I’ve been a fan of Larry King Live forever. What I like most about his interviews is that Larry asks short questions…no tiresome walk-ups and explanations, but one sentence, clear questions. “What’s it like to overdose on heroin?” “What did you make of yourself gaining 80 pounds?”
Ok. Not all of his questions will go in the Smithsonian, but he got the person talking and that’s the interviewer’s job. And he was able to get guests on his show you don’t see on many other interview shows.
CNN just announced he’ll be leaving his chair this fall after an avalanche of criticism King has recieved lately. And I really do believe the tipping point was the Lady Gaga interview a couple weeks ago. Did you see it? Nobody has landed an hour-long interview with her that I know of. She’s the hottest artist out there, culturally significant and proved in the King interview she is an artist of substance, thought, and on track to be bigger than Madonna at the height of her fame.
And Larry blew that interview. I was shocked at how open Gaga was, how much she was revealing about herself on live television and Larry didn’t seem to get how big this was for his show. He didn’t ask follow-ups, just went through the check list of questions. As an interviewer, it killed me to watch, because I know what I would have asked. When you have a star who’s ready to engage and not just try to throw a bunch of p r crap your way, roll with it and create the most memorable tv possible. Take the viewers on a journey and let’s all learn something.
Look, Larry had a tremendous run as a nightly host and the world won’t forget him and you can’t ask for much more than that.