Salon.com > Larry King http://www.salon.com Mon, 28 May 2012 15:05:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Is Larry King joining The Daily Show? http://www.salon.com/2011/03/14/larry_king_daily_show_rumor/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/14/larry_king_daily_show_rumor/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:58:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2011/03/14/larry_king_daily_show_rumor Who would've thought that Larry King's post-CNN career would involve much more than a golf course and some guest lectures? The notoriously dry septuagenarian already raised eyebrows when he announced that he would embark on a comedy tour in April. Now, a new rumor circulating the Internet is even more bizarre: Larry King is in talks to join up with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

We'll reiterate that this is a rumor. No one has come forward to confirm yet, but the New York Post has several anonymous sources vouching for the news. According to one such tipster:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/14/larry_king_daily_show_rumor/feed/ 0 Larry King’s memorable moments http://www.salon.com/2010/06/30/larry_king_best_celebrity_interviews/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/30/larry_king_best_celebrity_interviews/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:31:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/2010/06/30/larry_king_best_celebrity_interviews Say what you will about Larry King -- and there's plenty to talk about -- there's nobody else like him. That's why, when the star of CNN's nightly live talk show since the dawn of the cathode ray announced Tuesday that he was stepping down, the ensuing torrent of speculation over who would replace him seemed a bit absurd. Joy Behar? Ryan Seacrest? (Whenever there's an empty chair anywhere in the world, Ryan Seacrest's ass gets a shot at warming it.) As if.

Soon, it's true, someone else will have that coveted cable time slot. But no one will ever make a celebrity -- and the viewing audience -- head-scratch and squirm in quite the same way King does. With his unique blend of gruffness, softballing and baffling non sequiturs, he's consistently managed to perplex his guests right into revealing their own hubris, insanity and creepiness. And whether you think that's cause for goodbye or good riddance, you've got to admit, he's given us some awesome water-cooler moments. Try that, Seacrest.

Carrie Prejean

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/30/larry_king_best_celebrity_interviews/feed/ 10 When Larry King ruled politics http://www.salon.com/2010/06/29/larry_king_retire/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/29/larry_king_retire/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/06/29/larry_king_retire Larry King, as you might have already seen, just announced that he'll give up his nightly CNN show this fall, putting an end to months -- years, really -- of speculation over when (and how) the broadcasting legend would make his exit.

The move, of course, feels long overdue. King has been eclipsed in the ratings by shows on cable channels that didn't even exist when he began at CNN, and his style seems positively archaic. But while you'd never know it if you were introduced to his show this century -- when a typical political discussion would involve Ben Stein, James Carville and a formulaic talk radio host or two -- there was actually a time not too long ago when Larry King drove the national political conversation.

His show began on CNN in 1985, five years after Ted Turner christened "the news channel," and long before the births of Fox News and MSNBC. King was an instant hit, but -- at least in terms of politics -- his transformative moment didn't come until Thursday, Feb. 20, 1992. Politics was in the air: Two nights earlier, Paul Tsongas had held off Bill Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, leaving the Democratic presidential race unsettled. On the Republican side, a suddenly vulnerable George H.W. Bush had been humbled by Pat Buchanan's strong showing (nearly 40 percent of the vote). The country was restive, thanks to a stubborn recession, and none of the candidates seemed to be catching on.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/29/larry_king_retire/feed/ 10 Larry King’s wife recovering from drug overdose http://www.salon.com/2010/06/09/larry_king_wife/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/09/larry_king_wife/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/2010/06/09/larry_king_wife Larry King’s wife is recovering from a prescription drug overdose last month, and news is circulating that it was suicide.

AP reports that after receiving a 911 call from Shawn King’s father, emergency medical workers found empty anti-anxiety medication bottles that she had reportedly gotten filled only 10 days earlier. Police also found a note saying she had taken the pills on purpose and one saying she wanted to be buried in Utah, her home.

