Interview with Larry King

MJ: Larry King, thank you for joining us.

LK: My pleasure, Mark, good to be with you.

MJ: Tell us about this set, this where it happens.

LK: This is the LA set. Although soon we're going to have it covered by the Washington set. So we'll only have one set. We're based in Washington. We visit LA once a month. So when we're in LA we have this backdrop. Washington's the regular set that most viewers are used to, that map of the world with the glowing little dots.

MJ: Now for some of our viewers who don't know you, tell us about your job. Tell us what you do here and in Washington.

LK: I do same thing here that I do in Washington. What I do every night is go on the air for an hour. The only live world-wide on air show. Started in 1985. It's been on for ten and a half years. We talk to people of all walks of life that are in politics, sports, entertainment, issues, whatever's in the news, very topical. I do an interview and then we take calls. We have debates. Lots of major things have happened on this show. Ross Perot announced for the presidency here. We had the Gore-Perot debate. Sinatra's been on the show, Barbara Streisand...people that are hard to get. It's very conversational. The tone is very much like I'm very close to the guests. It's very off the wall. That is, it's not prepared. The show is live every night, and it shows in the States at 9:00 o'clock eastern, 6:00 o'clock pacific. And then around the world it's live at that time, so whatever time it is, when it's 9:00 p.m. in Washington, it plays live around the world. And it's repeated 12 hours later. Everywhere around the world except in the United States where it's repeated 3 hours later.

MJ: Now you were one of the first shows to take calls from listeners. Why is that important and why did you start doing that?

LK: Well, I was ..., actually I resisted it for a long time in Miami. I was on the air throughout the sixties when call in radio just started to get started. I kind of, I didn't like it. I wanted to do more interviewing. I like interviewing, and I like the one on one. But in the seventies, in Miami radio it started to get popular and a few guys were doing it and some ladies started to do it so I started to do it and I got to like it. I like the flow.... the ebb and flow of it. And then we started the first national radio talk show in the United States. This was back in 1978 in which we started with 28 stations and I gave it up about a year ago it had 430 and we took calls from all over. The theory was that people in Phoenix wouldn't be interested in what people in New York are interested in. But it turned out they are. It's a small planet. Now the globe is interested. I did a world-wide talk show for the Voice of America once and I had on the Secretary of Agriculture which shows you a lot about calls. The Secretary of Agriculture of the United States was on and we got a call from Beijing, from a farmer who was asking the Secretary of Agriculture his opinion of a certain kind of tractor. And I was sitting there watching this, listening to this saying, "what a small world." A Chinese farmer was talking to the Secretary of Agriculture about a tractor.

MJ: You get calls from all over the world. From Europe.....

LK: Europe, Asia, everywhere. We're in 220 countries and provinces.

MJ: We often hear, those of us who watch your show, about growing up as a

Jewish kid from Brooklyn. Tell us a little about those early years.

LK: I had a great childhood. I had some tragedy, my father died when I

was ten. And my mother had to raise two boys and that was rather tough and

we were on relief for a while. We were very poor. We moved to a very nice

neighborhood. We lived in the third floor attic apartment in which all the

kids had a little more money than I did, although nobody was rich. And it

was a wonderful cultural experience. Jews and Italians. The only thing we

didn't have was Protestants. We had Catholics, Blacks, Jews, and no

Protestants. At first I didn't know what a Protestant was. We were all

Democratic party. The whole neighborhood was. Ninety-eight percent was

for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I remember being a kid jumping up and down

when Truman won, getting so excited and so I grew up with that wonderful

legacy. That food, everybody knew everybody, nobody moved. Nobody went to

private school, that was unheard of. If you went to private school when

you were a kid....

MJ: Something was wrong with you.

LK: Major. "Why? What's the matter with Phil? Why isn't Phil going to

school?" The teachers were great. New York City, Brooklyn, especially

Brooklyn was a great place to grow up, the Dodgers were the centerpiece.

We'd go to New York and Madison....see we'd call Manhattan New York. We

weren't in New York we were in Brooklyn. So we went to New York, I said it

again, to see the Nicks and the Rangers I grew up with...sports was a big

part of our life. Women were late, sports early.

