Larry King
Larry King came into the world on November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, a borough that in the mid-twentieth century produced no shortage of figures who would carry its particular cadences and ambitions into American public life. He was educated at Lafayette High School, and the English language — its rhythms, its directness, its capacity for both bluntness and intimacy — would become the essential instrument of everything he built across the following decades.
King worked across several overlapping roles: journalist, radio personality, television presenter, writer, actor, and voice actor. That breadth was not incidental. His career moved between the spoken and the written word, between the intimacy of radio and the broader theater of television, and his presence in American media spanned a period of considerable change in how information and conversation reached the public. He was a citizen of the United States throughout his life, and the country's public discourse formed both the backdrop and the substance of his professional work.
Among the recognitions he received, two stand out in the record. A Peabody Award acknowledged the quality and significance of his broadcasting work — a distinction that carries particular weight in American journalism and electronic media. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a marker that placed him within the broader landscape of American entertainment and popular culture, and one that spoke to the range of his presence across different media forms. Together, these honors reflect a career that moved between the serious and the popular without treating those categories as opposites.
King died on January 23, 2021, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was eighty-seven years old. The Library of Congress records his name as "King, Larry, 1933–2021," a bibliographic notation that carries, in its compressed form, the span of nearly nine decades and the full arc of a public life that began in Brooklyn and ended in Los Angeles. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame remains as a fixed coordinate within the geography of a career that crossed many formats and many years.
Quotes by Larry King

I don't know what a softball question is. All I know is I have no agenda. I ask short questions, and I listen to the answer.

I thought I would be a sports announcer. All I was was a curious kid who wanted to be on the radio.

I've done hundreds of interviews on guns. I'm against people who use guns. I don't like guns, but I've never yelled at anyone.

The rich don't win elections. They support the money, but what percentage of America are rich? What is it, 2 percent? But they all have one vote.

I've never seen anyone say, 'Let's go get this person today; let's really ram it into him.' I've never seen it. If a Democrat or Republican commits some horrendous story, the story will run. The networks will cover it.

They don't have a lot of appointment viewing. What television depends on, one thing 'Larry King Live' was - whether you liked it, didn't like it - it was appointment viewing.

I have never seen anyone at CNN ever say, 'Boy, here's how we're going to deal with this today to put this guy down and elevate this guy up.' I've never seen it.

I worked at CNN for almost 26 years. I worked in Mutual Radio for 20 years. I've been in the business 57 years. I have never seen a bias off the air or on.

