Producer (23 page)

Larry said, “Dr. Isom, I’ve had this peculiar habit all my life and I can’t explain it. But when I meet people, I count their
fingers… and with you I get to nine.”

When the New York doctors heard Larry’s prognosis, they got so worried, they flew all night to see Larry for themselves. So
while they examined him and reviewed his medical history, I had to cancel the wedding. The Beverly Wilshire Hotel gave me
a banquet room which I dubbed Wedding Central. They filled the room with phones, and a few other people and I began to make
the calls to let people know that the wedding was off for now. By the end of the day, when I was through with my calls, the
doctors told me that the next day, they would medevac Larry to New York to perform an angioplasty, because open-heart surgery
was not necessary. Needless to say, we were nervous about the upcoming operation, but we were also relieved that the surgery
would be less invasive, which meant fewer things could go wrong. There had been another consideration, which was how long
Larry would be off the show. Open-heart surgery would take a long stretch of recovery time. After an angioplasty, he could
be back on the air in days, which meant a great deal to him.

Early the next morning, as many as thirty people gathered in Larry’s hospital room in Los Angeles, including two sets of
doctors and Larry’s and Shawn’s family and friends. Determined to get married anyway, Shawn showed up that morning in a gorgeous
lavender Chanel dress to make her wedding vows with Larry in his hospital room. Before the minister started, Larry looked
up at me and said, “How do I look?”

Everything happened so spontaneously that nothing was recorded as the minister stood beside Larry, who was lying in his bed,
with Shawn standing beside him. This was before texting and phones with video capabilities. I had to record everything the
old-fashioned way, so there I stood at the foot of the bed, with a yellow legal pad, writing everything down since I would
have to put out some kind of press release after the marriage. I listed every person who was there, and I framed my notes
and gave them to Larry and Shawn since there was no way they would ever have remembered who had attended their hospital-room
wedding.

When the ceremony was over, Larry was flown to New York for his surgery. It was successful, and once he was back in Los Angeles,
he and Shawn had a second wedding ceremony, a great celebration, with Ted Turner as best man. Ted’s wife, Jane Fonda, was
a bridesmaid. Toward the end of the ceremony, Al Pacino read a passage for them, which elevated the cool factor that already
was high as a kite.

While I am a constant participant in Larry’s personal life, for Larry and me, our focus is first and foremost on the show.
Over the years we have learned to anticipate each other and understand how the other person ticks, but it took some time to
get there, especially for me to get accustomed to the way Larry did things and how he viewed them. Little did I know that
the following story, as bizarre as it seems, was and still is quintessential Larry.

When I had just begun working with him, Larry was living
in an apartment that overlooked the Potomac River in Washington. I was having a hard time getting him to make certain phone
calls that might bring in some of the bigger guests. He said he just didn’t feel like doing it, but I was determined that
he would get over his reluctance. I called him one morning and said, “Larry, I’m picking up bagels and I’m coming over. You
need to call Barbra Streisand and see if she’ll do the show. I’d do it, but it won’t work unless you make the call yourself.”

I arrived as promised, bagels in hand, and said, “You need to get this booking. When you get her on the phone, if she says
no, you can’t just hang up immediately. See if you can talk her into it.” Larry has such a short attention span, he was capable
of hanging up the phone in ten seconds if someone refused his offer.

I dialed the phone in one room and I yelled to Larry in the other room, “It’s ringing. Pick it up.”

He picked it up and I heard that amazing voice on the other end of the line, saying, “Hello?”

It was
Barbra
! I became mesmerized and kept listening. I just had to hear the conversation for history’s sake!! But after she said, “Hello?”
it went downhill from there.

“Barbra,” Larry said, “good to talk to you. Hey, I need you to do the show. I’d really love you to do it.”

“I’d like to, Larry,” she said, “but I really can’t right now. Thanks for thinking of me.”

“Oh, Barbra,” Larry coaxed, “you can do half the show. Or how about ten minutes? I just want you on my show.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do ten minutes or an hour,” she said. “It takes the same kind of preparation. I love you madly, Larry,
but I really can’t do the show. Thank you anyway.”