Shawn is Larry King’s seventh wife and soon to be ex. The couple filed for divorce in April, after 13 years of marriage.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/09/larry_king_wife/feed/ 0 Laura Bush: More interesting than her husband http://www.salon.com/2010/05/12/laura_bush_on_larry_king/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/12/laura_bush_on_larry_king/#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 19:27:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2010/05/12/laura_bush_on_larry_king I don't know how I wound up with a curiosity about Laura Bush, a figure I would otherwise not have spent much time considering. Maybe it was when I saw Tony Kushner's 2003 play "Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy," in which the "Angels in America" playwright depicted the Dostoevski-loving former first lady reading to a group of dead Iraqi children, an angel telling them, "Mrs. Bush is explaining why you are dead, and in addition to being married to the President of the United States she is also a smart lady, she was a librarian!"

Maybe I became intrigued after reading "American Wife," Curtis Sittenfeld's thinly veiled novel that imagines the life of a smart young woman from West Texas whose early path, marred by a tragic and deadly car accident, leads eventually to her marriage to an improbable president.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/05/12/laura_bush_on_larry_king/feed/ 40 CNN host Larry King, 7th wife file for divorce http://www.salon.com/2010/04/15/us_people_larry_king_divorce_1/ http://www.salon.com/2010/04/15/us_people_larry_king_divorce_1/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:42:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/2010/04/15/us_people_larry_king_divorce_1 Larry King filed for divorce on Wednesday shortly before his seventh wife also sought to end the couple's nearly 13-year-old marriage. The 76-year-old host of CNN's "Larry King Live" filed hours before Shawn King filed her own petition. Both cited "irreconcilable differences."

The couple were married in a hospital room in 1997 three days before Larry King underwent surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel. They have two sons, ages 11 and 9. The petitions differ in that Larry King is seeking joint custody, while his 50-year-old wife wants physical custody.

Larry King is also asking a judge not to award his wife any spousal support and to invalidate an agreement in which he transferred property to her, court records show.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/04/15/us_people_larry_king_divorce_1/feed/ 3 What did Larry King’s audience do to deserve this? http://www.salon.com/2009/11/04/larry_king/ http://www.salon.com/2009/11/04/larry_king/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2009/11/03/larry_king As a general rule, I try to avoid cable news at all costs -- watching it is often just too painful. But Election Night is one of those times when, like some horrible thing out of "A Clockwork Orange," I'm forced to watch. Tuesday night has, so far, been every bit as bad as I imagined.

True story, could not make this up: CNN's Larry King, just a few minutes ago, had a special panel on to discuss election results. The panel consisted of -- and I want to stress again that I could not possibly make this up -- former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, former game show host and Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein and, as a topper, James Carville.

I've had nightmares that now, by comparison, seem like a trip to some wonderful island paradise where the free piña coladas never stop flowing.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/11/04/larry_king/feed/ 12 Chris Brown still doesn’t get it http://www.salon.com/2009/09/03/chris_brown_larry_king/ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/03/chris_brown_larry_king/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2009/09/03/chris_brown_larry_king

CNN

Chris Brown on "Larry King Live."

Chris Brown does not do penance well. On “Larry King Live” last night, the superstar singer, better known lately as the guy who beat up Rihanna, appeared eminently uncomfortable in his new self-appointed job of “role model.” Clad in that baby blue V-neck sweater and matching bow tie and flanked by his mother and his attorney, celebrity ambulance chaser Mark Geragos, he looked more like a Care Bear than a convicted domestic abuser.

Throughout the entire hour -- a 30-second teaser of which leaked on Monday -- Brown remained soft-spoken and polite, mumbling terse replies and staunchly refusing all inquiries into the specifics of what happened that night last February with Rihanna. That gambit -- like his cuddly ensemble -- was a clever way of assuring that America never got a glimpse of the young man who used his girlfriend’s face as a punching bag. What, after all, would be the payoff for him in saying what led up to the violence? What could he possibly say that wouldn’t sound like a “she was asking for it” rationalization?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/09/03/chris_brown_larry_king/feed/ 33 Phillip Garrido, wolf at the door http://www.salon.com/2009/09/01/garrido/ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/01/garrido/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:02:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2009/09/01/garrido The story of Phillip Garrido has grown steadily darker and more disturbing from the moment a young woman was identified last week as Jaycee Lee Dugard, snatched from a South Lake Tahoe street in 1991 when she was just 11 years old.

