Larry King is hospitalized with COVID

Image by Getty Images

By Gabe Friedman January 4, 2021

(JTA) — Larry King, the celebrity radio and TV host who is the son of Orthodox Jewish immigrants, has been hospitalized with COVID for over a week.

Roger Friedman’s Showbiz 411 site first reported the news Friday, and CNN confirmed it on Saturday through talking with an unnamed source close to King’s family.

Showbiz 411 published an update on Sunday saying the 87-year-old King is rumored to have a “50/50 or better” chance at surviving the virus.

King, best known for his decades hosting radio talk shows and for hosting “Larry King Live” on CNN for 25 years, has survived multiple heart attacks, angina and lung cancer. His three sons and other family members have not been able to visit him at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

King lost two of his adult children in 2020, one to a heart attack and another to lung cancer.

He was born Lawrence Zeiger and raised in a Jewish family in Brooklyn.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO