Montel Williams
Williams at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
Born	Montel Brian Anthony Williams (1956-07-03) July 3, 1956 (age 55) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Talk show host
Years active	1991 – present
Spouse	Rochele See (1982–89) Grace Morley (1992–2000) Tara Fowler (2007–present)
Website
www.montelwilliams.com

Montel Brian Anthony Williams (born July 3, 1956) is an American television personality, radio talk show host and actor. He is best known as host of the long-running The Montel Williams Show, and more recently as a spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA). Williams is also active with the non-profit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.

Early life[link]

Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a resident of Glen Burnie, Maryland, he was bused to Andover High School in neighboring Linthicum, Maryland where he was elected president of both his junior and senior classes. He was a good student, athlete and musician and active in county-wide student government issues in Annapolis, Maryland.^[1] His father, Herman Williams, Jr., was a firefighter who in 1992 became Baltimore's first African-American Fire Chief. Montel has five siblings including his 52 year old brother James.

Career[link]

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 3, 1956, Williams enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps upon graduating high school in 1974. He went to boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, where he was promoted to platoon guide. After basic training, he was sent to the Desert Warfare Training Center at Twentynine Palms, California.

While at Twentynine Palms, his superiors became impressed with his leadership skills, and he was recommended for, and accepted to, the Naval Academy Preparatory School at Newport, Rhode Island. He completed the one-year course, and was accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

When he arrived at Annapolis on July 6, 1976, he was honorably discharged as a corporal from the Marines, and enlisted into the navy as a midshipman. While at Annapolis, Williams studied Mandarin Chinese and graduated with a degree in general engineering and a minor in International Security Affairs. It was at Annapolis that Williams first began to shave his head. Upon his graduation in 1980, he became the first black enlisted marine to complete and graduate both the Academy Prep School and Annapolis.

Williams’ plans were to return to the Marines as an officer after graduating from Annapolis. These were shattered when he and 99 other seniors were given the wrong dose of an immunization. Williams had a severe reaction, causing him to be in the hospital for 2½ weeks and lose the vision in his left eye. He eventually made a partial recovery and could serve as a naval intelligence officer, specializing in languages.

Commissioned an ensign, he spent the next one and a half years in Guam as a cryptologic officer for naval intelligence, where he served at sea and ashore. In 1982 he was transferred to Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where he studied the Russian language for one year. In 1983 he was transferred to Ft. Meade in Maryland, where he worked with the National Security Agency. What Williams did there is vague, due to the sensitive nature of intelligence work, but he performed various intelligence missions. He was offshore aboard ship during the invasion of Grenada.

After three years aboard submarines, Williams, now a full lieutenant, was made supervising cryptologic officer with the Naval Security Fleet Support Division at Ft. Meade. It was while counseling his crew that he discovered a gift for public speaking. In 1988, he began conducting informal counseling for the wives and families of the servicemen in his command. He was later asked to speak to a local group of kids in Kansas City, MO about the importance of leadership and how to overcome obstacles on the road to success—thus beginning a three-year career in motivational speaking.

Williams traveled the country talking to more than three million teenagers nationwide and gave up his naval commission to pursue speaking full-time. He left the navy with the rank of lieutenant, and received the Navy Achievement Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal. Williams retired after 22 years of service as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy Reserve.^[2] In addition, he reached out to thousands of parents, educators and business leaders, encouraging them to work together to address youth issues, trends and to inspire youngsters to reach their highest potential. These efforts to reach out to the community eventually lead to the Montel Williams Show on television

[edit] The Montel Williams Show

Williams began The Montel Williams Show (syndicated by CBS Paramount Television) in 1991.^[3] In 1996, Williams received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Ratings for the show peaked during the 1996–1997 season, with 4.4 average rating. He was again nominated for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2002, and the Montel Williams Show was nominated for Outstanding Talk Show in 2001 and 2002.

On January 30, 2008, Variety reported that CBS TV Distribution terminated The Montel Williams Show when key Fox-owned stations chose not to renew it for the 2008–09 season.^[4] On May 16, 2008 the last episode of The Montel Williams Show aired.^[5]

On November 10, 2010, Oprah Winfrey invited Williams, along with former talk show hosts Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Ricki Lake and Sally Jessy Raphael as guests on her show. This was the first time that she had fellow talkers appear together since their programs left the air.^[6]

Radio, infomercial, & news shows[link]

On April 6, 2009, Williams began hosting a daily radio show, Montel Across America, on Air America Media.^[7] On January 21, 2010, Air America ceased broadcasting, leaving Williams without a radio outlet.^[8]

As of May 2009, he started hosting an infomercial for the Living Well Healthmaster, a blender product. It is presented under the title Living Well with Montel; the infomercial is structured similarly to his old talk show, featuring guests talking about their health problems, with the Healthmaster mixer being the solution. In November 2009, Williams began appearing in television commercials endorsing Money Mutual, an online payday advance lender.^[9][10] Later episodes of Living Well with Montel advertised a home pressure cooker and an identity theft protection service.