With each new nightmarish revelation about her alleged abductor Garrido -- who, along with his wife Nancy, is now charged with 29 felony counts including rape, kidnapping and false imprisonment -- one chilling question keeps cropping up: Why is it so hard to recognize a demon when we see one?

Last night on "Larry King Live," Katherine Callaway Hall, who was kidnapped and raped by Garrido in 1976, recounted her own ordeal with Garrido in harrowing detail. (See video clip below.) He eventually served 11 years for his crime. (Hall also says she believes he approached her at her work “in a threatening manner” soon after he had been paroled.)

She was 25 when he knocked on her car window at a California supermarket, claiming automobile trouble. He asked her for a ride and she obliged. She says now, “It was the worst decision I ever made.” When she pulled over, “He slammed my head against the steering wheel,” handcuffed her, led her to a mini warehouse in a desolate area and raped her repeatedly over an eight-hour period.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/09/01/garrido/feed/ 81 Levi Johnston on “Larry King Live” http://www.salon.com/2009/04/23/levi_larry/ http://www.salon.com/2009/04/23/levi_larry/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:29:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2009/04/23/levi_larry "You're not doing interviews like this. Why?" Larry King asked Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's ex-fiancé and baby daddy, in the first minutes of his show Wednesday night. Perhaps Larry meant that Johnston wasn't doing any more interviews like this. Or perhaps he meant that Johnston wasn't doing interviews like this, wherein he sat across from a man who had recently emerged from a cryogenic chamber with a blinking map of the world in the background. But obviously, Johnston has been doing interviews, and they've mostly resembled this one: First on "The Tyra Banks Show," which prompted a fierce response from Sarah Palin, who called his answers on the show "flat-out lies," and then on the CBS' "Early Show." It's true, the Johnston clan has taken a break from the media but clearly they were waiting for bigger game, and it had finally arrived: Wednesday night prime time with the big man on CNN.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/04/23/levi_larry/feed/ 43 Screw all this, I’m marrying a flatworm http://www.salon.com/2008/03/19/on_monogamy/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/19/on_monogamy/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2008/03/19/on_monogamy The other day, for lack of a hairshirt to wear, I watched Larry King. "Why do men cheat?" he barked at the camera, shifting back and forth in his chair. (This was not the Larry King segment previously blogged about on Broadsheet, in which Dr. Laura blathered on about why Silda drove Eliot to sleep with prostitutes. This was another Larry King segment. Have you ever noticed that, at any given moment, there are approximately 100 percent more Larry King shows than there should be?)

Anyway, a caller buzzed in with an important question. "Yes, uh, I'd like to hear from your panel why women cheat."

Aggh. I'm sorry, what I mean is: Agggggggggggh. I'm tired of the "why do spouses cheat" stories. It's depressing. It's facile. I want to throw the remote at the television. I want to shred up the papers. And yet, I cannot stop watching. I sat there, and watched the damn thing, because the truth is that I am dying to know the reason why spouses cheat, and if I could somehow divine that wisdom from a Larry King show, that would be gangbusters.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/19/on_monogamy/feed/ 26 William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008 http://www.salon.com/2008/02/28/william_f_buckley/ http://www.salon.com/2008/02/28/william_f_buckley/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:55:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2008/02/28/william_f_buckley Mike Wallace, broadcast journalist: Cold War prescription

There were new voices being heard on the political landscape in the mid-fifties, and "Night Beat" tuned in on them ... One such guest was an erudite and self-assured young man named William F. Buckley, then just emerging as the most engaging spokesman for the conservative cause. In those days as now, the overriding foreign policy concern was the aggressive designs of the Soviet Union, and I asked Buckley what steps we should take to gain the upper hand in what was still known as the Cold War:

BUCKLEY: By accepting certain goals and preparing for those goals irrespective of the cost. To list a simple program: Liberate Albania. Unification of Korea, Extirpation of Communist influence in Syria. Unification of Germany. (New York)

From "Close Encounters: Mike Wallace's Own Story," by Mike Wallace and Gary Paul Gates (William Morrow, 1984)

Irv Kupcinet, columnist and broadcaster: Wonderful guest

There were innumerable great arguments on the show ["Kup's Show"].

