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THE ‘80s A Special Report :...

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Larry King was--and is--a media man for all seasons. Wherever America looked or listened during the 1980s, King was there . . . and usually with him were the men and women whose celebrity, dynamism, wit and wisdom defined the decade.

For reasons he is even loathe to explain, King is one of a handful of media interviewers who seems to be able to make everyone from country singers to contract killers feel comfortable. There is a secret to it of sorts: Larry King pulls his punches. He doesn’t profess to be a journalist. He doesn’t go into an interview with pretensions of exposing or embarrassing a guest. That reputation has given even the most wary celebrity a sense of safety in facing Larry King. He remains the only major media maven to get a one-on-one interview with Frank Sinatra whose hate affair with the press dates back more than 25 years.

In addition to his nightly radio show, aired over the Mutual Radio Network on more stations than any other talk program in the country (heard locally over KFI-AM), King’s musings are to found in a regular column in USA Today, a nightly hour of interviews over the Cable News Network; and in three best-selling books.

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At 55, King shows no signs of slacking the pace on his other ongoing programs, despite a heart attack three years ago. His most recent book is testimony to Larry King the survivor. “Mr. King, You’re Having a Heart Attack” (Delacorte, 1989) covers his chain-smoking, Type A behavior throughout the first two-thirds of the decade and the switch he had to make in life style following bypass surgery.

In that way alone, King was typical of a nation that learned about the benefits of exercise and the results of tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse during the 1980s.

The Taste Makers project was edited by David Fox, assistant Sunday Calendar editor.

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