Producer (33 page)

“Thanks for even considering it,” I said, resigning myself to the fact that Bill couldn’t do it.

I met Larry at Spago Restaurant in Beverly Hills that night, just the two of us. He had decided to leave his nightly show
in the fall, and we were meeting to talk about it. I could understand why it was time. Consider that
Larry King Live
airs 365 days a year. Each week, we do five new shows, and on the weekends, we repeat the best of the week, unless there’s
breaking news, and then we all come in and create a brand-new show. Going from that to doing four specials a year on CNN (what
Larry was going to do next) would certainly give him a chance to breathe, to spend time with his beautiful family, and to
do some things he always wanted to do—like interviewing more athletes and working for Major League Baseball. Things like that.

At dinner, Larry told me, “During this twenty-fifth anniversary week, I just interviewed the biggest business man, the
biggest music phenomenon, the biggest head of state, and the biggest athlete: Gates, Gaga, Obama, and LeBron James. It doesn’t
get any better than that. Let’s leave on a high.”

We didn’t say much else at dinner, but because of what was about to happen, I had a good excuse to eat a pizza of my own and
eat half of Larry’s, too, before the evening was through. This was going to be a huge change and I could hardly take it all
in.

The next morning, I woke up to find a voice mail message on my cell phone. It was from Bill Maher. “I’m on the set of my pilot
and I’m still moving things around. I’m hopeful I can make it to the studio by the start of the show. I just have one more
major thing to move. I’ll give you an update in a few hours.”

I could hardly believe it. How cool was Bill Maher? But we still had to book an alternate show in case he didn’t show up.
Remember, my staff knew nothing about Larry’s decision and they didn’t understand why I was freelancing and calling Bill Maher
to do the show. I said nothing but I kept my fingers crossed. I knew Bill was really trying to make this happen and he understood
that Larry really needed him.

I waited to hear from Bill, but in the meantime, Larry and I had a difficult day ahead. Our first stop was to meet with Bert
Fields, Larry’s longtime attorney, and Rick Rosen, Larry’s agent, who brought Christian Muirhead with him to consult. Together
we all prepared the statement that Larry would read on the air that night. It was important to him that he relay his sentiments
accurately and in his own words. I came up with a suggestion. “How about if you say, ‘It’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders.’
”

Larry liked that a lot and we got to work crafting the rest of the message. When we were through, our next stop was lunch
with CNN president Jon Klein at the Grill, a noisy, fun place in Los Angeles where you can feel the buzz of people brainstorming
and making deals. Larry and I got there first and when Jon walked in, he said to me, “Wendy, you look great.”

Larry said deadpan, “You don’t have to tell her that anymore, Jon.”

It got a laugh. Then, while we were eating, I got
the
call. “Hi, it’s Bill. I’ll be there.”

How could I possibly thank him? I could only imagine what kind of juggling it had taken to pull this off for Larry. Bill hadn’t
moved a mountain; he had moved a pilot—which is a lot bigger. And he didn’t want a thing from us. Most of all, he didn’t want
us to make a fuss over him. “It may not be the best show, though,” he warned me, “because I’ve had no time to prepare.”

I didn’t care if he talked about gardening for the hour. Just knowing that Larry would not be sitting there all alone to make
his important announcement was all I wanted. I called Allison Marsh who is in charge of booking and said, “Cancel all the
other guests. Bill will do the hour.”

Larry, Jon, and I went over the plan for the announcement. Now I had to tell the staff before Larry went on the air—the hardest
part. Larry’s staff is loyal, skilled, and very accomplished. I know it sounds like a cliché but we’ve been a family for years,
and there’s been very little turnover because everyone loves working on the show. Just like there was only one Johnny Carson,
there is only one Larry King. The staff, Larry, and I have gone through everything together: marriages, births, deaths, surgeries—all
the ups and all the downs. Telling the staff would be the toughest part.

When I arrived at the CNN bureau in Los Angeles, I closed my office door and called in my second in charge, Carrie
Stevenson, who’d been with the show longer than I had. When I took the job in 1993, she was already interning there, and sixteen
years later, I’d never had a bad day with Carrie. She never lost her cool, she was always “up,” and she worked so hard. When
she was in charge, you knew she would always pull it off beautifully.

