Legendary talk show host Larry King died Saturday at the age of 87. In 1978, King began a nightly midnight-to-dawn radio show on 28 cities over the Mutual Broadcasting System. By the 1980s, The Larry King Show was being carried by more than 250 affiliates.
King, who had Type 2 diabetes, had also had several heart attacks and quintuple bypass surgery. In 2017, he revealed he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure in 2019 to address angina.
Thank you to the team at The Conclave for sharing THIS VIDEO of King, who gave the keynote at their 1985 event. a Jay Philpott, Conclave Board of Directors, commented: “Larry’s keynote speech is a Masterclass in storytelling. He effortlessly paints the pictures of his upbringing in Brooklyn with later-to-be-famous friends Sandy Koufax (L.A. Dodgers pitching great) and Herb Cohen (bestselling author of You Can Negotiate Anything) to his early success in radio. Special thanks to “Radio’s Best Friend” Art Vuolo, Jr. and Mark Baker for their help in restoring the picture and enhancing the audio from the original VHS tape on which this was recorded. We offer our deepest condolences to the family of Larry King and to his many friends and fans worldwide.”
Former Westwood One Founder Norm Pattiz: “Larry King was a super star on radio well before he became a talk show icon on television and his contribution in those mediums will never be duplicated. I first met Larry in 1985 when Westwood One Radio bought the Mutual Radio Network. Some said at the time that I bought the network just to get the Larry King Show and I never corrected them. When CNN came calling, I was thrilled to share Larry with them and when his show became one of the most influential nightly talk shows in history it only confirmed what I had known all along. No one will ever match the style, compassion and genuine love for a great interview that Larry had and the worlds of television, radio and podcasting are worse today for his loss. – Norm Pattiz, Chairman of PodcastOne and Founder of WestwoodOne Radio.”
Larry King was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1989.
