As Larry King prepares to leave, everyone's talking

New York: Famous people liked talking to Larry King, and for many of them, there was one reason: His program was the place to go for unhurried, agendaless conversation.

"I consider Larry one of a kind, absolutely one of a kind," said Ross Perot, one of the many subjects from politics whom Mr. King has interviewed during his 25 years on CNN. Unlike other television hosts, Mr. Perot said, "who will interrupt you if you're not saying what they want you to say," Mr. King will "let you finish what you're saying."

After about 50,000 interviews -- between his radio career and his stint on television -- Mr. King will end his run as the 9 pm fixture on CNN this week, and perhaps take with him the hour-long conversational form of interview on cable news television. It's not certain how his replacement, Piers Morgan, will lead his program, but some change from the King format is likely.

Though he professed no regrets, Mr. King did point to what he identified as "the saddest part" of leaving the nightly interview arena, where programs that have hurt CNN and Mr. King in the ratings are led by hosts advocating a political point of view.

"If you look at media now," he said in a telephone interview, "all the hosts of these other shows are interviewing themselves. The guests are a prop for the hosts on these cable networks. The guest to me was always paramount."

As he leaves this week, many of those guests are returning for a last ride in the chair: Naomi and Wynonna Judd on Tuesday, Barbra Streisand on Wednesday and a host of old favorites on Thursday's finale.

And as he counts down to the last of his almost 7,000 programs for the network, those guests and a cadre of other famous people want to talk about Mr. King and their appreciation for his distinctive brand of interviewing, a style summed up by one frequent guest, the comic Bill Maher: "Larry was the ultimate minimalist: 'Al Gore; your thoughts!' "

Some critics translated the minimalist approach as the equivalent of tosses from a weekend softball hurler. Mr. King said that criticism always rankled him.

"I don't know what a softball question is," he said. "All I know is I have no agenda. I ask short questions, and I listen to the answer."

Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News Channel host who became a well-known legal commentator on CNN during the OJ Simpson trial, said the critics who lament what they see as softball questions are "grossly naïve."

"He makes his guests feel very comfortable and want to talk, and they do," she said.

Mr. King interviewed Mr. Gore -- most famously as host of the news-making 1993 debate with Mr. Perot on the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Perot-Gore debate was a defining moment for the program. It drew CNN's biggest audience for a regularly scheduled program, about 20 million viewers. By then Mr. King was already closely associated with Mr. Perot, who had surprised him and much of the nation by declaring for president on the program in 1992.

"I found him a fascinating little character," Mr. King said. "At the debate, Gore showed up with an army from the White House. Perot brought a friend from Dallas." Perot took Gore lightly, he said. "Gore just jumped him, and he owned the hour."

The pair were part of a long list of subjects from politics, including every president since Richard M. Nixon. (When Mr. King asked Nixon if he had ever been inside the Watergate building, the former president said with a rueful laugh, "Not me, myself.")

One president, George H W Bush, acknowledged feeling "very close to Larry." Mr. Bush, in an e-mail, said, "I have a very high regard for Larry King," calling him "a straight-forward interviewer and a thoroughgoing professional."

Another president who felt moved to express his admiration is still in office, though far from Washington. On Dec 1, the Russian president, Vladimir V Putin, told Mr. King in an appearance on the program that in the United States, "there are many talented and interesting people, but still there is just one King."

Over the past several months, the crowded farewell roster of King guests has included other presidents (among them, Jimmy Carter), a horde of show business stars (George Clooney, Stevie Wonder, Jon Stewart, Jeff Bridges) and the usual assortment of celebrities and newsmakers of every description: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran; Oksana Grigorieva (Mel Gibson's ex); Ricky Martin (declaring his sexuality); Steven Slater, the rebel JetBlue flight attendant.

The range of subjects touched by "Larry King Live" has always amazed and amused outside commentators. "Not many people could interview Putin and then Snooki," said Katie Couric, the CBS News anchor. Mr. Maher cited a memorable example: "One night it was Margaret Thatcher, the next night it was a Lawrence Welk reunion."

Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's senior legal analyst, said that the long-running O. J. Simpson trial, which played out nightly on "Larry King Live," was in some ways the perfect story for Mr. King "because it combined high and low; you had important issues about justice and race, and the sleaziest celebrities in Los Angeles."

Mr. King himself had no trouble recalling some favorite highlights, like a lunch with Nelson Mandela in South Africa and a 1963 first interview, on radio, with Ms. Streisand, then a young, barely known singer from Brooklyn. The Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, where she was appearing at the time, requested the interview to try to get her some exposure, Mr. King said.

"At the end she says to me: 'You don't know me now, but someday you're going to know me.' "

Then there was Marlon Brando, in the memorable appearance that ended with the actor's planting a thank-you smack on the host's lips. As Mr. King recalled it, Brando had asked to have an introductory lunch and picked up Mr. King, driving a Chevy.

In Mr. King's account, the two men drove around Beverly Hills singing songs. "He'd sing one line, I'd sing the next: 'Tell me why you keep foolin,' little coquette.' "
Donald Trump, the mogul of real estate and reality television, said, "Larry was able to get more information out of you than anybody else -- and you didn't even realize you were giving it."

As Ms. Couric put it: "There's something about being very direct, no frills. It's never about Larry. It's always about the person with whom he's speaking."

That Mr. King wound up eliciting information from just about every notable figure of his lifetime (the two he most regrets missing are, in typical mixed-bag fashion, Fidel Castro and Jack Nicholson) he attributed to being "insanely curious" as well as to a talent "I take no credit for: people respond to me."

He confessed, "I'll miss it." But, he said: "I'm 53 years in this business. It's all I ever wanted to do. I've had a great ride. I've got no complaints."