Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories (4 page)

I’m dyslexic so I learned it phonetically from a reel-to-reel tape recording. I think I also had it on LP. After four years of Hebrew school, I was okay at writing Hebrew, but I couldn’t read it easily.

AND YOU WEREN’T NERVOUS AT ALL UP THERE?

Me nervous? It didn’t bother me. I didn’t have the acting bug yet, but I was fine. As the youngest of my peer group all my friends had gone before me. And I attended weekly young people’s services in a small temple under the main hall where we kids would read from the Torah every week. It was a smart thing to do. We were used to getting up and reading from the Torah in front of a group. So when it came time to do it at our bar mitzvah, it was not hard. What was hard was watching my grandmother fake a heart attack and then pretending it didn’t bother me.

The suspender-clad King of Talk, Larry King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York, on November 19, 1933, to Russian immigrants Eddie and Jennie Zeiger. Eddie died years before Larry’s bar mitzvah, leaving his young son, who dreamed of working in radio, to grow up and work at a variety of jobs, including that of a UPS deliveryman, and most recently as the host of
Larry King Live.
2007 marks King’s fiftieth year in broadcasting. His broadcasting career began in 1957.

Larry King was in his twenties when he got his first radio job in Miami Beach as a DJ for WIOD Radio. In 1960, still in Miami, he found himself in television with his own program on WTVJ-TV, which was a hit with the south Floridians. He went on to host
The Larry King Show
on Mutual Radio Network in 1978, which earned him national recognition. Ted Turner was paying attention and hired him for the brand-new Cable News Network in 1985.
Larry King Live
was a first in television. Viewers could call in their questions and Larry would respond on air. No talk show was rated higher at the time, and by the 1990s, it was CNN’s highest-rated program. Celebrities and politicians lined up to appear on the show. It was a place to break news, from Ross Perot’s presidential candidacy to the O. J. Simpson murder trial verdict. The Ross Perot–Al Gore NAFTA debate in 1993 broke ratings records in the cable industry when 16.3 million viewers tuned in. International broadcasts of recent exclusive interviews caught the attention of the world: James Frey, Howard Stern, Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Aniston, former presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the same day that Deep Throat made himself known, and Elizabeth Taylor. The list is nearly endless.

Larry King is not just talk. He literally became king for a night when he was crowned Bacchus XXXIII in 2001 at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He’s made cameo appearances in movies, among them
Ghostbusters, The Contender,
and
Primary Colors.
And he has been seen on television in shows other than his own, including
The Practice,
Frasier,
and
Arliss.
Larry King is also a man with a heart. After his recovery from quintuple bypass surgery, he started up the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, raising millions to help children and adults with heart problems.

King has five children—Andy, Larry Jr., Chaia, Chance, and Cannon. He is stepfather to Danny Southwick and is married to Shawn Southwick-King.

LARRY KING THE BOY WHO BECAME KING OF TALK

My bar mitzvah was in 1946 at Temple Tifereth Torah in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where I grew up. That was at 22nd Avenue and 83rd Street. We had the ceremony and friends put together a little brunch in the synagogue. After the little sandwiches were finished, I had no major reception, no dancing band. I don’t remember invitations. Probably my mother just asked people to come. My father wasn’t there, having died when I was nine and a half. My mother, little brother and I had just come off welfare. New York City put us on relief because my mother couldn’t go to work and had to take care of me and my brother. New York City bought my first pair of glasses. We had no money. So, it was not a huge bar mitzvah. But all my friends came. I had a lot of friends. It was not the bar mitzvah safari theme. I had the opposite of that. I had a nongigantic bar mitzvah. A strong memory is that I made my speech and I did well because I rehearsed very hard for it.

YOU WERE STUDIOUS AND IT WAS IMPORTANT TO YOU TO DO WELL. WAS IT ENJOYABLE OR A CHORE?

All of the above. I considered myself studious but it was a chore. I wanted to get it just perfect. I wanted everything to be right. I was a perfectionist and I’m even more so now. We did it all in Hebrew. Now they do it in English. That was unheard of then. And then I made a speech. In the speech I remember talking about my father. I had a lot of people crying because I was the little boy without a dad. So, reflecting back, I would say I had that coming of age sooner than thirteen. People were telling me that I was the man of the house, which was a bad thing to do, when I was about ten. They didn’t know what they were doing. And they didn’t mean any harm. They just said, “You’re the man of the house.” So I felt there was a lot of responsibility placed on me.

Soon after that, by the way, I lost interest in religion. I would say today that I’m agnostic. But culturally, I’m very Jewish. I like things Jewish. I like the Jewish way of thinking. I like Jewish foods. I like things done well. I’m very Jewish. But I don’t know if there’s a God or not.

YOU GREW UP TO BE THE KING OF TALK, GIVEN THE GIFT OF GAB. DID YOU POSSESS THOSE QUALITIES AS A TEEN?

