Larry King hospitalized with Covid-19 - NBC News

Broadcast journalist Larry King was moved Sunday from the ICU at a Los Angeles hospital, where he continues to be treated for Covid-19, a source close to the family said.

The source said King, 87, has been in the hospital for about 10 days, and that King believes he contracted the virus from a health care worker who went to his home.

One of his sons also contracted Covid-19, the source said.

King, known for his tireless work ethic, retired from CNN in 2010 after 25 years of hosting the interview show "Larry King Live," only to return to broadcasting in 2012 with "Larry King Now" on the free streaming service Ora TV.

In 2019, he told television's "Extra" that he had suffered a stroke that put him in a coma for "a couple weeks." Ora TV also reported that King had suffered a heart attack. He told "Extra," "It's been a rough year."

"I don't remember anything since March," he said. "I had the stroke in March."

The next year, his son Andy King, 65, died of a heart attack, and his daughter Chaia King, 51, died after battle with lung cancer. Married eight times, King has three other children.

King is perhaps America's interviewer laureate, having faced world leaders, Hollywood royalty and sports stars in his Q&A career. The Brooklyn-born journalist got his start as a radio DJ in the 1950s before moving on to syndicated talk radio in the 1970s.

King has become such a television icon that he's been impersonated on "Saturday Night Live" several times, including by Kevin Nealon in the 1990s and Fred Armisen in the 2010s.

In August, King helped launch an online education platform, Royal Age, aimed at American seniors. It was unveiled ahead of schedule to provide people 60 and older with information on the pandemic, according to a statement.

"From my own personal quarantine, I understand how big the need of senior citizens in America is to have their own reliable and safe online platform," King said in the statement.

In the 2019 "Extra" interview. King said he is a survivor: "My head doctor said I have an incomparable spirit."

Julie Goldstein