In June 2010, Williams began doing infomercials for LifeLock, a security fraud company.^[11]

During May 24–27, 2011, Williams became a guest host news anchor on the comedic local Sacramento, California news station Good Day Sacramento. Where he would answer questions by viewers and also on his first day, he got dressed up as Paul Stanley.

Acting[link]

Williams has also guest-starred in episodic television and off-Broadway plays. Among other roles, he portrayed a Navy SEAL lieutenant in three episodes of the television series JAG. He also produced and starred in a short-lived television series called Matt Waters, which appeared on CBS in 1996. He played an ex-Navy SEAL turned inner-city high school teacher.^[12] In 1997, he played Lt. Colonel Northrop a Nuclear Silo commander in the fictional movie The Peacekeeper.

Williams played the judge presiding over Erica Kane's (Susan Lucci) murder trial on the ABC soap opera All My Children in 2002. In 2003, he made a guest appearance on the soap as himself, to promote an episode of his own show on which several AMC stars were scheduled to appear. In 2004, he hosted American Candidate, a political reality show on Showtime. Williams has also guest starred on Touched by an Angel and Guiding Light.

Production[link]

Williams produced and narrated the Starline Films documentary film 4CHOSEN: The Documentary, which tells the story about the New Jersey Turnpike shooting in 1998, and the racial profiling case that followed the incident.^[13][14]

Spokesperson[link]

Williams is a national spokesman of the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA), a patient-assistance program clearinghouse that helps low-income patients apply for free or reduced-priced prescription drugs. On November 30, 2007, while in Savannah, Georgia to promote PPA, he threatened reporters following an earlier interview at which Courtney Scott, a 17-year-old high school intern reporter for the Savannah Morning News, had asked him a question about whether restriction of pharmaceutical profits would discourage research and development of new drugs. Angered by the question, Williams subsequently terminated that videotaped interview; Williams later ran into Scott in his hotel and threatened to "blow [her] up".^[15] Williams' public relations representatives later apologized for his hostile outburst in an issued statement, "I mistakenly thought the reporter and photographer in question were at the hotel to confront me about some earlier comments. I was wrong, and I apologize for my overreaction." ^[16] In 2010, Williams became chief spokesperson for the Poker Training Network,^[17], now Card Geniuses, a MLM-based poker instruction and playing website.

References within Popular Culture[link]

In the episode of South Park entitled the Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka, Jesus is repeatedly mistaken for Williams by an enthusiastic Michael Jackson apologist whilst taping his public access talk show Jesus and Pals. ^[18]

Personal life[link]

Williams has two daughters, Ashley Williams (b. 1984) and Maressa Williams (b. 1988), with his first wife, Rochele See. Williams married Grace Morley, a burlesque dancer on June 6, 1992.^[19] They have a son, Montel Brian Hank Williams (b. 1993), and a daughter, Wyntergrace Williams (b. 1994). The couple divorced in 2000. In July 2006, Williams proposed to girlfriend Tara Fowler, an American Airlines flight attendant. They married before friends and family on a beach in Bermuda on October 6, 2007.^[20] He is also featured in Making Music Magazine.

Williams participated in the 2007 World Series of Poker main event,^[21] and planned to donate any potential winnings to US families affected by the Iraq war. He was eliminated in Day 2. During the event Williams also spoke out about the port security bill signed in 2006 that banned on-line gaming sites from accepting money transactions from the U.S.

Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.^[22][23] In the following year, Williams created the MS Foundation, a non-profit organization with a focus on research and education.^[24] Williams has openly stated that he uses medical marijuana, stating it helps to ease his Multiple Sclerosis-caused neuropathic pain.^[25] Williams has become a vocal advocate of marijuana, supporting efforts to pass medical marijuana laws in states, as well as calling for full legalization and promoting the use of the gravity bong.^[26][27] He has also said that snowboarding is his "best therapy" for MS, commenting that “When I stand up I need first to hold on to something and think about the positioning of my legs. If I were to just start walking I would fall. I have to get my brain to find my legs and then I will usually take a test step, but I say something at the time to anyone who might be watching to distract from what I’m really doing. Then I’ll find places to grab as I walk and talk, sometimes even walking backwards because I have more control that way. People have no idea that I’m doing this. But when I’m snowboarding and my feet are strapped in, my brain seems to have a direct connection to my legs. After snowboarding it’s night and day for my balance and walking. There’s a real physical change before I get up to the mountain and when I come down. The benefits last for days.�^[28]

Williams recently added The Fisher House Foundation to the charities he supports. While visiting wounded military at Walter Reed for 2 years, he learned of this foundation's work which is to make free housing available so the families of wounded soldiers can be near their hospitals . He has since become a board member and he and his extended family enjoy cooking special seafood dinners for the guests at individual Fisher Houses.

