Larry King's life runs the spectrum. He has been married eight times to seven women. He's had a personal relationship with every president since Richard Nixon. "I'm a survivor. I've always been in the right place at the right time," says King, host of CNN's Larry King Live for 24 years and author of a new memoir, My Remarkable Journey (Weinstein Books, 294 pp., $27.95), out Tuesday. "Luck plays a part in any successful life."
King calls the autobiography, his 11th book, a "let-it-all-out" tale. It touches on everything from reuniting with the son (Larry King Jr.) he didn't know he had from a brief, early marriage to being thrown out of his son Chance's Little League game after fighting with an umpire over what he still believes was a bad call. He has two sons, Chance, 10, and Cannon, 8, with his current wife, Shawn Southwick-King, and three adult children from his previous marriages.
Ups and downs "People kept asking me, 'What about this story, what about that story?' So I decided to put it all down once and for all. I think it also has something to do with being 75." He admits on the book's first page that his memory isn't what it used to be. "There's always going to be some embellishment when you tell a story," he says. With that, he's off. His Brooklyn childhood, his father's death when Larry was 9, his eight marriages ("I was young, impetuous and lonely") and his heart attack. Plus a 1971 grand larceny charge when he was unable to pay back money he owed a business partner. It was later dismissed.
"It is what it is and it happened," he says. "If you're going to write an autobiography, you can't leave things out. I had a lot of ups and downs, and that was certainly a down time." Always a poor money manager, King says he now has a financial firm manage his money. "I have a credit card. I'm not allowed to overspend." As for insights into his 50-year career, King says: He'd most like to interview reclusive author J. D. Salinger; former president Bill Clinton is one of the best interview subjects; and Elizabeth Edwards, a guest last week, was "a 10 out of 10. She brought the audience in." Retire to what?
He says that as an interviewer, he's there to learn along with everyone else. He says too many TV talk show hosts are too interested in themselves. "They use the word 'I' a lot," he says. "I'm the conduit. The interview goes through me to the audience. Sometimes I believe everything, sometimes I believe half, and sometimes I don't know what to believe. It's the audience who decides." King renewed a three-year contract with CNN last year and plans to keep working as long as CNN will have him. Any plans to retire? "Retire to what?" he asks.
