Larry King's Longevity

With 20 years on the air, Larry King live boasts a roster of guests straight out of the pages of who's who-in entertainment, politics even the criminals are famous.

"My basic attribute, I'm intensely curious about why you do what you do," King told Sunday Morning anchor Charles Osgood. "See, that fascinates me more than what happened that day. What fascinates me about presidents is presidents lead countries. I've never led a country. So, I have a lot of respect for that. And I may disagree with a decision, but I've never had a sit in an Oval Office and I bring that to the interview I think."

In interview after interview, King reigns not with an iron fist but with a light touch. While some applaud his relaxed, man-of-the-people style, others criticize him for not being tougher on guests. King says trying to humiliate his guests would be the easy way out.

"By the way, it's cheap. It ain't hard. If the guest walks off, it's even better," he said. "You know, because all you're doing is creating an image for yourself. But what happens is the audience doesn't learn anything. And I have always been a proponent that the audience comes away after watching my show knowing more than they knew before. A lot of times with these shows they don't. I don't know what a soft interview is. I don't consider I've ever done soft. I think I'm intensely curious. I try to ask the best questions."

King said the point of an interview is to learn. If a guest has some trouble, he will have to ask about it, but there is nothing gained from alienating someone.

"I mean, now, you don't wanna be namby pamby. That you never wanna be," he said. "You don't have to do it soft and you don't have to do harsh. I don't think I can explain what I do. I just do it. I've been doing it — 50 years is a freakin' long time. Must be doing something right."

Larry King was born Larry Ziegler. He was 23-years-old when he broke into broadcasting on the radio. It was a labor of love that began in Brooklyn in the 1930s.

"When I was a kid, I was a 'radio freak' like you. I was a nut. I'd listen to the radio in my room, and run into the bathroom and imitate: 'And now a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense,' he told Osgood who King once interviewed on his show.

He also wanted to escape the reality of his young life, but it was so painful, not even radio could drown it out.

"My father died when I was nine. He died of a sudden heart attack. I would later have one myself," he said. "I lost interest in school. I got mad at him for dying. I was very close to him and I didn't go to the funeral 'cause I was really angry. I learned this later on that I took it as leaving me. It was very hard to be nine years old — nine and a half and lose a parent — especially 'cause some relatives would say, 'Well, Larry, you're the head of the household now.' Ya know, I got a six-year-old brother and a mother and I'm the head of the household? I'm gonna be mad at the guy who left. I didn't know what death was."

With two young boys to look after, his mother could not take a job.

"We went on relief for two years," King said. "They called it relief. Now it's welfare. New York City bought my first pair of glasses. Never forget that, never forget being poor — really poor. Relief inspectors would come to the house and look in the refrigerator to see what kind of meat my mother was buying. They paid our rent. Then we got $34 a week. We stayed that way for two years until I was now 11-years-old. I could stay home myself. My mother went out to work, but I would have to say we, I was poorer than my friends. I don't think I saw a $20 bill until I was 17 years old."

King graduated high school but didn't go to college. He says he was knocking around odd jobs when he heard there might be jobs on the radio in Miami.

"A small station hired me. I went on the air May 1st, 1957," he said. "Nervous. Thought I couldn't do it. Got scared. They gave me a new name. They changed my name from Larry Ziegler to Larry King. I changed it legally. I was choking up. The General Manager kicked open the door, he said, 'This is it. This is the communications business. Communicate.'

"What I did then was something I would do now," King says. "I told the audience that this was my first day. That I'd never been on radio before. I had dreamed about it all my life. I'm scared to death. And I was never nervous again. Ever. Because I learned, as Arthur Godfrey would later tell me about this business; the only secret in this business, there's no secret. Just be yourself. It always works."

It's been working for nearly 50 years and more than 40,000 interviews. But King never went to college. He says he doesn't need to know a lot to do what he does, just be curious.

"I don't expect. I've never gone on the air with an agenda," he said. "I think about the interview about an hour before. But I don't think what specifically I'm gonna ask. We're doing Governor McGreevy tonight who became, you know, announced he was gay. That's interesting enough to me. So I don't need any information beyond 'When did you know you were gay? And how -- How was that like?'"

King says the key to his interview style is not just the questions but listening to the answers, but that's not always as easy as it sounds. He said he was once interviewed in Dallas by a woman who prepared six questions which were all written out.

"I could tell after the first two, she ain't listening to the answers. So, her third question was 'What makes a good talk show host?' And I can see she looks away. And I said, 'Well, I don't know about others. But in my case, being employed by the CIA is a great deal of help, because they feed me things to say every night that I feed out to people.' And then she goes, "'and what about marriage?'" he said.

Marriage has been a troublesome area for king. He's been married seven times. For the past nine years he's been married to Shawn Southwick. It's hard to imagine a less likely match. He's Brooklyn-born, 73, and Jewish. She's Utah-born, 47, and Mormon. But king says, perhaps because of their differences, the relationship works and he's never been happier. In addition to four children from their previous marriages, the kings have two young boys: Chance who is seven and Cannon who's six.

"I like both names, they're different. They're athletic. Chance King. Cannon King," King said. "And they're two different people. Chance is cerebral. Cannon is show business. Like for example, we train 'em not to talk to strangers, right? Chance would never talk to a stranger. Cannon, in the car, goodbye. Cannon, you'd have to build a wall around. Goodbye. Chance, never."

King's children have grown up much differently than he did. They live in Beverly Hills and enjoy many luxuries.

"They're into baseball, but they sit behind the dugout," King said. "I don't know what to do with the kind of life they have. People say don't spoil them. I don't know what to do not to spoil them...I don't know what to do. I don't because they have this blessing of a life. I think they sense it. They're good kids. They're well mannered kids, but it's got to have a long term effect."

But there's another long-term effect king would love to protect his boys from: the devastation he felt as a boy when his father died. Since 1987 when king had a heart attack and bypass surgery, he has stopped smoking, works out every morning, and eats a heart-healthy diet. Today, he says he's grateful for the joy in his personal life and he loves work as much as ever. And that, he says, is never going to change.

"Yeah, you worry," King said. "I'm gonna be 73. I'm signed through 2009. I'd like to stay on a lot longer than that. Hope I can. It still is a lot of fun. It beats work. Beats work."