Bibliography[link]

• Williams, Montel; Paisner, Daniel (February 1997). Mountain, Get Out Of My Way. Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-446-60417-8. 
• Williams, Montel; Kramer, Jill (September 2000). Life Lessons and Reflections. Carlsbad, CA: Mountain Movers Press. ISBN 978-1-58825-001-8. 
• Williams, Montel; Paisner, Daniel (2001-10-01). A Dozen Ways to Sunday. Mountain Movers Press. ISBN 978-1-58825-005-6. 
• Williams, Montel; Linguvic, Wini (2003-10-01). BodyChange: The 21 Day Fitness Program for Changing Your Body and Changing Your Life. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. ISBN 978-1-4019-0314-5. 
• Williams, Montel; Grobel, Lawrence (2005-01-04). Climbing Higher. NAL Trade. ISBN 978-0-451-21398-3. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Montel Williams

	Biography portal
	United States Navy portal
	United States Marine Corps portal

• Montel Williams at the Internet Movie Database
• Montel Across America radio show
• Montel Media Group
• Living Well with Montel
• Montel Williams MS Foundation
• Montel Show Website
• Montel Williams is a Wellness Coach for AOL Coaches
• Living Well With Montel Health Master
• PPARX press release
• Williams interview on “The Giftâ€?, a radio special on US military and their families by the Fisher House Foundation (12/25/2011)l

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Biography[link]

At ages 11–13, she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a teenage cousin. Her diary detailing her abuse, recovery, relapse and reconciliation was published in book form as Stolen Innocence.^[1]

Her second book was published in November, 2009 called Living For Today. It discusses earlier previously unknown abuse that was perpetrated by a friend's uncle.

She has become a crusader for sexual-abuse victims, and actively encourages others to speak out about their own survival.

Education[link]

She graduated from Schaumburg High School in 2004^[2] and earned a Bachelor's in Social Work from Western Illinois University in 2008.^[3] She earned her Masters Degree from Aurora University in social work.

Published works[link]

• Stolen Innocence: Triumphing Over a Childhood Broken by Abuse: A Memoir (HCI, 2004; ISBN 0-7573-0282-3)
• "Take Back the Night", Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul (HCI, 2005; ISBN 0-7573-0317-X)^[4]
• Living for Today (2009)

References[link]

Larry King
King in September 2010
Born	Lawrence Harvey Zeiger (1933-11-19) November 19, 1933 (age 78) Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Television/Radio personality
Years active	1957–present
Religion	Judaism
Spouse	Freda Miller (1952-1953; annulled) Annette Kaye (1961; divorced) Alene Akins (1961-1963; divorced) Mickey Stuphin (1963-1967; divorced) Alene Akins (1967-1972; divorced) Sharon Lepore (1976-1983; divorced) Julie Alexander (1989-1992; divorced) Shawn Southwick (1997–present)

Larry King (born November 19, 1933) is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards. He began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s and became prominent as an all-night national radio broadcaster starting in 1978. From 1985-2010, he hosted the nightly interview TV program Larry King Live on CNN.

Early life[link]

King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York City, to an Austrian immigrant Edward Zeiger, a restaurant owner and defense plant worker, and his wife Jennie Gitlitz, a garment worker, who emigrated from Belarus.^[1][2][3] King grew up in a religiously observant Jewish home,^[4] but in adulthood became an agnostic.^[5]

King's father died at 44 of heart disease,^[6] and his mother had to go on welfare to support her two sons. His father's death greatly affected King, and he lost interest in school. After graduating from high school, he worked to help support his mother. From an early age, however, he had wanted to go into radio.^[7] King is a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Career[link]

Miami radio and television[link]

A CBS staff announcer, whom King met by chance, told him to go to Florida, a growing media market where openings still existed for inexperienced broadcasters. King rode a train to Miami. After initial setbacks, King persisted and got his first job in radio. The manager of a small station, WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach, hired him to clean up and perform miscellaneous tasks.^[8] When one of their announcers quit, they put King on the air. His first broadcast was on May 1, 1957, when he worked as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon.^[9] He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. He was paid $55 a week. He acquired the name Larry King when the general manager Marshall Simmonds said that Zeiger was too ethnic and difficult to remember, so Larry chose the surname King, which he got from an ad in The Miami Herald for King's Wholesale Liquor, minutes before air.^[10] He started interviewing on a midmorning show for WIOD, at Pumpernik's Restaurant in Miami Beach.^[11] He would interview anyone who walked in. His first interview was with a waiter at the restaurant.^[12] Two days later, singer Bobby Darin, in Miami for a concert later that day, walked into Pumpernik's as a result of coming across King's show on his radio; Darin became King's first celebrity interview guest.^[13]

