Jonaton Zeiger and Jennie, both Jewish immigrants, in Brooklyn, New York City.

When he was 9 years old, his father passed away of heart disease at the age of 44. The sudden death of his father had a terrible impact on Larry and slowly he lost interest in academics. His mother decided to opt for government welfare in order to support both her sons, due to financial constraints.

After he graduated from high school, he decided that he would work to support his mother and never went to college. However, from very early on, his lifelong dream was to have a career in the radio business.

When he was working to support his mother, he met a CBS staff presenter, who urged him to travel to Florida, which offered great scope for raw broadcasters. Thus, he boarded a train and began his hopeful journey to Miami.

After a number of early struggles, he persevered and got his first job in the radio. Here, he was asked to perform a number of odd jobs before he was finally given his first assignment as a disc jockey on May 1, 1957. It was during this time, he acquired the name, ‘Larry King’.

He was given an opportunity to host the mid-morning show for WIOD in Miami Beach and this show propelled him to glory. In 1960, he hosted ‘Miami Undercover’, on which he presented debates pertaining to important issues of the time.

For the 1970-71 seasons, he was given further opportunities as a color pundit for the ‘Miami Dolphins’ of the National Football League. However, he was fired at the end of the season when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner. The charges were dropped the following year.

He spent the next few years refreshing his career and did a brief spell as a color commentator for ‘Shreveport Steamer’ of the World Football League. It was during this time, he also hosted a sports-talk show, ‘Sports-a-la-King’.

After persisting for a successful breakthrough, he finally achieved what he was hoping for. He went national in 1978, getting the night talk show slot on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

‘Larry King Live’, hosted on CNN, had a successful run from 1984 to 2010. It is deemed as one of the longest running talk-show programs in American history, with a whopping total of one million viewers every night. This one-hour show was broadcast three times a day and could be seen by audiences all over the world on CNN International. Some of the notable episodes of the show included the debate between Ross Perot and Al Gore, the episode with Ryan Seacrest and the episode featuring the ailing Tammy Faye Messner. The success of the show was phenomenal and is still regarded as his biggest accomplishment.