Week of 12/17: Larry King's Miami Roots

By Sylvia Gurinsky

With the end of Larry King's interview show on CNN, it's a good time to look back at his television roots in Miami.

From 1957 to 1978, King's home base and audience were in South Florida. Whether it was a newspaper, a radio station or a television station, King's words could be read or heard. And while his home bases included television stations WLBW (now WPLG) -Channel 10 and what was then WTVJ-Channel 4, they could also include the old Pumpernick's restaurant across the street from the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach. King might interview anyone who stopped by.

Here's a 1974 interview that King did for WTVJ (in the studio, not in Pumpernick's). The suspenders may be out of view, but the style is the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCH0BQ2nSMo&feature=related

The Miami years weren't easy ones for King; serious financial problems got him into repeated trouble.

But the Magic City can rightly claim a share of King's success during the last two decades. Larry Zeiger may have been born in Brooklyn, but the interviewer CNN viewers came to know during the last quarter-century was born in Miami.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!