His Miami radio show launched him to local stardom. A few years later, in May 1960, he hosted Miami Undercover, airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV Channel 10 (now WPLG).^[14] On the show, he moderated debates on important issues of the time. King credits his success on local TV to the assistance of another showbiz legend, comedian Jackie Gleason, whose national TV variety show was being filmed in Miami Beach during this period. "That show really took off because Gleason came to Miami," King said in a 1996 interview he gave when inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. "He did that show and stayed all night with me. We stayed till five in the morning. He didn't like the set, so we broke into the general manager's office and changed the set. Gleason changed the set, he changed the lighting, and he became like a mentor of mine."^[15] Jackie Gleason was instrumental in getting Larry a hard-to-get on air interview with Frank Sinatra during this time.

During this period, WIOD gave King further exposure as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, during their 1970 season and most of their 1971 season.^[16] However, he was dismissed by both WIOD and television station WTVJ as a late-night radio host and sports commentator as of December 20, 1971, when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner.^[17] Other staffers covered the Dolphins' games into their 24–3 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI. King also lost his weekly column at the Miami Beach Sun newspaper. The charges were dropped on March 10, 1972, and King spent the next several years in reviving his career, including a stint as the color announcer in Louisiana for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League in 1974–75 on KWKH. Eventually, King was rehired by WIOD in Miami. For several years during the 1970s in South Florida, he hosted a sports talk-show called "Sports-a-la-King" that featured guests and callers.

National radio[link]

Interviewing Vladimir Putin

In 1978, he went national, inheriting the nightly talk show slot on the Mutual Broadcasting System, broadcast coast-to-coast, that had been "Long John" Nebel's until his death, and had been pioneered by Herb Jepko.^[18] One reason King got the Mutual job is that he had once been an announcer at WGMA-AM in Hollywood, Florida, which was then owned by C. Edward Little. Little went on to become president of Mutual and was the one who hired King when Nebel died. King's Mutual show developed a devoted audience.^{[citation needed]}

It was broadcast live Monday through Friday from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. King would interview a guest for the first 90 minutes, with callers asking questions that continued the interview for another 90 minutes. At 3 a.m., he would allow callers to discuss any topic they pleased with him, until the end of the program, when he expressed his own political opinions. That segment was called "Open Phone America". Some of the regular callers used the pseudonyms "The Portland Laugher", "The Miami Derelict", "The Todd Cruz Caller", "The Scandal Scooper", "Mr. Radio" and "The Water Is Warm Caller". "Mr. Radio" made over 200 calls to King during Open Phone America. The show was successful, starting with relatively few affiliates and eventually growing to more than 500. It ran until 1994.^{[citation needed]}

For its final year, the show was moved to afternoons, but, because most talk radio stations at the time had an established policy of local origination in the time-slot (3 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time) that Mutual offered the show, a very low percentage of King's overnight affiliates agreed to carry his daytime show and it was unable to generate the same audience size.^{[citation needed]} The afternoon show was eventually given to David Brenner and radio affiliates were given the option of carrying the audio of King's new CNN evening television program. The Westwood One radio simulcast of the CNN show continued until December 31, 2009.

CNN[link]

He started his Larry King Live CNN show in June 1985, hosting a broad range of guests from controversial figures of UFO conspiracy theories and alleged psychics,^[19] to prominent politicians and leading figures in the entertainment industry, often doing their first or only interview on breaking news stories on his show.

King during a recording of his Larry King Live program at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA in 2006

Unlike many interviewers, King has a direct, non-confrontational approach. His reputation for asking easy, open-ended questions has made him attractive to important figures who want to state their position while avoiding being challenged on contentious topics.^[20] His interview style is characteristically frank, but with occasional bursts of irreverence and humor. His approach attracts some guests who would not otherwise appear. King, who is known for his general lack of pre-interview preparation, once bragged that he never read the books of authors before they made their appearances on his program.

In a show dedicated to the surviving Beatles, King asked George Harrison's widow about the song "Something", which was written about George Harrison's first wife. He seemed surprised when she did not know very much about the song.

Throughout his career King has interviewed many of the leading figures of his time. CNN claimed during his final episode that he had performed 60,000 interviews in his career.