MJ: Sports first

LK:We were Neanderthals.

MJ: Then how did you get started in broadcasting?

LK: I never wanted to do anything else. I swear it was my only ambition.

I was six years old. I would listen to the radio, listen to Arthur

Godfrey, and I wanted to be Arthur Godfrey and Red Barber I wanted to be

Red Barber. I wanted to be on the radio. I wondered what they looked

like. Were they sitting, were they standing up, were they wearing ties,

were they wearing casual. I wanted to do that. I used to pretend I had a

microphone in my hand. I never wanted to do anything else. So I'm living

out a total life dream, and I went to high school, didn't go to college. I

had to go out and help my mother, workedat a bunch of odd jobs, and

finally my brother got out of school, so he was able to help her. I went

down to Miami, knocked on doors, got a job at a small radio station. That

was 38 years ago. If I make it to May 1st, 1997, I will be 40 years in

the business. And I've broadcasted in five decades, fifties, sixties,

seventies, eighties, and nineties. And I loved every minute. I love what

I do. When the light goes on, television or radio, I'm in control of my

atmosphere.

MJ: Are you different on and off camera?

LK: No. I learned that a long time ago. Godfrey, in fact, whom I later

got to meet and work with, told me the only secret in this whole business

is there's no secret, be yourself. If your self is good enough, it's good

enough. Once you've started...if I try to be now what I'm not, like if I

wanted to make my voice deeper or sound erudite or knowledgeable about

everything, it wouldn't be me. And the minute I become that I'm not me,

I'm always me. Except the me that's on camera controls his environment.

The me at noon today couldn't control the traffic. I can't control who my

daughter dates. I can't control life's events, but the hour of Larry King

Live, and when I used to do three, four five, hours on radio, I control

that hour. I'm still me. except I control it just as you control this

interview.

MJ: We hope, we hope.

LK: The person with the printing press owns the day. It's your press.

MJ: When did you make the transition from radio to T.V.?

LK: Always did both. I was on radio started in 1957, started in

television in 1960, and always did both in Miami. And when I went up to

Washington to do the national radio show, I did a local talk show in

Washington until Ted Turner took me on nationally, but I've always done

both.

MJ: And when did that happen, when you came to CNN, that was '85?

LK: Yeah. May? June... June 1st of 1985. CNN was five years old that day

and Ted had called me up and he'd been on my radio show a few times, seen

my television show in Washington. And he had a show on called the Freeman

Report with Sandy Freeman and they were having a tough negotiation-her

husband was representing her and he was giving Ted a hard time. And Ted

said, "Would you like to come join us?" and I put him in touch with my

agent and the whole deal was done in two days. And at first I didn't want

to do it because I was on at midnight on the radio and I used to go to

ball games I love sports, and this way at 9:00 o'clock I could have no

life. I would have no life. I would do it every night of my life. It

would be 9:00 o'clock and then midnight.

MJ: 9:00 on the East Coast.

LK: Yeah. But it was the best move I ever made.

MJ: How do you decide when you're in LA or New York or Washington?

LK: We... pretty much now I do a week a month in L.A. one week a month

and three weeks in Washington, but this year we'll fluctuate a lot more, we

got the elections. We'll be on the road a lot this year. You know people

think of Washington and the elections, but the elections aren't in

Washington, they're on the road....they're in California, in New Hampshire,

we'll be there, we'll be in Iowa, I'm sure we'll be down in Florida for

that primary. We'll be at both conventions. So '96 will be a

traveling....and we'll be right in the middle of the whole political fray

just as we were in '92. We were everywhere.

MJ: Let's talk suspenders for a minute. You're well known for your

suspenders. What's the story here. How many pairs do you have?

