Larry King, broadcasting giant for half-century, dies at 87
Los Angeles: Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Saturday. He was 87.
King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, tweeted. No cause of death was given, but CNN reported January 2 that King had been hospitalised for more than a week with COVID-19.
A longtime nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honors, including two Peabody awards.
With his celebrity interviews, political debates and topical discussions, King wasn't just an enduring on-air personality. He also set himself apart with the curiosity be brought to every interview, whether questioning the assault victim known as the Central Park jogger or billionaire industrialist Ross Perot, who in 1992 rocked the presidential contest by announcing his candidacy on King's show.
In its early years, Larry King Live was based in Washington, which gave the show an air of gravitas. Likewise King. He was the plainspoken go-between through whom Beltway bigwigs could reach their public, and they did, earning the show prestige as a place where things happened, where news was made.
King conducted an estimated 50,000 on-air interviews. In 1995 he presided over a Middle East peace summit with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He welcomed everyone from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama, Bill Gates to Lady Gaga.
Especially after he relocated to Los Angeles, his shows were frequently in the thick of breaking celebrity news, including Paris Hilton talking about her stint in jail in 2007 and Michael Jackson's friends and family members talking about his death in 2009.
King boasted of never overpreparing for an interview. His nonconfrontational style relaxed his guests and made him readily relatable to his audience.
I don't pretend to know it all, he said in a 1995 Associated Press interview. Not, `What about Geneva or Cuba?' I ask, `Mr. President, what don't you like about this job?' Or `What's the biggest mistake you made?' That's fascinating.
At a time when CNN as the lone player in cable news was deemed politically neutral, and King was the essence of its middle-of-the-road stance, political figures and people at the center of controversies would seek out his show.
And he was known for getting guests who were notoriously elusive. Frank Sinatra, who rarely gave interviews and often lashed out at reporters, spoke to King in 1988 in what would be the singer's last major TV appearance.
Sinatra was an old friend of King's and acted accordingly.
Why are you here? King asks. Sinatra responds, Because you asked me to come and I hadn't seen you in a long time to begin with, I thought we ought to get together and chat, just talk about a lot of things.
King had never met Marlon Brando, who was even tougher to get and tougher to interview, when the acting giant asked to appear on King's show in 1994. The two hit it off so famously they ended their 90-minute talk with a song and an on-the-mouth kiss, an image that was all over media in subsequent weeks.
After a gala week marking his 25th anniversary in June 2010, King abruptly announced he was retiring from his show, telling viewers, It's time to hang up my nightly suspenders. Named as his successor in the time slot: British journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan.
By King's departure that December, suspicion had grown that he had waited a little too long to hang up those suspenders. Once the leader in cable TV news, he ranked third in his time slot with less than half the nightly audience his peak year, 1998, when Larry King Live drew 1.64 million viewers.
His wide-eyed, regular-guy approach to interviewing by then felt dated in an era of edgy, pushy or loaded questioning by other hosts.
Meanwhile, occasional flubs had made him seem out of touch, or worse. A prime example from 2007 found King asking Jerry Seinfeld if he had voluntarily left his sitcom or been canceled by his network, NBC.
I was the No. 1 show in television, Larry, replied Seinfeld with a flabbergasted look. Do you know who I am?
Always a workaholic, King would be back doing specials for CNN within a few months of performing his nightly duties.
He found a new sort of celebrity as a plainspoken natural on Twitter when the platform emerged, winning over more than 2 million followers who simultaneously mocked and loved him for his esoteric style.
I've never been in a canoe. #Itsmy2cents, he said in a typical tweet in 2015.
His Twitter account was essentially a revival of a USA Today column he wrote for two decades full of one-off, disjointed thoughts. Norm Macdonald delivered a parody version of the column when he played King on Saturday Night Live, with deadpan lines like, The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the equator.
King was constantly parodied, often through old-age jokes on late-night talk shows from hosts including David Letterman and Conan O'Brien, often appearing with the latter to get in on the roasting himself.
He was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in 1933, a son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who ran a bar and grill in Brooklyn. But after his father's death when Larry was a boy, he faced a troubled, sometimes destitute youth.
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ED arrests Sandeepa Virk, 'cosmetologist' for alleged money laundering
New Delhi, Aug 13 (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate said on Wednesday it has arrested a woman, who claims to be an actor and a cosmetologist, under the anti-money laundering law in a case of alleged fraud and misrepresentation.
The agency said the purported links of the woman, Sandeepa Virk, with a Reliance Group executive, Angarai Natarajan Sethuraman (President, Corporate Affairs), are also under its scanner. Sethuraman, in a statement, denied any connection with Virk or any transactions related to her.
Virk was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Tuesday after searches were conducted against her and her associates in Delhi and Mumbai over the last two days.
A special court sent her to the ED's custody till August 14, the agency said. The woman claims to be the owner of a skin care products selling website named hyboocare.com, which the ED claimed was a "front" for money laundering.
She and her associates are being probed for allegedly exerting undue influence through "misrepresentation" and "defrauding" individuals by soliciting money under false pretences.
According to an Instagram ID of Virk, she is an actor and entrepreneur and the founder of the said website.
The federal agency said in a statement that the woman was also "in touch with" Sethuraman, former director of erstwhile Reliance Capital Limited.
She was communicating with him regarding "illegal liaisoning", the ED claimed, adding that the searches at Sethuraman's residence "confirmed" these allegations.
"Besides, diversion of funds for personal benefit has also been unearthed during the course of the search action," it said.
The ED alleged that public money worth about Rs 18 crore belonging to Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) was disbursed to Sethuraman in 2018 by "flouting" prudent lending norms.
The funds were lent under terms that allowed a deferment of the principal amount as well as the interest, with multiple waivers granted and no due diligence conducted, it said.
The ED claimed that besides this, a home loan of Rs 22 crore was provided by Reliance Capital Limited by "violating" the prudential norms. "A large part of these loans are seen to have been eventually siphoned off and remained unpaid," it alleged.
Sethuraman, in a statement, dismissed the allegations as "baseless". He denied any connection with Virk or any transactions related to her.
Detailing about Virk's web portal, the agency said it purportedly sold FDA-approved beauty products. However, the ED said the products listed on the website have been found to be non-existent and the portal lacks a user registration option and is plagued by persistent payment gateway issues.
A scrutiny of the website uncovered minimal social-media engagement, an inactive WhatsApp contact number and an absence of transparent organisational details, all of which reinforce the finding of "non-genuine" commercial activity, the ED claimed.
"These factors, including limited product range, inflated pricing, false claims of FDA approval and technical inconsistencies, indicate that the website serves as a front for laundering funds," it said.
Another social media-hosted bio data of the woman said she is a certified cosmetologist.
The ED said several "incriminating" documents were seized during the searches and the statement of a man named Farrukh Ali, stated to be an associate of Virk, was recorded.
The money-laundering case stems from an FIR lodged by the Punjab Police.
Sethuraman said that the home loan he received from Reliance Capital was granted following due process and was secured by the property offered as collateral.
