Iconic TV and Radio Interviewer Larry King Dead at 87

Larry King speaks at ceremonies unveiling comedian Bill Maher's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, Sept. 14, 2010. (Reuters)
Larry King speaks at ceremonies unveiling comedian Bill Maher's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, Sept. 14, 2010. (Reuters)
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Iconic TV and Radio Interviewer Larry King Dead at 87

Larry King speaks at ceremonies unveiling comedian Bill Maher's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, Sept. 14, 2010. (Reuters)
Larry King speaks at ceremonies unveiling comedian Bill Maher's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, Sept. 14, 2010. (Reuters)

Larry King, who quizzed thousands of world leaders, politicians and entertainers for CNN and other news outlets in a career spanning more than six decades, has died aged 87, his media company said in a statement on Saturday.

King had been hospitalized in Los Angeles with a COVID-19 infection, according to several media reports. He died at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Ora Media, a television production company founded by King, said in a post on Twitter.

“For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster,” it said.

Millions watched King interview world leaders, entertainers and other celebrities on CNN’s “Larry King Live”, which ran from 1985 to 2010. Hunched over his desk in rolled-up shirt sleeves and owlish glasses, he made his show one of the network’s prime attractions with a mix of interviews, political discussions, current event debates and phone calls from viewers.

Even in his heyday, critics accused King of doing little pre-interview research and tossing softball questions to guests who were free to give unchallenged, self-promoting answers. He responded by conceding he did not do much research so that he could learn along with his viewers. Besides, King said, he never wanted to be perceived as a journalist.

“My duty, as I see it, is I’m a conduit,” King told the Hartford Courant in 2007. “I ask the best questions I can. I listen to the answers. I try to follow up. And hopefully the audience makes a conclusion. I’m not there to make a conclusion. I’m not a soapbox talk-show host... So what I try to do is present someone in the best light.”

Presidents and prime ministers
King’s guests included US presidents dating back to Gerald Ford, international leaders such as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and entertainers ranging from Bob Hope to Snoop Dogg.

King never hid his old-fashioned proclivities and liked to reminisce about performers such as Frank Sinatra and Arthur Godfrey. In 2006 he admitted to a guest that he had never searched the internet, saying: “What do you do - punch little buttons and things?”

But by 2012 King was on the internet himself with his “Larry King Now” show on Ora TV, and later Hulu’s streaming service. He also was a regular presence on Twitter, promoting his interviews and tossing out random thoughts - “I have no desire to eat an artichoke,” “My favorite flavor of Jell-O is lime” and “I love to say ‘sacre bleu!’” - in what was essentially an online version of the column he had once written for USA Today.

King was an established radio talk-show host when he made his first television broadcast for CNN from Washington on June 3, 1985, five years after Ted Turner started the network.

“Larry King Live” would become one of CNN’s highest rated shows. He left CNN amid falling ratings in 2010 after 25 years with the news network, but stayed busy with his Ora TV show.

“I’ve known a lot of people who were experts in six or 12 things but Larry seems to be an expert in everything,” Don Hewitt, creator of “60 Minutes”, told the Hollywood Reporter. “He’s also never confrontational, which is majorly important. In an age when so many people are miserable, he seems to be one of the happy ones.”

Miami radio beginnings
King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on Nov. 19, 1933, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. He said at age 5 he knew he wanted to be on the radio and in 1957 he moved to Miami, which he had been told had a burgeoning radio market.

King started doing odd jobs at a Miami station and one day was asked to fill in for an announcer who walked off the job. Before he went on the air, the station manager urged him to change his last name to King because it was easier to pronounce and less ethnic than Zeiger.

King became a fixture in Miami but as his reputation grew, so did his troubles.

In 1971 he was arrested on a grand larceny complaint filed by Miami financier Lou Wolfson, who had been in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Wolfson allegedly paid King in hopes of gaining influence on the administration of then-US President Richard Nixon.

The charge against King was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired, but the scandal knocked him off the air for some three years. He did public relations work for a Louisiana racetrack until station WIOD in Miami hired him.