William Buckley would argue about anything with anybody. I seldom agreed with him, but he was always a wonderful guest and I'm frankly proud that we were the first to invite him on this kind of show when he was just starting his National Review. (Chicago, 1955)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/02/28/william_f_buckley/feed/ 14 “Dearly beloved Bushes” http://www.salon.com/2007/04/24/bush_355/ http://www.salon.com/2007/04/24/bush_355/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/04/24/bush George H.W. Bush tells Larry King why Jeb Bush shouldn't make a run for the White House in 2008: "There might be a little Bush fatigue now."

Larry King tells the former president and his wife -- the "dearly beloved Bushes," he calls them -- that "every American would say we sorely miss having you daily on the scene."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/04/24/bush_355/feed/ 19 Laura on Larry http://www.salon.com/2007/03/01/first_lady_one_bombing/ http://www.salon.com/2007/03/01/first_lady_one_bombing/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:48:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/video_dog/comedy/2007/03/01/first_lady_one_bombing Tuesday's "Daily Show" ran a clip of one particularly notable moment from the first lady's recent gab with CNN's Mr. Larry King, and Jon Stewart gives it the commentary it so justly deserves. "That one pesky, daily explosion!" he rephrases Mrs. Bush's take on Iraq, "it's so discouraging to see that on TV." When put that way, it almost seems like the president's wife doesn't even have a remote grasp of what's going on over there.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/03/01/first_lady_one_bombing/feed/ 2 Rosie Trumps the Donald http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/ http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/#comments Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2006/12/22/rosie I don't apologize for loving the pop-culture innovations of the 1990s, reality TV and fake news. Every once in a while, though, the odd blend of celebrity worship and irony can make you feel a little sick, the way I did watching my beloved Stephen Colbert ham it up with Henry Kissinger on Wednesday night. Sure, it was funny, but blech.

We can also blame reality TV for making Donald Trump just a cool Cheeto-haired rich guy to a new generation who watched "The Apprentice," instead of the vain, greedy, loathsome laughingstock we learned to laugh at when he was regularly featured as a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy Magazine, the 1980s answer to "The Daily Show." Sadly, even Spy's (and Inside's and New York's) Kurt Andersen is glad he left his surly ways behind, telling an interviewer just this week that there was always "joy," never "anger" behind the often vicious if hilarious satire of Spy. I don't think he ever read it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/feed/ 134 We hate to watch http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/i_hate_to_watch/ http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/i_hate_to_watch/#comments Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2006/08/22/i_hate_to_watch We love television, and we thrill when the great shows of the day reach dizzying new heights in storytelling and performance. Which is why we reserve a special place of scorn for those that disappoint us. This year, we've singled out six shows that deserve to be tuned out, unplugged and remaindered to the outer reaches of cable rerun purgatory for good. Here are the nominees, and our reasons why:

"24": Time's up
The dismal, humorless world of Jack Bauer has us rooting for the terrorists.
By Laura Miller

"The O.C.": Into the sunset
A soap with a life span as long as a teen romance.
By Michael Scherer

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/i_hate_to_watch/feed/ 35 Dethroned http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/larry_king_2/ http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/larry_king_2/#comments Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2006/08/22/larry_king Larry King bugs the crap out of me. Look, I don't feel great about proclaiming that. In all honesty, it feels a little like beating up somebody's grandmother. But then again, nobody's grandmother I know appears before a Lite-Brite and roughly 1 million viewers every night asking interesting people the most banal questions imaginable -- and often appearing to read those questions off a card.

