The world lost a media icon on Saturday, January 23 when Larry King died at the age of 87. King was always considered to be the gold standard of interviewers thanks to his simplistic yet unique style of interviewing.
During the course of his career, King did over 50,000 interviews in the span of five decades. When he was interviewed by the Columbia Journalism Review in 2017, King explained why asking the simplest questions made sense to him:
“I always asked the same question: What happened today? I wasn’t there. You were there. You were covering it. What happened? That’s the simplest question in the world. Why’d you do this? What happened?…I’m a layman. I’m a pure layman who’s intensely curious. What I do have is a sense of pace. I know when something’s going well, I know how to draw people out. But I don’t think I could teach a course in it. I don’t know that I have a method. I just know that I go to the basics.”
With a career that spans over 50 years, King interviewed many significant figures in the worlds of politics, military, sports, and pop culture. King was also considered to be a strong ally to the LGBTQ community and spoke extensively on LGBTQ rights to Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report in 2014.
Some significant interviews King conducted was the 2010 Lady Gaga interview, where King and Gaga discussed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
Also in 2010, King asked during his exchange with Ricky Martin about same-sex marriage in the United States. Martin also spoke about his decision to come as gay.
King had a conversation with the Dalai Lama in 2014 about same-sex marriage.
In 2016, King spoke with Dan Levy about his character on Schitt’s Creek being pansexual.
King spoke with Dolly Parton on her support of the LGBTQ community in 2016.
In his interview with Tyler Oakley in 2017, King and Oakley talk about LGBTQ rights in the United States during the Trump presidency.
Is there a Larry King interview that has always stuck out in your mind as one of the best? Let us know in the comments or on our social media accounts.
Sources: Columbia Journalism Review, The Rubin Report Official YouTube Channel, Huffington Post, CNN Official YouTube Channel, Larry King Official YouTube Channel