Larry persisted. “C’mon, Barbra. Jew to Jew. As a personal favah.”

She sighed and repeated, “Once again, I love you, but I can’t do the show. I’m not ready to do the show right now. Luv you,
Lar.”

“Well, just think about it,” he said.

They said good-bye and I walked back into the room. He had stayed on the phone and really tried, so maybe next time. I was
ready to console him when he said, “Okay, she’ll do it. Call her agent!”

I was perplexed. But I learned that day that Larry is a glass half-full kind of guy. Needless to say, Ms. Streisand did not
appear on our show at that particular point in time. When she did come on the show a few years later, in 1995, Larry took
the opportunity to remind her that she had played hard to get. We learned during that interview that an icon like Barbra Streisand
was also a normal human being with stage fright and fear of public speaking.

KING:
We began this program with the standing ovation at Harvard [for Barbra] and your closing remarks. And let’s trace back a little
bit. First, why did you agree to speak there [at Harvard]? How did that come about?

STREISAND:
They asked me.

KING:
But we asked you. How many times did we ask you? Twenty times.

STREISAND:
Well, I was supposed to do the Harvard speech in April, before my tour started in London. I thought that was interesting,
because I’ve always had strong feelings about the artist as citizen, the artist constantly getting denigrated in society.
I heard an interesting story the other day about Molière. On his deathbed, they wouldn’t give him his last rites unless he
denounced his profession. So this thing goes back a long way, you know?

KING:
So, did you agree to speak, with trepidation, or with forthrightness?

STREISAND:
With both. But I was so consumed with rehearsals for my show that I had to cancel it. I thought maybe they’d let me off the
hook after the tour. But they said, “No, no, we still would like you to come and speak.” And so that’s why I did it this last
February.

KING:
Can you tell us why so public a person is so stage frightened or nervous?

STREISAND:
First of all, I think I’m, like… 95 percent of the population who would have stage fright standing up to speak publicly. You
know, I’m like everybody else.

When Larry asked her about an interview she had done with Mike Wallace, she said:

STREISAND:
Well, as when I asked him afterwards, “Why were you so cruel to me?” He said, “Well, you wouldn’t want me to do another show
like Barbara Walters did, you know, where she was so nice to you and everything.” Probably thinks you’re too nice to me, too.

KING:
I just ask questions. I don’t know about nice or not nice. I’m just curious.

STREISAND:
You’re a nice person.

We have never been at a loss for interesting people and topics. For example, it was thrilling to find myself on a ferry to
Ellis Island with Larry and Governor Mario Cuomo, who were both being honored as sons of immigrants. Cuomo gave an extraordinary
speech in which he asked us to look at the walls around us and remember the history, since everyone had their start right
there.

Then he said something like, “Imagine Mrs. Zeiger, Larry’s mother, and Mrs. Cuomo, my mother, sitting here on this bench a
long time ago. Mrs. Cuomo says, ‘Someday, my son is going to be the governor of New York.’ And Mrs. Zeiger says, ‘Someday,
my son is going to become an international communicator, and he will be famous all over the world. The most famous interviewer
in the world.’ ”

It was one of those moments when I realized how amazing it was that these men had made so much of themselves. Their parents
had arrived at Ellis Island, and they truly were living the dream. Now, with my current position, I was helping to bring those
images to the American public and the world at large.

Today, I find it a bit ironic that as much as Larry prefers interviewing sports figures, his favorite interview of all times,
he says, was with Frank Sinatra. I met Sinatra once at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Texas, where Reagan was
nominated. I remember running around the convention, busy as usual, when a beautiful-looking man walked up to me. His face
was familiar: It was Old Blue Eyes himself, and he was with a gorgeous blonde woman, Barbara, his wife.

“Where is the main event?” he asked me. He knew I was working there because I had a press pass hanging around my neck.

Omigod! It’s Frank Sinatra,
I thought. “Let me take you there,” I said as the three of us walked in silence to the main event. Too bad I couldn’t have
said to him, “In nine years, I’m going to become the executive producer of your friend Larry King’s show.”