Are you out of your mind? I was a nerd! I thought the pimples were due to Hershey bars. I first got interested in girls when I was seventeen. For me, being thirteen was all about the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I think I was popular with the other boys because I was funny. I was a storyteller. They used to call me Zeke the Creek the Mouthpiece. My last name was Zeiger so Zeke came from Zeiger. My nickname was Zeke.

AND WHEN DID YOU GO FROM ZEIGER TO BECOME A KING?

My first day on the air, May 1, 1957.

DO YOU THINK THE BAR MITZVAH CELEBRATION HAS BECOME LESS ABOUT THE CEREMONY AND MORE ABOUT THE PARTY?

Sure, “My bar mitzvah has to be better than yours…. Where can I hold my son’s bar mitzvah…?” There’s a joke about a guy who wanted to throw the best bar mitzvah. He’s got all sorts of ideas—paratroopers going into hotels and hiring big-name bands. And finally, someone comes up with the bar mitzvah safari. No one ever did a bar mitzvah safari.

He flies all the people over in 747s. Everybody lines up on elephants. The bar mitzvah boy is up on the first elephant. And the safari doesn’t start. So the father goes over to the captain and asks, “Why aren’t we starting?” The captain replies, “Well, the Cohen bar mitzvah is ahead of us.”

YOU’RE IN A PRIVILEGED SITUATION. AS A FATHER YOURSELF, WHAT TYPE OF CELEBRATION DO YOU SEE DOING ONE DAY FOR YOUR YOUNG SONS?

If it happens, it will be small, because my wife is a devout Mormon, a true believer. They are being raised Mormon, but they understand that they are also Jewish.

I haven’t decided if they will be bar mitzvahed. They are six and seven years old. I like the idea of them being bar mitzvahed as a tribute to my mother and father. And Chance, my seven-year-old, calls himself half Jewish and likes being half Jewish. He’s in the Beverly Hills public school system and there are a lot of Jews there.

To me the bar mitzvah ceremony is a hundred times more important than the reception after it. The ceremony is an excellent rite of passage as a young man faces manhood. But I don’t like the idea of saying to him, “Today you are a Man.”

I think it’s very important to have some structure in life. To look forward to something like a bar mitzvah. And to learn something from it—that it has some meaning. A party is a party. Anyone can have a party. But the ceremony—I think it has great and lasting meaning. That’s what I want to give to my kids. If they have a bar mitzvah, it will not be elaborate.

YOU’RE A WARM AND COMPASSIONATE PERSON. THAT COMES THROUGH ON THE SCREEN. WERE YOU RAISED WITH THOSE VALUES? TO DO THE BEST YOU CAN AND ALSO BE A REALLY NICE GUY?

This is how I was raised. My mother wanted nothing but the best for me. I was spoiled. My mother had only me and my little brother. She never remarried. Anything she could do was for her son Label, which was what she called me. Had I blown up a bank, she would have blamed the bank—maybe they made a mistake in my checking account. She died when I was working in Miami, so she did get to see where my career was heading.

AND BOY, DID IT EVER GO IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, AND WASN’T IT AT YOUR BAR MITZVAH THAT YOU REALIZED YOU POSSESS THE ABILITY TO NEVER BECOME UNGLUED?

I realized something at my bar mitzvah: I don’t get nervous. I’ve never been terrified of an audience in my life.

DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR BAR MITZVAH MADE YOU THE PERSON YOU BECAME?

My bar mitzvah certainly contributed to who I am today. That speech was the first time I ever spoke in public. I made people cry, which is a kind of power. It’s a powerful feeling to have control of an audience. Jackie Gleason told me that he knew he wanted to be on stage when he was six years old. His mother took him to a show. They were in the third row and people were applauding. He turned around to face the people. He didn’t want to face the stage. He wanted to face the people. He knew he liked the attention.

I THINK I ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS, BUT DID YOU LIKE BEING IN FRONT OF A CROWD ON THAT PARTICULAR DAY?

Like
isn’t the word. I loved it. And I still love it. When I go out and make a speech, that’s my favorite thing to do, I just do comedy. I tell funny stories. There’s no bigger thrill than going on stage at a convention or other gathering, to stand on a stage, have the rapt attention of an audience, and to make them laugh. I always wanted to be a broadcaster. I dreamed of it when I was five years old. I used to look at the radio and imitate the people talking on it. That’s all I ever wanted to do. So I’m living out a life’s dream.

They call him the Wunderkind, and looking at his résumé, it’s no “wunder.” At twenty-six years of age, he became the youngest executive producer in
Today
show history. During his eight-year stint, the show climbed into first place and remains NBC’s most profitable program. He is credited for the phenomenally successful career of Katie Couric, who became the
Today
show’s national correspondent in 1990, with Jeff Zucker as her producer. And
Where in the World
would we be without Matt Lauer? Viewers can thank Jeff Zucker for bringing Matt into millions of homes every morning.