When I told her the news, I felt instantly better because it was unlike me to keep any information from Carrie or from the
rest of the staff. I’d been dreading this moment, but now that I’d told Carrie, I was ready to tell my other direct reports,
the people who reported to me on a daily basis. No one had been told formally as yet, but the Los Angeles staff was getting
the drift that something was up because Barbara Levin, a lovely woman from Public Relations in New York, was there, and so
was Jon Klein.

I got on a conference call with my direct reports: Carrie; John Gilmore, an impressive journalist in Washington; Allison Marsh,
my arm in charge of booking; and Greg Christensen, a funny and solid producer who is in charge of the Los Angeles staff. As
I explained what was happening, it felt like I was breaking up with them. It was a day that we all knew would come at some
point, and at the same time, we never really thought it would. But as Carrie got the entire staff to call in to our conference
line, they knew something was going on. Once our staff members across the country were conferenced in from Washington DC,
New York, Denver, Atlanta, and San Diego, I told them all, “Hi, everyone, Larry wants to speak to you before the show starts.”

In his softest and most heartfelt voice, Larry said, “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I decided the fall will be
a good time to end the nightly show. I’ll still be doing specials on CNN, but this will give me time to do other things I’ve
always wanted to do, especially spending more time with the family.”

Choking back tears, I said, “Well, Larry, I know I speak for everyone on the staff when I say we’re all really proud of you.
You’re an icon, we love you, and it’s been an honor working on the show.”

“I never had to do anything like this before,” Larry said. Everyone was sniffling when John Gilmore in Washington spoke up
in his beautiful Irish brogue, “Larry, we love you and it’s been a privilege to work on the show.” Larry started to sniffle
along with the rest of us. In the end, the staff took the news like I knew they would as they put aside their sorrow and turned
their undivided attention toward the evening’s show. Larry went on his Twitter account and tweeted a message that he was ending
the show, while Jon Klein put out a statement to the entire CNN network.

Of course, the news spread quickly and it became breaking news on CNN before we even went on the air. Larry put on his suspenders
and prepared for the show that night, later telling a reporter that his announcement call to the staff was one of the saddest
ten minutes of his life. We left the offices and walked into the makeup room beside the studio and I nearly cried when I saw
Bill Maher getting ready. I held back my tears, though, as I looked into Bill’s eyes, and said, “Thank you. It’s so perfect
that you’re here.”

He smiled at me. It was showtime.

KING:
Good evening. Before I start the show tonight, I want to share some personal news with you. Twenty-five years ago, I sat across
this table from New York Governor Mario Cuomo for the first broadcast ever of
Larry King Live
.
And
now, decades later, I talked to the guys here at CNN and I told them I’d like to end
Larry King Live
, the nightly show, this fall. CNN has gracefully accepted and agreed, giving me more time for my wife and me to get to the
kids’ little league games.

I’ll still be part of the CNN family. I’ll be hosting several Larry King specials on major national and international subjects,
and we will be here until a replacement is found. We’ll be here into the fall. Tomorrow night, in fact, Elizabeth Edwards
is our special guest.

I’m incredibly proud that we recently made
Guinness World Records
for having the longest-running show with the same host in the same time slot on the same network. With that chapter closing,
I’m looking forward to the future, what my next chapter will bring.

But for now, for here, it’s time to hang up the nightly suspenders. Until then, we’ve got more shows to do, and who knows
what the future’s going to bring.

Bill Maher is the Emmy-nominated host of
Real Time
with Bill Maher on HBO, stand-up comic, best-selling author. We called him in today in view of this announcement and asked
him if he’d come on as an old friend. Thank you, Bill.

MAHER:
I’m honored you would ask me to take over the desk, Larry. Thank you so much. I’m ready to step in at a moment’s notice. Do
you want to finish the hour or would you like me to take over right now, Larry?

I am reminded of what my father, who was a broadcaster, said the day Mickey Mantle retired. “Say it isn’t so,” he began the
broadcast.

KING:
You put me in that class?