King rebounded and the Mutual radio network gave him a nationwide audience in 1978. He relocated to Washington, a move that led to the CNN job.

He suffered a heart attack and had bypass surgery in 1987, prompting him to start the Larry King Cardiac Foundation a year later. He had surgery in 2007 to clear a blocked artery, was treated for prostate cancer in 2010 and said in 2017 that he had been treated for lung cancer.

King was married eight times to seven women, most recently to singer Shawn Southwick, who was 26 years younger. He had five children, two of whom died in 2020.



Auction House to Sell Gene Hackman’s Golden Globes, Watch and Paintings He Collected and Created 

Gene Hackman accepts his Oscar for best actor at the 44th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, April 10, 1972. (AP) 
Gene Hackman accepts his Oscar for best actor at the 44th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, April 10, 1972. (AP) 
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Auction House to Sell Gene Hackman’s Golden Globes, Watch and Paintings He Collected and Created 

Gene Hackman accepts his Oscar for best actor at the 44th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, April 10, 1972. (AP) 
Gene Hackman accepts his Oscar for best actor at the 44th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, April 10, 1972. (AP) 

An auction house plans to sell off a variety of actor Gene Hackman’s possessions in November, including Golden Globe statues, a wristwatch and paintings he collected and created himself.

Hackman died at age 95 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after transitioning from an Oscar-winning career in film to a life in retirement of painting, writing novels and collecting.

Auction items include a still-life painting of a Japanese vase by Hackman and Golden Globe awards from roles in “Unforgiven” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.” There are annotated books from Hackman's library, scripts, posters, movie memorabilia and high-brow art including a bronze statue by Auguste Rodin and a 1957 oil painting from modernist Milton Avery.

Anna Hicks of Bonhams international auction house said the sales “offer an intimate portrait of Hackman’s private world.”

Listings start as low as $100 for Hackman's everyman Winmau dart board or $600 for a shot at his Seiko diver's wristwatch.

The catalog includes a likeness of Hackman from portrait artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, who painted US presidents and drew for comic books.

Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead inside their home on Feb. 26, sending shock waves through a high-desert city refuge for famous actors and authors seeking to escape the spotlight.

Authorities determined that Hackman died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease about a week after Arakawa, 65, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal disease spread by the droppings of infected rodents.

Hackman made his film debut in 1961's “Mad Dog Coll” and went on to appear in a range of movie roles, including as “Superman” villain Lex Luthor and as a basketball coach finding redemption in the sentimental favorite “Hoosiers.” He was a five-time Oscar nominee who won best actor in a leading role for “The French Connection” in 1972 and best actor in a supporting role for “Unforgiven” two decades later.

He retired from acting in the early 2000s.


Sundance Film Festival Reveals Details about Robert Redford Tributes and Legacy Screenings

The marquee of the Egyptian Theatre appears during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 28, 2020. (AP)
The marquee of the Egyptian Theatre appears during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 28, 2020. (AP)
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Sundance Film Festival Reveals Details about Robert Redford Tributes and Legacy Screenings

The marquee of the Egyptian Theatre appears during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 28, 2020. (AP)
The marquee of the Egyptian Theatre appears during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 28, 2020. (AP)

Robert Redford’s legacy and mission was always going to be a key component of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which will be the last of its kind in Park City, Utah. But in the wake of his death in September at age 89, those ideas took on a new significance.

This January, the institute that Redford founded over 40 years ago, plans to honor his career and impact with and a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama “Downhill Racer,” and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from “Little Miss Sunshine” to “House Party,” festival organizers said Tuesday.

“As we were thinking about how best to honor Mr. Redford’s legacy, it’s not only carrying forward this notion of ‘everyone has a story’ but it’s also getting together in a movie theater and watching a film that really embodies that independent spirit,” festival director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press. “We’ve had some incredible artists reach out to us, even in the past few weeks since Mr. Redford’s passing, who just want to be part of this year’s festival.”

