“Larry The King” has retired from television

The legend of CNN television, Larry King has retired a few days ago after 25 years of activity. The show “Larry King Live”, started in 1985, has gathered year after year millions of viewers and has been declared the CNN’s most watched talk show.

On Tuesday, 16 December 2010, the broadcaster, well known for his famous suspenders, announced live that “the time to hang his suspenders has arrived”. This moment was followed by a touching, last show, in which the journalist of 77 years old, received regards from numerous celebrities and broadcasters and recorded messages from the president Barak Obama and from the ex-president Bill Clinton. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, enacted the day of 16 December “The Larry King Day”, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, named him “Larry The King”, and the singer Tony Bennett sang for him live from San Francisco the classic “The best is yet to come”. During the show his two sons and his wife were also present. The comedian Fred Armisen took for a few minutes the legendary broadcaster’s place and interviewed Larry King, the celebrity. At the end of the show Larry King stated: “It’s not very often in my life that I’ve been without words. I want to thank all the people who were involved in this show. When I started 25 years ago in a little studio in Washington, D.C., I never thought it would last this long or come to this.” Recently added to Guinness Book of World Records, for the longest-running show with the same host in the same time slot, “Larry King Live” reached the number of 7000 shows. The guests of the show varied from presidents (Larry King had as guests all the American presidents from Gerald Ford to Barak Obama), to the founder of the Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, even the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. If in 1993 when the old Larry had the ex-vice-president Al Gore as guest, 20 million people watched his show, the audience decreased a lot during the last years reaching at only 7000 viewers. Despite of the fact, the separation of CNN produced itself in a natural way because as the journalist said “he felt the need to quite”. About his show the critics always said that is far too “soft”, but every time King reminded them that his interviews contain less journalism and more infotainment. About the broadcast that will take “Larry King’s Live” place a series of rumors have been heard, but it seems like the most credible is a show made by Piers Morgan, member of “Britain’s got talent” jury and participant at “The Apprentice”, show hosted by Donald Trump.

Regarding the personal life of the television man, Larry King, things don’t look that good like in his career. The journalist was married seven times and in April this year, King was close to another divorce. Both his new wife and him changed their minds and decided they will remain together for their kid’s happiness. In May the journalist’s wife tried to commit suicide.

Despite of his personal problems, that weren’t at all neglected by the press, Larry King managed to gain a place between all the celebrity and false celebrity of the moment, kept it for over 25 years and will be remembered many years ahead. This thought sends us to our Romanian broadcasters. How many of them managed to make a television show for 25 years, daily? How many of them can brag about guests from all sorts of areas? It’s true that there were attempts to make a “Larry King” show (remember Marius Tuca Show and Chestiunea Zilei) but even though they had potential the shows remained at the “failed copy” phase and slowly disappeared.

But even if we can’t brag about longeval broadcasts, worthy of Guinness Book of World Records, we can take the best from the bests, and Larry King, “one of the few journalists who never cut off his guests”, is definitely one of them.