Larry King at home on his CNN Set

Yes, it’s the 19th of November and my head flashes back to the fact that during the course of the forties and fifties, thousands of New York City kids hung out on the sidewalks near their homes around the corner!

One man used to mention that, often and frequently, on his coast-to-coast, late-night talk show. One of those kids was Larry Zeiger of Brooklyn, who came to be known to many Americans as Larry King of radio and television talk show fame!

Like Larry, I too had a favorite or two hang out spots on my native turf of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It was right near 93rd and Lexington and if the then-pavement picked up the regular footprints of long ago, mine would be there.

Larry and I never met, never even had an unexpected telephone conversation. The common thread for us was the broadcast industry and like many others, I became a fan of Larry’s after his work resulted in his leaving his 21-year home of Miami in favor of Washington, DC, where he was recruited by Mutual Radio for an overnight talk show.

Roughly seven years later in 1985, Ted Turner wanted to have him on CNN in prime-time with famous guests five nights a week. It made for long nights, alright, but Larry did it starting at 9 in the evening Eastern time on television, and finishing up at 5 in the AM following SIX hours of network talk radio! By my count, he did that for about 9 years until 1994.

But, as for “Larry King LIVE” on CNN, that turned out to be one for the cable history books, 25 years with the same host on the same network and in the same time slot!

I mention all of this now because nearly four years after his death, this would have been Larry King’s 91st birthday!!

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Article contributed by Bob Gibson