King also wrote a regular newspaper column in USA Today for almost 20 years, from shortly after that newspaper's origin in 1982 until September 2001.^[21] The column consisted of short "plugs, superlatives and dropped names" but was dropped when the newspaper redesigned its "Life" section.^[22] The column was resurrected in blog form in November 2008^[23] and on Twitter in April 2009.^[24]

Departure[link]

On June 29, 2010, King announced that after 25 years, he would be stepping down from his nightly job hosting Larry King Live. However, he stated that he would remain with CNN to host occasional specials.^[25] The announcement came in the wake of speculation that CNN had approached Piers Morgan, the British television personality and journalist, as King's primetime replacement,^[26] which was confirmed in September.^[27][28]

The final edition of Larry King Live aired on December 16, 2010.^[29] The show concluded with his last thoughts and a thank you to his audience for watching and supporting him over the years.^[30]

On February 17, 2012 CNN announced that he would no longer host specials.^[31]

Other ventures[link]

King was the moderator of the 6th KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, an annual forum for Kazakhstan's energy sector occurring in October 2011.^[32][33][34]

Charitable works[link]

As a result of heart attacks, he established the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, an organization to which David Letterman, through his American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, has also contributed. King gave $1 million to George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs for scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.^{[citation needed]} King serves as a member of the Board of Directors on the Police Athletic League of New York City, a nonprofit youth development agency serving inner-city children and teenagers.^{[citation needed]}

On September 3, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, King aired "How You Can Help", a three-hour special designed to provide a forum and information clearinghouse for viewers to understand and join nationwide and global relief efforts. On January 18, 2010, in the wake the 2010 Haiti earthquake, King aired "Haiti: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action and be a part of the global outreach. Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, King aired "Disaster in the Gulf: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action in the clean-up efforts on the Gulf Coast.

On August 30, 2010, King served as the host of Chabad's 30th annual "To Life" telethon, in Los Angeles.

Controversial positions[link]

On September 10, 1990, while on The Joan Rivers Show, Rivers asked King which contestant in the Miss America pageant was "the ugliest". King responded, "Miss Pennsylvania. She was one of the 10 finalists and she did a great ventriloquist bit [...] The dummy was prettier."^[35] King was a judge for the September 8, 1990 pageant. King later sent Miss Pennsylvania, Marla Wynne, a dozen long-stemmed roses and a telegram apologizing for saying she was the ugliest contestant in the pageant that year.^[36]

In 1997, King was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, comparing it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s.^[37] Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn.^[37]

Personal life[link]

King has been married eight times, to seven different women.^[38] He married high-school sweetheart Freda Miller in 1951 at age 18.^[39] The union ended the following year at the behest of their parents, who reportedly had the marriage annulled.^[39] King was later briefly married to Annette Kaye^[39] who gave birth to his son, Larry Jr., in November 1961. King did not meet Larry Jr. until the son was in his thirties.^[40] Larry Jr. and his wife, Shannon, have three children.^[38]

In 1961, King married his third wife, Alene Akins, a Playboy bunny at one of the magazine's eponymous nightclubs. The couple had son Andy in 1962, and divorced the following year.^[39] In 1963, King married his fourth wife, Mary Francis "Mickey" Stuphin, who divorced King.^[39] He remarried Akins, with whom he had a second child, Chaia, in 1969.^[39] The couple divorced a second time in 1972.^[39] In 1997, Dove Books published a book written by King and Chaia, Daddy Day, Daughter Day. Aimed at young children, it tells each of their accounts of his divorce from Akins.

On September 25, 1976, King married his fifth wife, math teacher and production assistant Sharon Lepore. The couple divorced in 1983.^[41]

King met businesswoman Julie Alexander in summer 1989, and proposed to her on the couple's first date, on August 1, 1989.^[42] Alexander became King's sixth wife on October 7, 1989, when the two were married in Washington, D.C.^[43] The couple lived in different cities, however, with Alexander in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and King in Washington, D.C., where he worked. The couple separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992.^[43] He became engaged to actress Deanna Lund in 1995, after five weeks of dating, but they never married.^[44]

He married his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, born in 1959^[45][46] as Shawn Oro Engemann,^[45] a former singer and TV host,^[47] in King's Los Angeles, California, hospital room three days before King underwent heart surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel.^[46] The couple have two children: Chance, born March 1999,^{[citation needed]} and Cannon, born May 2000.^{[citation needed]} He is stepfather to Danny Southwick.^{[citation needed]} On King and Southwick's 10th anniversary in September 2007, Southwick boasted she was "the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits".^[47] On April 14, 2010, both Larry and Shawn King filed for divorce.^[46][48] but have since stopped the proceedings, claiming "We love our children, we love each other, we love being a family. That is all that matters to us".^[49]

On February 24, 1987, King suffered a major heart attack and then had quintuple-bypass surgery.^{[citation needed]} Since then, King has written two books about living with heart disease. Mr. King, You're Having a Heart Attack: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life (1989, ISBN 0-440-50039-7) was written with New York's Newsday science editor B. D. Colen. Taking On Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed over the Nation's #1 Killer and How You Can, Too (2004, ISBN 1-57954-820-2) features the experience of various celebrities with cardiovascular disease including Peggy Fleming and Regis Philbin.