Archival screenings will include “Saw,” “Mysterious Skin” and “House Party,” as well as the 35th anniversary of Barbara Kopple’s documentary “American Dream,” and 20th anniversaries of “Half Nelson” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” with some of the filmmakers expected to attend as well.

“Over the almost 30 years of Sundance Institute’s collaboration with our partner, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, we’ve not only worked to ensure that the Festival’s legacy endures through film preservation, but we’ve seen that output feed an astonishing resurgence of repertory cinema programming across the country,” said festival programmer John Nein.

“The films we’ve preserved and the newly restored films screening at this year’s festival, including some big anniversaries, are an important way to keep the independent stories from years past alive in our culture today.”

Tickets for the 2026 festival, which runs from Jan. 22 through Feb. 1, go on sale Wednesday at noon Eastern, with online and in person options. Some planning is also already underway for the festival’s new home in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027, but programmers are heads down figuring out the slate of world premieres for January. Those will be revealed in December.

“There’s a lot more to come and a lot more to announce,” Hernandez said. “This is just laying a foundation.”

Redford's death has added a poignancy to everything.

“Seeing and hearing the remembrances took me back to why I felt compelled to go to the festival in the first place,” Hernandez said. “It’s been very grounding and clarifying and for us as a team it’s been very emotional and moving. But it’s also been an opportunity to remind ourselves what Mr. Redford has given to us, to our lives, to our industry, to Utah.”


'Dream Come True' for US Pianist Eric Lu after Chopin Competition Win 

Pianists vying for the top prize performed in a multi-stage contest to showcase their skills in various musical forms. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
Pianists vying for the top prize performed in a multi-stage contest to showcase their skills in various musical forms. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
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'Dream Come True' for US Pianist Eric Lu after Chopin Competition Win 

Pianists vying for the top prize performed in a multi-stage contest to showcase their skills in various musical forms. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
Pianists vying for the top prize performed in a multi-stage contest to showcase their skills in various musical forms. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP

American pianist Eric Lu won the top prize at the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition, the contest's Polish organizers said Tuesday.

The competition -- held every five years in Frederic Chopin's homeland -- is seen as a gateway to classical music glory, with winners going on to play top global venues and sign recording deals.

"This is a dream come true," Lu, 27, told reporters in Warsaw, thanking "all the Chopin lovers around the world".

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Lu participated in the competition's 2015 edition, finishing fourth.

Pianists vying for the top prize performed in a multi-stage contest to showcase their skills in various musical forms composed by Chopin, including polonaises, sonatas and mazurkas, AFP said.

It culminated with a final round that saw 11 pianists performing one of two Chopin piano concertos and his Polonaise-Fantaisie, considered notoriously difficult to master.

Previous winners of the competition include some of the biggest names in classical music, including Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and Krystian Zimerman.

American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, who won the top prize in 1970, chaired the jury that selected this year's winner.

"We had a number of very difficult discussions involving our opinions about artistic matters, and it did really take this long", Ohlsson said after the jury's nearly five-hour deliberations.

"But we actually got rid of the roadblocks, and I think we have a fine decision for this year's competition," he added.

Record interest

Canada's Kevin Chen, 20, finished second and China's Zitong Wang, 26, came third.

The winner receives a prize of 60,000 euros ($70,000).

Young pianists aged 16 to 30 were eligible to take part in the competition, first held in 1927, and the Warsaw organizers received a record number of more than 600 applications for this year's edition.

Only around a tenth of them made it through a complex qualification process that included playing in a preliminary round in Warsaw.

The last event, held in 2021 after being deferred because of the Covid pandemic, ended with Canadian pianist Bruce Liu scoring the highest accolade.

Broadcast live on YouTube, the contest attracted record online interest and drew music buffs from around the world.

"I came here to just listen to this concert," Kosei Harada, a 21-year-old Japanese student living in Germany told AFP after the competition's final stage and the verdict.

"Actually I wanted the Japanese to take the prize. But I really loved the performance of Eric Lu too. So it's okay for me," Harada said.

Tickets for the competition had sold out within 30 minutes of their release online, with the final round tickets gone in two minutes.