January 25, 2021: Larry King, the giant of US broadcasting who achieved worldwide fame for interviewing political leaders and celebrities, has died at 87.

King conducted about 50,000 interviews in his six-decade career, including 25 years as host of the popular CNN talk show Larry King Live.

According to Ora Media, he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a production company he co-founded.

He was treated in hospital for Covid-19 earlier this month, US media say. He had faced several health problems in recent years, including heart attacks.

King carried out interviews with every sitting US president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama and many other world leaders. Other guests included Dr. Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Lady Gaga.

In 1985 he launched Larry King Live on the fledgling CNN and became one of its biggest stars. The program included audiences, with King answering thousands of phone calls from viewers.

King was highly criticized for his non-confrontational approach and open-ended questions. He said he could learn along with viewers when boasted for not doing enough research.

In his final program on CNN, he told his viewers: “I don’t know what to say, except to you, my audience, thank you. Instead of goodbye, how about so long?”

CNN replaced him with British journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, whose program King criticized for being “too much about him.”

Morgan’s program was canceled three years later, said on Twitter on Saturday: “Larry King was a hero of mine until we fell out after I replaced him & he said my show was ‘like watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new Bentley.

Morgan added, King “was a brilliant broadcaster & masterful TV interviewer.”