In July 2009, King appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, where he told host O'Brien about his wishes to be cryonically preserved upon death,^[50] as he had revealed in his book My Remarkable Journey.^[51] In December 2011, preceding a CNN Special on the topic, the Kings had a special dinner with friends Conan O'Brien, Tyra Banks, Shaquille O'Neal, Seth MacFarlane, Jack Dorsey, Quincy Jones and Russell Brand where his intent to do so was reiterated, among other topics that were discussed.^[52]

On February 12, 2010, Larry King revealed that he had undergone surgery five weeks earlier to place stents in his coronary artery to remove plaque from his heart. During the segment on Larry King Live which discussed Bill Clinton's similar procedure, King said he was "feeling great" and had been in hospital for just one day.^{[citation needed]}

Awards[link]

King has received many broadcasting awards. He won the Peabody Award for Excellence in broadcasting for both his radio (1982) and television (1992) shows. He has also won 10 CableACE awards for Best Interviewer and for Best Talk Show Series.

In 1989, King was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame,^{[citation needed]} and in 1996 to the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.^[7] In 2002, the industry magazine Talkers named King both the fourth-greatest radio talk show host of all time and the top television talk show host of all time.^[53]

in June 1998, King received an Honorary Degree from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, for his life achievements.

King was given the Golden Mike Award for Lifetime Achievement in January 2009, by the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California.

King is an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Beverly Hills. He is also a recipient of the President's Award honoring his impact on media from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2006.

King is the first recipient of the Arizona State University Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence,^[54] presented April 11, 2007, via satellite by Downs himself.^[55] Downs sported red suspenders for the event and turned the tables on King by asking "very tough questions" about King's best, worst and most influential interviews during King's 50 years in broadcasting.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Larry King on Wikipedia's sister projects:
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• CNN profile
• Larry King Cardiac Foundation - Foundation to fund treatments cardiac patients with little or no insurance
• Clark lawsuit
• Larry King at the Internet Movie Database
• Larry King Live - Transcripts of all interviews since 2000
• Larry King interviewed by Gianluca D'Agostino
• Larry King Archive of American Television video interview

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Joe Kort (born 1963) is an openly gay American clinical social worker, clinical sexologist, author, lecturer, and facilitator of workshops. He met his partner, Mike, in 1993, and they religiously married under Reform Judaism in 2000 and legally married in 2005 in Massachusetts. The New York Times quoted him as saying, “For many young gay men today, settling down in a relationship in their 20s—or getting married if they live in Massachusetts—will feel like a very natural thing to do.�^[1]

He has appeared on television and radio programs, was a featured guest on the Tyra Banks Show^[2] and Montel Williams^[3] talk shows on the topic of mixed-orientation marriages; “These men genuinely love their wives,� another New York Times article quoted him as saying. “They fall in love with their wives, they have children, they're on a chemical, romantic high. Then after about seven years, the high falls away and their gay identity starts emerging.�^[4] Kort was also a guest on Oprah and Friends Radio “Better in Bed� with Dr. Laura Berman, discussing straight men who have sex with men.^[5]

Kort has devoted his career to advancing the social acceptance, and professional treatment of the gay, lesbian and bisexual communities. His first book, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives (2003, Alyson Books) ^[6] gave answers to the most common questions his clients brought to him, outlining the most effective ways for gay men to escape negativity and achieve greater fulfillment.

He is an outspoken advocate for men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly heterosexual men who engage in sexual behavior with other men and are not gay or bisexual. The popular term, “on the Down Low� specifically addressed African-American males secretly engaging in sexual behavior with other men. Kort has expanded the awareness of the Down Low to apply beyond men of color and writes about this sexual behavior crossing all ethnicities, religions, socio-economic as well as races.

His website, Straight Guise (www.StraightGuise.com) is addressed to the men and women who are involved with them. Since 2009, he has written an online advice column for 365gay.com, owned and operated by Viacom (a division of MTV and LOGO Television).

Education and Professional Training[link]

Kort received a BA in Social Work from Michigan State University (1985) and a Master of Social Work Degree (1986) and Master’s in Educational Psychology (1992) from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Kort has also completed his doctorate from the American Academy of Clinical Sexologists in Orlando, FL and holds a Ph.D. in clinical sexology.