LK: I have many of them....hundreds, but it was my ex-wife, Sharon, I had

had a heart attack and heart surgery in 1987. Then somewhere along in 1988

I was.... I lost some weight I was looking, feeling pretty good and we

were walking along, I forget where we were but she said, "Did you ever try

braces?" and I said, "Well, I hate 'em." I wear 'em with tuxedos, but I

never liked 'em." She said, "Well you know, it might be a nice look." I

don't like wearing jackets on television, I used to wear half sweaters, and

in Miami just shirts. I said, "No, I've never tried it." I tried it and I

find... what it was is people started calling in and saying, it looked

nice.And then what I found what is real nice about it is, one, it's

distinct, two, it is well-dressed, it is nicely dressed, so even though

you're informal, there's a formal informality to it, and too, it matches

off ties, and men, the only statement we can make is really with a tie, and

so if you wear braces, that work well off ties and pick up a color-like

here the blue matches off this blue looks nice off of a blue shirt, little

white and the shirt a little white and here you are. And I think it's a

nice look and I'm very comfortable with it. Now I got to like it.

MJ: How do you think you influenced the '92 election? Do you think you

influenced the election?

LK: Well, influenced just by the impact of being on for an hour every

night and having all the candidates on the last week. They were all on for

two hours each and made enormous appearances. Clinton I think five times,

Bush three times, Perot you know it was just....so we were an impact. We

were another road. We were a chance for the.... to see the candidate real

up close, a chance to talk with them when I was a kid I never thought I'd

ever talk to Adlai Stevenson come on. But people actually in this campaign,

many Americans talked to Clinton, talked to Bush, talked to Perot, talked

to candidates. These candidates are now... the Republicans who fought .....

fighting for this ......convention's coming up next month. They have been

all over. They've done talk shows. They've done Iowa talk shows and New

Hampshire talk shows and everywhere they could be because they want that

close communication that the minute and a half sound bite at the airport

doesn't give you. So I'd say we had a major impact.

MJ: Do you think Abraham Lincoln, if he was running in 1996, would he come

on your show? Would he do the same thing?

LK: Absolutely, oh absolutely, in fact I asked that once, of someone who

was a biographer of Lincoln...Lincoln would have been on a lot. Lincoln

would have made great use of Larry King Live. He'd have had his little

chats with me. I think he'd have been on like every six months. Sort of

like Clinton. He had great rapport. And he liked to explain things. He

had a wonderful way with a word and a sense of humor......although on the

other hand historians tell me he had a high sing song voice and he wasn't

particularly handsome. So if he had a high sing song voice and he wasn't

particularly handsome that might have hurt him in this area. Roosevelt

would've been on. Roosevelt would've been on a lot.

MJ: Is there any guest that you haven't had that you have been trying or

have tried to get on your show?

LK: Well, we've tried to get the Pope.

MJ: Really?

LK: Yeah. He knows about the show, you know. In fact a rumor....Gary

Shandling said he called in once and he called himself "Johnny from Rome."

So you know, I'd like to get the Pope. I'd like to get Al Pacino... met

Robert DeNiro the other day and he said that he would do the show finally.

MJ: Now, the Pope, he thinks this isn't dignified or why wouldn't he.....

what's his reason for not being on the show.

LK: Time

MJ: Time

MJ: He comes out....you know his schedule...masses, meetings.....

MJ: You'd set him up live in Rome?

LK: I would go to the Vatican sure. I'd think it would be very smart for

him to do. It's a good show. It's a show where guests get asked good

questions. You get a chance to respond. You're seen all around the world.

It's a very intimate setting. Yet it's.. I don't have an agenda. I'm not

there to embarrass. I'm there to learn. It's a learning process, and I

think people like being asked good questions.

MJ: Politicians sometimes want to be on your show, they don't want to be

on what they perceive as the tougher shows. Do you ask less tough

questions or the same questions or...what's the mix there?

LK: I think they're different. I'm an interviewer, I'm not a news person

per say. We make a lot of news. When I ask thoughtful, incisive, I think

penetrating questions that leave me out of it, they usually begin with,

"why?" I don't use the word, "I." Again I don't have an agenda. But the

stupidest question you could ask someone.........let's say you get someone

in an embarrassing position and let's say they're having a bad time and

they sit down and the first thing you do is back them into a wall...it's

very impressive, and it is nice, it's good show biz, but what you don't get

is responses. Because they clam up and tend to be defensive. That's not

my role. My role is to draw them out. So if I can draw them out with more

of a kind of genuine interest in what they have to say. I have no opinion.

