There was an interview that stays with me having worked in both radio and TV. Hal Roach came into our Los Angeles studio to talk about his work making Laurel and Hardy available to both the TV audience as well as the radio audience.
Larry asked, do you think one was more effective in telling the story than the other?
Roach was in his 80’s at this point and sat up in the chair and started in.
I walk into the TV meeting and say here’s how we start the scene–“It was a dark and stormy night…”
7 hands are in the air. “Is there lightning? Do we see a house? Is there a car in the driveway? Are there lights in the house? Is it raining? How about thunder?
After an hour, Roach walks out of the room, crosses the hall to another room where 2 radio guys have been waiting.
He says “It was a dark and stormy night…”
Both nod their heads and say “OK, got it.”
I produced Larry King’s overnight radio show for ten years (1984-1994).We took it on the road, traveling to affiliates around the country and did the show live in front of an audience.
Some lessons from Larry, which wouldn’t work for everyone:
He asked short questions. “I never learn when I’m talking.”
He didn’t prepare for an interview. “The audience hasn’t read the book. Why should I?”
I first heard him while working at a radio station in Gary, Indiana. After covering a city council meeting and then writing the stories for morning drive, I drove back to my apartment around 2am, listening to Larry on the radio (WCFL). Two police cars were sitting in the parking lot because of a robbery and a cop asked me to stay in the car. He heard Larry on my radio and said “That’s a great show. He asks good questions.”
I was with him at George Washington University Hospital in 1987 when he was in the emergency room. Two doctors looked at an echocardiogram, then looked at Larry. As they approached, he said “this ain’t gonna be good.” One doctor said, “Mr. King you’re having heart attack.”
“Am I going to die?”
“Well, you’re in the best place to be having one.”
“Should I cancel my lunch reservation at Duke Zeibert’s (a DC power lunch restaurant)?”
The doctor smiled and said, “That’s a good idea Larry.”
I’ve worked in journalism for more than 4 decades (five, if you count an interview I did in high school with a WLS disc jockey named Larry Lujack).
This includes inaugurations.
Ronald Reagan was sworn in for a second term in 1985 when the temperature was 7 degrees and the event was moved inside to the Capitol rotunda. From the Department Of No Kidding (also called “DONK”), it’s different now.
I stood on a side street looking at the Capitol yesterday, while thinking of the crowds I saw during an inauguration, including the last time when the topic was how many more people showed up as compared to Obama. We should have seen this coming.
I remember conversations with complete strangers, many speaking in broken English, as we looked at the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol Dome. It was a moment of “us” here in the U.S.
The optimist inside says it will happen again. The pessimist says yeah, but it’s going to take a long time. Put another way, different people need to talk to each other because though they are looking at the same thing, they are seeing it differently.