Since 1985, Kort has provided psychotherapy and relationship counseling to individuals and couples, both gay and heterosexual, and specializes in sexual addiction/compulsivity, depression, anxiety disorders, sexual orientation issues, mixed- orientation marriages as well as adult survivors of sexual abuse/incest. He runs an ongoing Gay Men’s Group Therapy.

Affiliations[link]

In June 1991, he received his ACSW (Academy of Certified Social Workers), which is the most widely recognized and respected credential from the National Association of Social Workers. In 1995, he was certified to practice Imago Relationship Therapy (www.imagotherapy.com), as developed by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and detailed in his books, Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Find ^[7]). In 1998, Kort was nationally certified to present couples’ weekends based on IMAGO Relationship Therapy.

Since 1998, as an Adjunct Professor at Wayne State University’s School of Social Work, he teaches graduate courses in Gay & Lesbian Studies. Since 1999, he has been a member of The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (formerly The National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity) as well as American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT, www.aasect.org).

Books[link]

• 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives (ISBN 1-55583782-4)
• 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love (ISBN 1-55583898-7)
• Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy for the Straight Clinician (ISBN 0-39370497-1), W W Norton page
• "Straight Guise: Is My Partner Gay?" — a chapter about straight men in heterosexual marriages who have sex with other men — in Mending A Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts (ISBN 0-977440060: Gentle Press, 2008.)
• Foreword to Loving Ourselves: The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem by Kimeron Hardin Joe wrote the this books ISBN 1-59350-045-9: Alyson Books, 2008).

Articles[link]

Since 1996, he has published newspaper articles on the special issues faced by gays and lesbians in the Detroit Free Press, Between the Lines, the Detroit News, and The Oakland Press, some of which include:

• “The Men in the Mirror: Gay Men and their Pornâ€? (June, 2002) for In the Family.
• “Queer Eye for the Straight Therapistâ€? (May, 2004) for Psychotherapy Networker magazine
• “Homosexuality and Pedophilia: The False Linkâ€? (September, 2004), for In the Family.
• “The New Mixed Marriageâ€? (September, 2005), for therapists working with couples where one spouse is straight and the other gay/lesbian) for Psychotherapy Networker magazine.
• “Covert Cultural Sexual Abuse of Gay Male Teenagers Contributing to Etiology of Sexual Addictionâ€? (Winter, 2005) in Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity Journal.
• “The Sex Addicted Mixed-Orientation Marriage: Examining Attachment Styles, Internalized Homophobia and Viability of Marriage After Disclosureâ€? with Deborah M. Corley, Ph.D. (spring 2006), in Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity Journal.
• “Gay Guise: What to Do When Your Client Has Sex with Men, But is Straightâ€? (July/August, 2007), for Psychotherapy Networker magazine.

References[link]

External links[link]

• 365gay.com
• Official website
• http://www.GayAffirmativeTherapy.com
• http://www.StraightGuise.com

Tyra Lynn Banks
Banks at the 2012 Time 100 gala
Born	Tyra Lynn Banks (1973-12-04) December 4, 1973 (age 38) Inglewood, California, U.S.
Occupation	Model Actress Author Singer
Years active	1991–present
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)[1][2]
Website
typeF.com

Tyra Lynn Banks (born December 4, 1973). is an American model, media personality, actress, occasional singer, author and businesswoman.^[3][4][5] She first became famous as a model, appearing twice on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and working for Victoria's Secret as one of their original Angels. Banks is the creator and host of the UPN/The CW reality television show America's Next Top Model, co-creator of True Beauty, and host of her own talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

Early life[link]

Tyra Banks was born in Inglewood, California. She is the daughter of Caroline (née London; now London-Johnson), a medical photographer,^[6] and Donald Banks, a computer consultant.^[3][7] She has a brother, Devin, who is five years older. In 1980, when Banks was 6 years old, her parents divorced. Banks attended John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. Tyra Banks is one of four African Americans and seven women to have repeatedly ranked among the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

Career[link]

Modeling[link]

When Banks was 15 years old, she started modeling while attending school in Los Angeles. She was rejected by four modeling agencies before she was signed by Elite Model Management at age 16. When she got the opportunity to model in Europe, she put college on hold and moved to Milan. In her first runway season, she was booked a record 25 shows at the 1991 Paris fashion week. She would later grace the covers of ELLE and Vogue Spain. She walked the runways for Chanel, Isaac Mizrahi, Anna Sui, Sonia Rykiel, Todd Oldham, Christian Lacroix, Christian Dior, Karl Lagerfeld, Calvin Klein, Badgley Mischka, Marina Spadafora, Michael Kors, Perry Ellis, Gemma Kahng, Valentino, Tracy Reese, Nicole Miller and Fendi as well as appearing in ad campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren and others.^[8] In the mid-1990's, Banks returned to America to do more commercial modeling.