The following excerpt is from Larry’s favorite show in 1988, on the eve of Mr. Sinatra’s eighty-fourth birthday:

KING:
Is it still a kick when the man says, and now, ladies and gentlemen—

SINATRA:
Oh, it’s a kick. Absolutely. And I swear on my mother’s soul, the first four or five seconds I tremble every time I take the
step and I walk out of the wing onto the stage. Because I keep thinking to myself, I wonder if it will be there? When I go
for the first sounds that I have to make, will it be there? I was talking about it just the other night at Carnegie Hall at
the Irving Berlin thing. I said, even just going out and looking at the audience, I was terrified for about four seconds and
then it goes away.

KING:
How do you explain that?

SINATRA:
I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I always had it. Will you remember the lyrics? Is your tie right? Will you use your hands
right? Will you look pleasant to the audience? You have to be on the ball from the minute you step out into that spotlight.
You have to know exactly what you’re doing every second on that stage. Otherwise, the act goes right into the bathroom. It’s
all over. Good night.

KING:
Fame—let’s say we’re in Washington, you and I. We go into Duke Zeibert’s restaurant, popular restaurant. You’re aware when
you walk in at lunch, let’s say everybody recognizes you. Everybody knows you. Everybody is looking at you. What’s that like
to feel that? Very few people have felt that in their lives.

SINATRA:
I think it’s an honor… but I have imaginary blinders in a sense. I look around and if somebody smiles at me I smile, hello,
how are you whatever, talk to me. But it’s not unlike anybody else in our world. They walk into restaurants or a theater.
The only time I felt like I was causing a problem was, if I go to the theater in New York. As you
come down to go to your seat, people get up and look around and they buzz—it’s sweet. It’s wonderful. But you want to run
and hide a little bit and between acts, you go out and get a smoke or get a drink next door in the bar. It happens again.
Then you got to walk down there again is what takes place. But it’s a nice thing, though, the recognition is really quite
nice.

KING:
We’re out of time, Francis. Thank you so much.

SINATRA:
I had a good time. I enjoyed it. Anytime, just call me and I’ll come running.

Larry has never really understood what a big deal it is for people to be around him. I guess in his own mind, he’s still little
Larry Zeiger, the son of Jewish immigrants with no patience whatsoever. Changing his last name to King didn’t change him on
the inside, which is one of his greatest charms. But it is also one of his greatest challenges. And mine!

For example, Larry and I were scheduled to have lunch with Nancy Reagan in Beverly Hills one day, years after she had left
the White House. As we entered the restaurant and I saw Mrs. Reagan flanked by her Secret Service detail, I became a little
nervous. I knew what Larry was capable of and I admonished him, “You have to stay for the whole lunch. Do not leave early.
Mrs. Reagan doesn’t want to have lunch with
me
. She wants to have lunch with
you
.”

Larry was on his best behavior for at least thirty minutes while we ate a lovely meal and chatted. But the minute he finished
his chopped salad with tomatoes and no dressing, he stood and said, “I have to go to the dentist now.” He kissed both Mrs.
Reagan and me and he was gone. As I watched him disappear out the door, I realized that we could have been
with anyone (with the exception of Jackie Robinson), and he would have done exactly the same thing.

Mrs. Reagan was surprised to say the least, but I was accustomed to his behavior by now. I looked at her calmly, smiled a
little, and said, “Would you like some coffee, Mrs. Reagan?” At least she knew me, since I had covered her husband’s presidency
for years.

In the final analysis, a wonderful and whimsical story comes to mind that defines Larry’s and my complicated relationship,
to a tee. I have what I can only call a
fabulous
handbag collection, which was photographed for
Vogue
magazine. A fashion enthusiast for most of my life and obsessed with all kinds of purses, I was thrilled when the
Vogue
crew actually came to my house to photograph my handbags with several Chanel and Valentino outfits for me to wear. Of course,
my daughter always bursts my bubble when I say I was in
Vogue
. Amaya reminds me, “Mom, it was only for your purses, not for your clothes.”