I was watching the final edition of the Larry King Show on CNN and feeling nostalgic. I met Larry for the first time when he was hosting "Breakfast at Pumperniks", his first radio interview show, on Miami Beach. That was back in the late 50's and in my new role as owner of my own pr firm,I represented hotels,nightclubs and restaurants. That's all that really was available on the Beach in those days.

Larry was set up in a booth at Pumperniks, on the corner of Collins Avenue and 74th Street, for those of you who know Miami Beach. Pumperniks was a popular deli/restaurant frequented by everyone, particularly entertainers appearing at the various hotels. I spent a lot of time shuttling the famous and not so famous to be interviewed by him there and a few years later when he moved up in the radio world to a mid-nite to 2am interview show on WIOD. Miami Beach was a late night town in those days and nobody seemed to mind showing up at mid-nite and talking for an hour or two. Even at that hour, he had a huge listener audience. Come to think of it, I was a lot younger and thought nothing of being out until all hours of the morning. Wow, has that changed.

What always fascinated me about Larry was the fact that once he ok'd one of my clients to appear on the show, he never wanted any advance information other than how to pronounce their name correctly and what was I "pushing" pr-wise that I wanted him to mention on air. Usually the name of the hotel, theatre or nightclub that I represented where the interviewee was staying or appearing. He was always great about that, and believe me, it was much appreciated. I once had a reporter do a front page story in the Miami Herald that I had gone to a lot of trouble to set up, and he neglected to mention the name of the hotel where the event occured. Needless to say, my client, the owner of the hotel, was mightily pissed and I was ready to kill myself for all the wasted work.

In the mid-60s, Larry became our neighbor on Keystone Islands. His house backed up to our side yard. We had first hand knowledge of his numerous marriages and live-in girlfriends via the kids in the neighborhood. I can remember Andrea, at 10 or 12, coming home from playing outside, to offhandedly remark at dinner that "there's a new set of kids at the King house."

The other thing about Larry that I always found interesting was that while he was an incredibly good interviewer while he was on air, the moment the commercial break would come on, he would ignore the celebrity and turn to me to discuss the latest Miami Dolphin game. An avid Dolphin fan, he knew we had season tickets and was much more interested in discussing my thoughts on Sunday's game than anything the non-plused celebrity had to say.

Yes, he wore the horn rimmed glasses and the suspenders, even then. I've marveled at his meteoric rises and catastrophic falls over the years. I knew him before his gravy years with CNN, but you always knew he was something special.

Interesting memories. I think I may e-mail him and wish him well.