Larry King on how curiosity and passion for life aided his stroke recovery

I've had everything—diabetes, lung cancer, and stroke—but I've had a great recovery,” Larry King said in an interview with Brain & Life in September 2020. “When I came back from the stroke, my doctor said I have an indomitable spirit. I didn't jump off a building or anything. I don't know what I did, but I shouldn't be here.”

The folksy TV and radio host, best known for his long-running CNN show Larry King Live, died of sepsis on January 23, 2021, at age 87. In his Brain & Life interview last fall, he spoke about what helped him thrive in the face of whatever life threw at him—which in his final years included separation from his seventh wife, the loss of two children, and even COVID-19. (The infection that caused his death was unrelated to COVID-19.)

In many ways, King's longevity was a miracle. He had a heart attack and bypass surgery in his early fifties, was diagnosed with diabetes and lung cancer in 2017, and had a massive stroke in 2019 that put him in a coma for days and left him unable to walk on his own. As the frequent gambler liked to say, “My father died of a heart attack when he was 46, so I'm playing with house money.” In his mind, King had beaten the odds already. “It's been an amazing run. I have no complaints about life,” he said.

That perspective was tested last summer when King's 65-year-old son, Andy, died of a heart attack and his daughter, Chaia, 51, died a few weeks later from lung cancer. Close with all five of his children, King was living in Los Angeles with his 21-year-old son, Chance, after his stroke and during the pandemic. “Chance has been my lifeline,” King said. “He's always with me. I don't think I'd be here without him.”

The other thing that kept King alive was his work. The former radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist, and author of 15 books—born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn in 1933—continued to conduct remote interviews for his cable show Larry King Now, even during the pandemic. “The engineer comes to my house every day and sets things up,” he said in September. “I just did [former Trump communications director] Anthony Scaramucci; he's terrific, so opinionated. I feed off that. I get energy from other people. I want to know what makes them tick, which is why I always came at them with different types of questions from other interviewers. I would ask questions like ‘What's it like to be president?’ or ‘What do you fear most?’ I'm not the typical reporter, with the who, what, where, when questions. I'm interested in the human side.”

There was no guarantee King would work again after his stroke in 2019. “The last thing I remember is driving my car. The next thing I know I'm in the hospital coming out of a coma and being told that I almost didn't make it.” But he did make it, with his brain and personality intact, although he never regained use of his left foot. “I still do exercises I learned in rehab, like practicing standing up and sitting down,” he told Brain & Life. “Sometimes I take 10 steps on my own, but mostly I have to use a walker, and the rest of the time I'm in a wheelchair.” He missed the freedom of walking on his own but was stuck inside because of the pandemic anyway. “I'm in the same boat as everyone else, but I'm able to work and I haven't lost my mental capacities, which is a godsend,” King said.

When asked what he would say to encourage people who have had a stroke, he didn't hesitate: “The first thing you should think about is that you're lucky to be alive, and since you're alive, try to benefit from it, try to learn from it. I would say my mantra is ‘Never give up.’ Maybe I got that spirit from my father, who was a worker—he worked in a defense plant—but I've always thought that when you get knocked down, you have to get right back up.”

That wasn't easy in the weeks after his stroke, and especially after the untimely deaths of two of his children. “I'm sure I have some depression,” King admitted. “I used to sleep for six hours a night, and now I sleep for 10. And I have no appetite.”

Yet despite missing Andy and Chaia, he kept his spirits up and stayed as active as he could. “I don't feel emotionally distressed or walk around depressed, partly due to my sons, who always encourage me,” King said. Besides work, King kept up with his other interests: “I'm an avid sports fan, an avid reader. I always have a book in my hand; I alternate between fiction and nonfiction, and Bob Woodward's book is next on my list,” he said. A longtime newshound, King also read the papers daily—“starting from the back and going to the front page.”

Although the stroke made him less fearful about death, King still felt he had a lot to live for. “I don't want to die. Because of my curiosity, I want to know who is going to win the World Series. I've been a Dodgers fan since I was a kid, and I hope I can go see them in the spring. But I also love the Miami Dolphins—I used to broadcast for them—plus the Washington Capitals for hockey. I watch all sports incessantly,” he said in his unmistakable Brooklyn rasp.

What kept King going for so long, after multiple illnesses and more heartbreak than one father should have to bear, was his perspective—knowing that the life he led surpassed his expectations. “I never went to college, and I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't become a broadcaster. I was given a gift of curiosity, and though bad things have happened to me, that curiosity never went away.”