Banks was the first African American woman on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.^[9] In 1997, she received the VH1 award for, "Supermodel of the Year."^{[citation needed]} That same year, she became the first-ever African American chosen for the cover of the Victoria's Secret catalog.^[10] She is one of the original Victoria's Secret Angels.

In 2010, Banks re-signed with her former modeling agency IMG Models.^[11] Banks is now a contributor of the Vogue Italia website.

Move into television and film[link]

Banks at Cannes Film Festival in 2000.

Banks's television career began on the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which she played lead character Will Smith's old friend Jackie Ames. She made seven appearances in the series.^{[citation needed]} Other TV credits include Felicity, All That, MADtv, Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out (in which she was featured as a special guest host and team captain) and The Price Is Right (guest-starring as a "Barker's Beauty").^{[citation needed]} She also appeared as a guest in the animated talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode entitled "Chinatown."

Tyra Banks started her own production company, Bankable Productions (previously named, "Ty Ty Baby Productions"; she did not rename it till the second cycle of America's Next Top Model), which produced The Tyra Banks Show, America's Next Top Model and the 2008 movie The Clique.

Banks is the hostess, judge and executive producer of The CW Television Network show America's Next Top Model. In addition, she hosted The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005, and ran until May 28, 2010.

In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show.^{[citation needed]}, and won for the second time in a row for outstanding, informative talkshow. In 2010, Oprah Winfrey congratulated Tyra Banks for a good job done on her talk-show for inspiring and mentoring young women.

In late-January 2008, Banks got the go-ahead from The CW Television Network to start work on a new reality television series based on fashion magazines called Modelitha. The show premiered on October 22, 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Banks's first big screen role came in 1994, when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning.^[12] She then co-starred with Lindsay Lohan in the Disney film Life-Size, playing a doll named Eve who comes to life and has to learn how to live in the real world. Other notable roles include Love Stinks (1999), Love & Basketball (2000), Coyote Ugly (2000) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002). She and Miley Cyrus poke fun at the excesses of the Hollywood lifestyle with a battle over a pair of shoes in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009).

Banks appeared in the fourth episode of the third season of Gossip Girl^[13] playing Ursula Nyquist, a larger-than-life actress who works with Serena.

Music[link]

Banks has appeared in several music videos, including Michael Jackson's "Black or White", Tina Turner's "Love Thing", Mobb Deep's "Trife Life", George Michael's "Too Funky" (with supermodels Linda Evangelista, Estelle Lefebure, Emma Sjoberg and Nadja Auermann ) and Lionel Richie's "Don't Wanna Lose You". In 2004, she recorded her first single, "Shake Ya Body," which had a music video featuring the final six contestants on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 2. The video was world-premiered on UPN, but the single turned out to be a failure.^[14]

Banks released a single with NBA player Kobe Bryant, entitled "K.O.B.E.," which was performed on NBA TV.^{[citation needed]} She also has a single on the soundtrack to Disney Channel's Original Movie Life-Size called "Be A Star."^{[citation needed]}

Books[link]

Banks in Santa Monica on September 14, 2011

Banks announced in May 2010 that she would be writing a novel, titled Modelland,^[15] loosely based on her own modelling experience.^[16] Published September 2011,^{[dated info]} it is the first of a planned three-part series.^[17] On an interview with Good Morning America, Banks stated that Modelland is the story of four girls who are accepted into an "exclusive" modelling school in the world of Modelland.^[18] Her first novel, Modelland, hit the New York Times best seller list in October 2011.

In 1998, Banks authored a book entitled Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out.^[19]

Website[link]

In March 2011, Banks launched her fashion and beauty website called "typeF.com", which she co-created with Demand Media.^[20]

Other[link]

In 2011, Banks enrolled in the nine-week-long Owner/President Manager Program (OPM) at Harvard Business School's open-enrollment extension school.^[21] Banks passed the Executive Education Training Program in February 2012.^[22]

Philanthropy[link]

In 1999, Tyra Banks established the TZONE program, which aimed at leadership and life skills development.^[23][24] Banks acts as the patron for TZONE. She has also established the Tyra Banks Scholarship, a fund aimed at providing African-American girls the opportunity to attend her alma mater, Immaculate Heart High School. In 2005, TZONE transformed from a camp into a public charity, the Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation.^[23]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tyra Banks

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tyra Banks

• Tyra Banks at the Internet Movie Database
• Tyra Banks at the Fashion Model Directory
• Tyra Banks at AllRovi
• banks Tyra Banks at People.com
• The Tyra Banks Show website
• The New York Times Profile/Interview