Whether they stole the funds, stole the vote, did something I have no

opinion. I don't come with an agenda. "What happened?" When you say to

someone, "What happened?" Now I don't know why that's...some people have

called that soft, I've never figured out why, "what happened?" is soft, but

I'm me, I've been doing this 38 years and I'm not going to change. If you

like it you like it, if you don't you don't.

MJ: What's you mix of guests? You have entertainment, political

guests...?

LK: Yeah. Wide variety, as wide a variety as possible. The better the

variety...I would never want to do a political show every night. I'd never

want to do an entertainment show every night or a sports show every night

cause I get bored

MJ: So how do you decide?

LK: We have a staff. They know that I like....

MJ: They know your interests...

LK: Yeah. Like, they know I like a United States Senator along with an

actress on the same night. That I like as wide a variant as can get. I

realize you get into an O.J. Simpson trial, you gotta cover that a lot.

You get into a war with Iraq you gotta cover that every night, the big

news counts , the politics of the big news of '96, we'll be on top of that,

but I'm also very...when the war ended we did 48 straight nights, we worked

Sundays and the night after the war ended, we had Robert Redford on to

discuss "A River Runs Through It" I couldn't have been happier. I felt

wonderful. could've been anybody just....no more......I get too locked in

and I have a short attention span so you gotta keep me interested.

MJ: What makes a good guest. What are you looking for in a guest?

LK: I want four things. If you can get 'em, you have a great guest.

Passion, an ability to explain what they do very well, a little bit of

anger, little bit of a chip on their shoulder is wonderful, and a sense of

humor, and especially self, if they can kid them self. So Sinatra's a

great guest. He doesn't do interviews anymore but he did a lot with me. He

fits all four of those things. He can tell you what it's like to be on

stage. He can put you right on stage. He has a passion for what he does.

Anger, and he has a sense of humor. Self-deprecating. If you can kid

yourself you're the best.

MJ: Who's a good guest. Can you give some names? Who's a good guest and

who's a challenging guest, let's say?

LK: Cuomo's a great guest, Goldwater's a..... anybody who just kind of

comes with a passion, for what they do. Streisand......there's so many.

There's just a lot of great guests, cause there's a lot of...remember most

of the people I meet are successful. They didn't get to be successful by

being ...... less than very interesting at what they do... if you think

about it if you get to the United States Senate you've done something in

your life you may be not as fascinating as other senators but there's

gotta be something about you. So I'm lucky that way, I've got a built in

lead in.... is that the guests will probably be pretty good. I'm in Los

Angeles we're gonna have the police chief on tonight.

MJ: He's been on our show, too.

LK: It's a pretty good bet he's interesting, right? The police chief of

a city like Los Angeles has to be interesting. It would be dumb not to

bring him on. And the worst kind are the kinds who clam up. You get

those. You can't....you know, it's not a court, this is not a trial, I

can't make the guest answer the question. I saw a funny

thing............Geraldo Rivera was always writing an article

somewhere............. and it said, someone asked him "What would be the

first thing you would ask O.J. Simpson, and he said, "The first thing that

I would ask him is, 'Why did you kill two people?' That is the dumbest

first question you could ask anybody in that kind of position. Because

you're making a statement, you're looking pretty strong, you look tough.

"I killed 'em Geraldo because I didn't like them!"

MJ: You had him on your show, too.

LK: He called in here.

MJ: He called in, what was that like?

LK: That was wild.

MJ: You were sitting here?

LK: Right here. Right here on this spot. And Johnny Cochran was sitting

there. It was five minutes to go in the show and a lady had called in with

a question about the figure at night running in front of the house, and he

called to say he was the figure and I couldn't get another question

in..this was near the end and he also said, "I gotta go." But it was

exciting to see that thing flashing on the screen "O.J. Simpson."

MJ: Now you do T.V., you also do radio.

LK: Don't do radio any more. Gave up radio. I do radio commentary....