MAHER:
Mickey Mantle? You are the Mickey Mantle of broadcasters. Mickey Mantle played eighteen seasons. You played more than that.

KING:
I did the twenty-fifth anniversary week. We had Lady Gaga. We had Bill Gates. We had President Obama. We had LeBron James.
I’m flying home from that week and I’m thinking to myself, I’ve done fifty thousand interviews. I’m never going to top this.
I want to move on. I want new horizons. I want to try other things.

MAHER:
Well, I think I speak for a lot of people in America who say, I will miss you terribly at this hour. I mean, there is nobody
who does what you do, because you had a minimalist style that is gone from television and you are taking it with you, Larry.

The phones were lighting up. Everyone wanted to call in and talk to Larry. E-mails started flashing on the screen that read:
“Diane Sawyer is trying to call into the control room.” “Regis is calling!” “So is Nancy Reagan!”

NANCY REAGAN:
I couldn’t let you do this without my calling you. You didn’t call and ask my permission.

REGIS:
Larry, I am totally surprised by this. For some reason, I feel very badly about it… There has always been a Larry King. All
of a sudden, I can’t believe that we are not going to see you on during the week at night in the fall… I feel like leaving
the same time you do at this point. But I think Bill Maher is totally responsible for this… I’m going to miss you terribly,
Larry. Because, frankly, you are one of a kind.

DIANE SAWYER:
I just want to say, Larry, what a monument of vitality you have built for all of us. And I cannot wait to see your specials,
because everybody in the world wants to
talk to you and to see you do them in a concentrated way. When you choose to do them, it’s going to be a thrill… And again,
we love you.

Ryan Seacrest tweeted from his vacation, using Larry’s Twitter name: “You are a legend @kingsthings. One of a kind.”

When Anderson Cooper did his usual nightly cut-in on our show to promote his show, Bill asked him, “Anderson, did you engineer
this coup?”

Big laugh!

Anderson said, “I just heard the news that you are scaling back at CNN and hanging up your suspenders, as you said. I am stunned
and I am sad.”

The last thing Bill said on the show that night was, “Larry. Don’t go, Larry.”

That’s why he was the perfect person to sit with Larry. A brilliant performer with a brilliant intellect, Bill really understands
what Larry means to our culture. So thank you again, Bill, for making Larry’s tough night a celebration. In fact, when Larry
left the set, he actually felt good. Mission accomplished!

The e-mails came streaming in faster than I could read them.

Sanjay Gupta: “Oh, boy…”

Mark Geragos: “What does this mean for you, Wendy?”

My answer: “That I won’t have to work as hard?”

Jeff Zucker: “You doing okay?”

Miko Brando, Marlon’s son, called producer Nancy Baker who told us, “Miko said to tell Larry that his dad would have been
so proud of him and wish him the best.”

My friend Sabih Masri, from Amman, Jordan: “What are you planning to do now?”

Christiane Amanpour in London: “Larry is part of our common modern global history… Whenever I think of him my
mind automatically free-associates with the first Gulf War. I always picture myself at the end of an ifb from Dhahran, listening
to the real-time diplomacy being conducted on LKL between Washington, New York, Geneva, Moscow, the Middle East… trying to
resolve Saddam’s aggression before it led to war. And of course the thousands of other important moments on his program. An
era passes.”

Haim Saban: “Call me. Just found out. I am surrounded by fifteen people in the board room.”

Suze Orman: “I am here for you all, anytime you want.”

Candy Crowley: “He carried it off with great style. You OK?”

Chelsea Handler: “How are you?”

Jeff Probst: “I hope you are OK with this news.”

Lisa Ling: “I imagine it is chaos over there. I am in Colombia at the moment on a shoot but aware of the news. U OK?”

Dr. Dean Ornish: “Please let me know if there is anything I can do to be supportive.”

Ryan Seacrest: “I know today has been a hard and tough emotional day for you.”

Ryan, a great friend of ours, had left for vacation that day. Larry had shared the news with him earlier, after his radio
show, so he wouldn’t hear it on the air. I e-mailed Ryan back, “It has been tough but it went as well as could be expected.
Larry keeps telling people when asked that you would be his pick for a successor. He said it on the air and to reporters.”