Larry King's Life in Photos

Born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on Nov. 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, Larry King didn't have the easiest childhood.

After his father - a Russian immigrant - died of heart problems in 1944, "I was 11, my younger brother Martin was only 6, and my mother couldn't work," he told PEOPLE in 1980. "I remember the inspectors from the Welfare Department coming to our house. They opened the refrigerator and asked my mother how she could afford the meat. She could afford it because she didn't eat it. She gave it to my brother and me."

An avid fan of radio, King broke into the business in the late '50s in Miami, after he took a janitor job at a local station and was asked to go on air after an announcer abruptly quit.

"I was petrified," he recalled to PEOPLE. "The theme music was supposed to fade, and I was supposed to do a voice-over. But every time the music faded I'd turn it back up again. Finally the station manager stuck his head into the studio and said, 'Remember, this is a communicating business.' I let the music go down and told the audience what had just happened. Those were my first words on radio."