MJ: Isn't this simulcast on the radio?

LK: Yeah. This is simulcast, but it's like this is simulcast. The

television show is simulcast. But I do radio commentary.

MJ: Newspaper column...

LK: Every Monday in USA Today. Never missed a column even through a heart

attack, heart surgery. I've been in, I started on the paper three weeks

after the paper began.

MJ: What about charity. You do a lot of charity work?

LK: I do a lot of speaking for money and I do a lot of speaking for

charity. I get involved in charities I have my own charity. I have the

Larry King Cardiac Foundation. We help people who can't afford to get

heart surgery and transplants, we put on events every year. I give portions

for speaking, too so...

MJ: I think I've seen you shoot the show from Japan.

LK: We were in Japan, Hong Kong .......Amsterdam, and places around the

United States. I'd like to take it more places. I'd like to go to the

Middle East, we were supposed to do it it London, and I

don't know what happened, something happened...we didn't do it in London,

but I would like to get out. I like Europe. I think we can be a very

active a show. The tough part of Europe is we gotta be 4:00 in the

morning. Hey, 4:00 in the morning.

MJ: Do you have ...is it difficult for you to keep your opinions out of

your show? Is that a challenge?

LK: No. I've learned a long time ago how to go .The way to do that is,

and of course I'm very opinionated, the way I do that is, I'm intentionally

curious about the person and I also know one thing.......I've never been a

senator, I've never been a doctor, I've never asked people to vote for me.

Never been an actor in movies other than to play myself, so I have respect

for the person I'm interviewing. ........and I agree with them in that

respect and I know that I'm going to learn a lot more by asking than by

saying. The truest thing I ever heard, long ago someone said this. "I

never learned anything when I was talking."

MJ: We have two ears, huh?

LK: It's impossible to learn when you're talking. Right now, this minute

I'm not learning anything. I may be learning something for you, giving you

a learning process, the audience a learning process, but I'm not learning.

MJ: What kind of T.V. do you watch?

LK: Sports, lot of sports, every sporting event, news.....special shows, I

love Gary Shandling, on HBO, I like Dennis Miller on HBO. ...... I guess I

watch a lot of HBO, CNN. ESPN, Much less with the networks than I used

to. I used to watch networks a lot. But now cable, I would say gets 90-95%

of my viewing.

MJ: Do you ever watch your show and say, "Ugh, that wasn't right, or..."

LK: I don't watch my show much and no, I learned that a long time ago,

too. Once it's over it's over. Yogi Berra was right-it ain't over til it's

over, but once it's over, there's nothing I can do, sure, sure, you could

say "Oh..." but I learned.....I've been doing it too long.

MJ: What's in the future? What do you see? Do you see new technology...?

LK: I hope I live. That would be one thing, that would be nice. I'm

sixty-two, I don't where it's going to......The one thing I learned in this

business, you can't predict politics and you can't predict the future of

technology, because so many things have happened that I'm in awe of and

still happening. ......Communication is ahead of us. It's going so fast.

You know, I mean what is it, you buy a computer it's outmoded, you take it

home it's outmoded. I'm just in the swing of it. I wish I were younger.

This is a great time to be in this business........god, this is

a....stealing money, this is a cakewalk, this is wonderful just to ride the

crest of it. Doing my show is white collar crime.

MJ: Did you have any idea it was going to get this big when you started

with CNN?

LK: No way, Ted didn't either. Ted Turner never thought CNN would get

this big. You know the whole idea for this network,... a lot of genius

comes this way. I was at the farm, at his ranch with Ted. And he told me

the whole idea of this network, he got up one morning and he was driving in

Atlanta, turns on the radio and a voice said, "This is WGST, all news all

the time." He went to the office and said, "why can't we do that on

television?" That's the way CNN began.

MJ: Then somebody said "it can't be done."

LK: "It can't be done," of course. Naturally, lawyers, for instance, "naw,

can't do it." People who say, "It can't be done," are names you don't know.

MJ: Got it.

LK: I gotta run.

MJ: Larry thanks for joining us today.

LK: Great working with you Mark. You're outstanding.

TV