THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
LARRY KING, who is usually the interviewer, has been the interviewee of late, with TV and magazine reporters poking around his private life. They've asked about his marriages (five plus two engagements), finances (he was once $352,246 in debt) and who does his hair (Bernard at Okyo's in Georgetown).
King will answer almost any question put to him.
``If it is a well-thought-out question,'' he said earlier this week from CNN's studios near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., from where King's nightly talk show reaches viewers in 220 countries. That's a potential audience of 150 million households.
``Don't go away. We'll be taking your calls in the next half hour.''
Come Friday night at the Pavilion in Virginia Beach, King will give a little talk and answer questions from the audience. You're invited to interview the interviewer.
Again, only well-thought-out questions, please.
Go ahead, ask if he's really a great kisser, as reported by a TV tabloid the other day.
Go ahead, ask why he married the same woman twice, as was revealed on ``PrimeTime Live.''
Go ahead, ask if he's a real journalist. (The man calls himself an infotainer.)
Go ahead, ask if he's afraid of dying. (When King had open-heart surgery, he saw no white light, no heavenly visions, no hint of an afterlife. ``I know this is it,'' he says).
Fire away, Virginia Beach.
``I'll answer fairly,'' said King, who will be introduced by his lawyer, Mark A. Barondess of Vienna, Va., a local boy (Bayside High) who helps administer the Larry King Cardiac Foundation. As a survivor of a quintuple bypass, King is sympathetic to those who need open-heart surgery but don't have the resources.
King will donate the fee he receives in Virginia Beach to the foundation.
``He's an extremely kind and generous person,'' said Barondess.
``And Mark is a terrific lawyer and a true son of Virginia,'' said King.
Get the message? They like each other.
King said he doesn't mind when the roles are reversed - when he is the one being questioned before camera or microphone. ``But I prefer to be the interviewer because the interviewer is the one who is in control,'' he said.
He practically invented the talk show. First it was King on the radio coast to coast, border to border, nightly at 11. Then, 10 years ago, he launched ``Larry King Live'' on CNN.
Now King is Mr. Microphone to the world, the guy in the suspenders who's dropping in on Ronald Reagan's 85th birthday party at Chasen's in Los Angeles; the sports nut who's on TV Monday through Saturday at 9 p.m., pulling the truth out of singer Neil Diamond, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, White House political adviser George Stephanopolis and other biggies - and making it look as easy as discussing Brooklyn Dodger baseball with his old buddies from Flatbush.
Nothing to it.
TV Guide says he used to stand on the corner when he was a kid doing play-by-play of the traffic going by. And to this day, the microphone is his mistress.
``No woman can match her,'' Bette Davis once told King.
But they have tried.
The latest, fiftysomething Deanna Lund, got on tabloid TV the other day to tell all that King is a great kisser who sends champagne-colored roses.
``He has a way about him,'' said the former actress.
Five marriages. Four wives. He married Alene Akins twice. She gave him a daughter. With that history, how can King call himself ``the most single person I know''?
Simple. Despite all the weddings, he's been married only a total of 11 years in his adult life.
King is 61. And healthy. Gone is the three-packs-a-day cigarette habit.
What's a big day in the life of Larry King these days? Interviewing prime ministers? Schmoozing with the show-biz elite? Having virtually all the candidates for the White House parade before his microphones?
Nope. It's when he gets the news that his cholesterol count is falling and the size of his prostate is normal. That's some of what being male and 61 is all about.
As for a possible sixth wedding, King won't say when.
``When I fall in love, I marry,'' King told a TV interviewer. And when boredom sets in, it's over.
Let's have your questions. ILLUSTRATION: Color CNN photo
Heart-surgery survivor King will donate his Friday Appearance fee
to the Larry King Cardiac Foundation.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB