The 87-year-old iconic broadcaster has died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a statement posted on his verified Facebook account on Saturday.
King hosted ‘Larry King Live’ on CNN for 25 years and conducted more than 30,000 interviews, including the long, extensive and sometimes bizarre 1994 conversation from the home of Brando, the two-time Oscar winner.
Brando, who did not allow many interviews, promotes his book ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’.
The interview ended famously with the fact that the two men sang ‘Got a Date with an Angel’ and that Brando King gave a pat on the lips.
“Honey, goodbye,” Brando told King.
Wendy Walker, then executive producer of the program, lightly remembered the moment on Saturday.
“The only time I’ve ever been in trouble in my 32 years at CNN was when we interviewed Marlon Brando,” she said. “And we did it from his house, because he was a hermit at the time and … that was the only way he would do it.”
At the end of the 90-minute conversation, Walker said, King and Brando clearly had an explosion.
“They kissed on the set – which of course you remember that famous kiss. Well, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is such a TV iconic moment.’ Well … our sweet, loving boss we love so much, Tom Johnson, called me and said, ‘Why did you make them kiss?’ she said, referring to Tom Johnson, then president of CNN.
“And I said, ‘I forgot … to tell them that if they had a really good time, they should not have kissed at the end of the program.’
Johnson smiled as he recalled the Brando interview on CNN Saturday. “Larry King Live” was the only CNN show that reported directly to the network president.
“It was not just a light kiss. It was a full frontal kiss from the two of them,” he said.
Such an event on television was a rarity: In the same year, two men kissed on MTV’s “The Real World: San Francisco” during the first dedication ceremony on American television.
“And I was just sitting there … ready to get under the desk. I got a lot of calls from time to time, but I knew I would get it then – like me. But my call to Wendy … it really, “Wendy, why? Why did you make this happen?” “