Larry King is hospitalized with COVID
Image by Getty Images
(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.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