But Larry gets the viewers -- he's the top-rated show on CNN. Why? Because Larry gets the guests. And why does Larry get the guests? Well, because Larry gets the viewers ... Lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course the other reason guests go on King's show is those banal questions. Whether a guest is flogging a forthcoming movie, airing a few carefully chosen words about a divorce, defending himself in the face of a potentially career-ruining scandal or just trying to sell a war to the American people, he can be sure that Larry will keep him squarely in his comfort zone. (Heck, a guest in real trouble can even bring his mommy along.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/08/22/larry_king_2/feed/ 14 My friend Larry http://www.salon.com/2006/01/12/frey_6/ http://www.salon.com/2006/01/12/frey_6/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2006 14:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/video_dog/media/2006/01/12/frey What more do we know about James Frey after his Wednesday appearance on "Larry King Live"? Should we feel that the heaping shame dumped on him over allegations that much of his Oprah-fueled, bestselling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," were invented is justified? Do we -- or the million-plus readers who purchased the book -- have any greater understanding of what is true in the book? Look, there's a reason public figures under fire choose to go on Larry King's show, and it's because he offers a large platform for them to deliver -- virtually unfettered -- publicist-approved talking points. Last night, that meant no answers to the larger questions raised by the Smoking Gun investigation into Frey's book: 1) How true is the rest of the memoir aside from the crucial setup information that's largely been debunked -- like, what really happened to Lilly, his ill-fated girlfriend (did she even exist?); and 2) How seriously should we take his claim that he kicked his drug and alcohol habits without the help of the traditional 12-step programs, which he controversially disdains? King, naturally, never went there, offering only the occasional non sequitur and letting Frey stay on his relatively few talking points (see below -- can you guess which ones they were?) and presenting an unreflective hour that genuinely left us with no more "essential truths," as Frey might say, than we started with.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/01/12/frey_6/feed/ 2 King’s courtiers http://www.salon.com/2004/11/16/larry_2/ http://www.salon.com/2004/11/16/larry_2/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2004/11/16/larry The verdict is in. No, we're not talking about the jury's guilty finding in People vs. Scott Peterson. We're talking about the real showdown -- the fiery battles that take place among the legal-panel members on CNN's "Larry King Live," who reliably tear each other up over the big trial of the moment.

The California trial of Peterson -- convicted Friday of killing his eight-months-pregnant wife, Laci, and the couple's unborn son -- was a Larry King staple for much of the year. For help in understanding the case, King turned to former prosecutor Nancy Grace and defense lawyer Chris Pixley. But King's connections to the case were much deeper: Regular panelist Mark Geragos couldn't appear with much frequency (especially after the judge insisted on it) because he was Peterson's lead attorney. However, Peterson's "other woman," the evocatively named Amber Frey, was represented by King favorite Gloria Allred, a "victims'-rights advocate" -- who continued to appear regularly on "Larry King Live" throughout the case.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/11/16/larry_2/feed/ 0 Michael Savage’s long, strange trip http://www.salon.com/2003/03/05/savage_11/ http://www.salon.com/2003/03/05/savage_11/#comments Wed, 05 Mar 2003 22:18:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/05/savage At first glance, Michael Alan Weiner seems like an improbable candidate to be America's angriest, most vicious conservative radio host. Born 60 years ago in the Bronx, Weiner has lived in Northern California for most of his adult life, making a living as an herbalist and nutritionist. He communed with Fijian traditional healers, got married in a rain forest and studied ethno-medicine at the University of California at Berkeley. He swam naked with Allen Ginsberg, dreamed of being the next Lenny Bruce and wrote a rambling novel about a half-mad alter ego. His son's middle name is Goldencloud. For years, he made a name cranking out a pile of books on alternative medicine, recommending bizarre remedies such as using vitamin C to stop AIDS and kicking cocaine with coffee enemas.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2003/03/05/savage_11/feed/ 0