Larry King explains why Hanan Ashrawi is a balabusta, what he would ask Hitler and how Shimon Peres set him up on a blind date
LARRY KING, WHILE BEING interviewed over lunch at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, notes with incredulity that in a forthcoming book of the 100 greatest Jewish men in history, he is listed "right next to Moses."
"But not Christ," he adds; "they (authors Robert and Elinor Slater) told me Jesus was disqualified because he started a religion. And not Marx either. I think he converted."
No matter; what's important here is that if Moses, Jesus and Marx (both Karl and Groucho) were to reappear on earth tomorrow, they would probably head straight away to King's CNN studio. As host of the planet's only global call-in television talk show, King can snap his fingers and summon virtually any human being alive for a face-to-face shmooze. Even by asking them what "60 Minutes" star Mike Wallace once derisively called "softball questions" - but which, King insists, are the sincere fruits of his own abiding curiosity about "everybody and everything " - he could probably break more scoops in a week than any other media figure alive in a year.
King, 61, was born and raised in Brooklyn as Larry Zeiger, son of a bar owner who had immigrated there from Pinsk. As a kid growing up enamored of radio announcers - his teenage nickname was "the Mouthpiece" - he would even practice his future trade by doing roadside play-by-plays of routine traffic. In 1957, unable to break into the New York radio world, he bought a one-way ticket to Florida and landed a job at a local station. The manager changed his name from Zeiger to King, and his first words on-air were "Good morning, my name is Larry King, I just got that name 15 minutes ago, and I'm nervous."
His professional career and personal life went through a series of ups and downs during the next two decades, as he perservered through both financial setbacks (King was a habitual gambler and spendthrift) and four marriages. But in 1978, when his late-night, call-in talk show became nationally syndicated, he became one of the best-known personalities on American radio. King truly entered the celebrity stratosphere in 1985, when CNN started broadcasting a televised version of his show and made his trademark red suspenders and nasal baritone internationally recognizable.
Today, he is more famous than many - if not most - of his guests. He is now breathing such rarefied air that he was recently set up on a blind date with a former Israeli beauty queen living in Beverly Hills, by none other than Shimon Peres.
"I agreed to meet her in the bar for a drink," he says, "because you never know what can happen when you're famous and you're meeting someone you don't know. It should always be in a public place."
But Peres fixed you up, I tell him. Is King implying he doesn't trust the foreign minister any better than much of the Israeli public does?
"Look," he replies, "it's like Newt Gingrich telling you he has a girl for you."
THAT'S ABOUT AS NEGATIVE A public comment about anyone you're likely to get from King. He trusts almost everybody else, and not only that, he also likes them. For example, ask him about some of the major Mideast players he's interviewed in recent years, and King, in his inimitable style, finds something positive to say about all of them.
Of Yasser Arafat, he says: "Charming guy. I told him if my mother were alive to see this, she'd die. He just laughed and laughed. But he's a heavyweight - the terrorist who got reality late in life. His place in history is assured even if he gets knocked off tomorrow. Funny thing. The week I saw him, he was being guarded by two Mossad agents against Israeli terrorists.
They later told me they grew quite fond of him."
King also has fond memories of a visit to PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. "A balabusta," he calls her, describing how she fed him a home-cooked meal. " Listen, you're here, you'll eat… We've been cooking all day… Hey, you left something on your plate?' My God,' I told my brother, who was with me, we're at Aunt Dora's!'"
And what about Israeli leaders, like Yitzhak Rabin?
"We hit it off because we shared smoking. He was bugged I quit. I told him he should get a heart attack like mine."
Ariel Sharon?
"Bitter guy, angry at everybody. But what a farm! And his wife? A doll!"
Benjamin Netanyahu?
"Fun guy, Bibi Netanyahu. Great story-teller. Likes to talk about the ladies. I always figure if you like the ladies you shouldn't be married. But hey, that's me - and I've been married a few times. I wouldn't vote for him. I told him that. I told Bob Dole I wouldn't vote for him either. But I love that guy too!"
If you could pick anyone from history, I ask, who would you invite on to the show?
"Jesus, my first choice. Lincoln would be my second. I'd ask Christ if he was really born to a virgin mother. Depending on his answer, we'd have mass suicides, revolution in the streets, or Wall Street would fold."
Is there anyone he simply wouldn't book for the show? Someone who doesn't deserve a platform? Like, say, Adolf Hitler?
"I'd book him in a minute."
"Hitler?!" I respond in amazement. "You could have a quiet conversation with Hitler? What if you had lost half your family? You wouldn't lose your cool on the air?"
"That would be dumb," says King, poking me in the arm. "That's not how ya do it. You can't shut 'em down like that.
"Mr. Chancellor, I'd say, what went wrong? Why did you lose, sir? Was it the turn eastward? Do you reflect about losing, Herr Hitler? And why the anti-Semitism, Mr. Chancellor? Didn't you hurt your own country by forcing out Jews like Einstein? What do you think of Israel? After all, isn't it true you, more than anybody, helped create the first powerful, sovereign Jewish state in 2,000 years? Now that would be a show."
Until Hitler shows up, King will probably be spending much of his time interviewing guests about the O.J. trial. He describes it as "the greatest no-effect-on-your-life story ever. There's nothing it doesn't have - murder, race, a football star whose minister (former football star Rosie Grier) once removed the gun from the hands of Sirhan Sirhan… Every day something new. Recently, we learn the lawyer, Cochran, had a mistress and a history of battering. A prosecutor has chest pains, the lawyers are mad at each other… You know, when Yeltsin came to America and Clinton greeted him on the tarmac, the first thing out of his mouth was Did O.J. do it?'"
What did Clinton say?
"He said he didn't know. But I spent an hour with Judge Ito in his chambers this week. He's agreed to do the show after the trial."
King has become so engrossed in the O.J. trial lately, that he's moved his base of operations from his native New York out to Los Angeles.
"I've just rented a nice furnished apartment on Wilshire Boulevard. I'm going to live here three months and alternate back and forth. Love the weather."
If King had to start all over again in broadcasting these days, could he see himself having the same success?
"I'd probably have to go to college," he says. "But in creative fields, there is no such thing as a closed door. Talent will win out. You're not going to find a 45-year-old radio genius in Biloxi who, given that he isn't a manic depressive or something, or just doesn't want to leave, can't make it elsewhere. Yeah, you could go to a station today and ask to sweep the floor, and you'll go on the air one Sunday at 1:15 in the morning, and someone will hear it and like you. There's always going to be another Beatles, another Elvis."
THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE, KING has remained strongly attached to his Brooklyn-Jewish roots, often fondly discussing them on air or describing them in the various memoirs he's written. He remains committed to Jewish causes and has endowed a chair at Hebrew University, speaks at Jewish federation fundraisers, and says he is working with Vice President Al Gore to raise money to "spirit Jews out of Russia if Yeltsin folds." But as he describes it, his Jewishness comes from the gut, not from the soul.
"I didn't see God when I had my heart attack," he says, "no flashes of light, no out-of-the-body experiences. I've interviewed many religious leaders and I liked and respected them. But I don't have faith. I wish I did have faith.
"I wish I could know I'm going to a better place. When my friend Bob Wolf, who was a prominent sports attorney, died - he was 65 and his heart just stopped - I spoke at his funeral. I stood there thinking of him lying in a box, and I said, Please, God, please, not eternity lying in a box. Not in a box.'"