As expected, Zucker’s meteoric rise continued. The next stop: president of NBC Entertainment and then in 2007, at just forty-one years old, he was offered the top of the rock, taking helm of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media companies with revenues of over $16 billion, as president and chief executive officer. In his domain, Zucker is also responsible for a stable of networks including USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, Sci Fi, and Telemundo. Fans of the hit show
Heroes
consider him a hero for bringing the epic series into their lives. Also under his umbrella, the Universal movie studio and theme parks in Florida and California.

Jeffrey Zucker was born on April 9, 1965, in Miami, Florida. Growing up in Miami, he celebrated his bar mitzvah there. At the time, he was a thirteen-year-old with a full head of hair attending North Miami Junior High School. He graduated from Harvard University in 1986 with a BA in American history. During his four years at Harvard, Zucker was the president of the
Harvard Crimson,
the school’s daily newspaper. He added fuel to the rivalry between the paper and the
Harvard Lampoon,
the world’s oldest humor magazine, at that time headed by his colleague-to-be, Conan O’ Brien.

When he was turned down by Harvard Law School in 1986, Jeff Zucker was hired by NBC to do research to help with the reporting on the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. He became a producer for the
Today
show a year later and, in January 1992, became the show’s executive producer, years before turning thirty. During his tenure, no show could surpass the ratings of the
Today
show, reaching a pinnacle in the 2000–2001 season.

Without Jeff Zucker, Donald Trump might still be just in the building business and Rockefeller Plaza wouldn’t be the place where fans flock to see rock concerts. Fans of the
The Apprentice, Las Vegas, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Scrubs
and
Fear Factor
can applaud Zucker for bringing these shows to the network and the
Today
show’s live music to Rockefeller Plaza. As president of NBC Entertainment, a position he took in December 2000, he was in charge of the network’s entertainment lineup. Over the next four years, NBC’s primetime schedule was a top performer in the major adult eighteen-to-forty-nine demographic age group. In 2004, as president of the NBC Universal Television Group, he enriched the primetime schedule with hits including
My Name Is Earl, The Office, Medium,
the megahit
Deal or No Deal,
and Bravo’s
Project Runway.

Jeff Zucker is married to former
Saturday Night Live
producer Caryn Nathanson. They have four children.

JEFF ZUCKER, ON TOP OF THE ROCK

I have vivid memories of my bar mitzvah. I remember that I wasn’t at all intimidated by being in front of people, or scared of it. I enjoyed it. I assumed that’s what you did and that it was the normal way you have a bar mitzvah. It was a good experience. You know, my mom planned the whole thing. It probably took a year to do that. I was happy with it, the service and the party. And I remember the party was afterward at the Starlight Roof of the Doral Hotel in Miami Beach. We filled the place. You know that now, of course, most parties are at night, but mine was immediately after the service, and it was really fun. There must have been two hundred people there. I was a big tennis player at the time. So I remember a lot of my tennis friends were there. I had a lot of friends, but no girlfriend.

I remember my bar mitzvah photo. I had that full head of straight hair. Later, it became curly, but it was straight then. My bar mitzvah photo was ridiculous. I was skinny and lanky, with that hair, and I wore a big tie. It was not a bow tie. It was a regular tie and it was big, with a knot.

We were members of the biggest Reform temple in the southeastern United States, which was Temple Israel, in Miami. I went to Sunday school and Hebrew school. I always went to services on the high holy days. I was bar mitzvahed and confirmed at the temple. But we weren’t overly religious. We certainly celebrated the Jewish holidays and I had a Jewish education.

DID YOUR BAR MITZVAH HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE?

My bar mitzvah was a pretty important day in my childhood. I know I felt proud of what I was doing. I remember the day. I remember the sanctuary. I remember reading from the Torah and that my section was really long because I had been preparing for a long time by going to Hebrew school, and I also had a Hebrew tutor. They kept increasing the amount that I was going to do, but I liked doing the work. I was bar mitzvahed by the senior rabbi at the synagogue, Joseph Narot, who was very well-known. I remember that I was good at the Hebrew. And I can still read Hebrew, even though that was the end of my Hebrew education. I was happy about that. I was glad I did it, but I was happy it was over.

IT’S INTERESTING BECAUSE BACK THEN BAR MITZVAHS SEEMED MORE SUBDUED, OR SHOULD I SAY, LESS COMPETITIVE, THAN THEY ARE TODAY.

It wasn’t a competition then. I think it’s much more of a competition now. I don’t think back then we all looked on it as competition. I mean, the bar mitzvahs of today are out of control and crazy. They’re bigger than weddings. And back then, it was a really nice party with a band and dancing. And it wasn’t over the top and it wasn’t crazy and it wasn’t out of control.

AND ANOTHER TALENT SOME MIGHT NOT KNOW YOU POSSESS IS THAT YOU ARE QUITE THE “FANCY DANCER,” “THE KING OF THE WHITE MAN’S OVERBITE.” WERE YOU BACK THEN? DID YOU ALWAYS HAVE THE MOVES?

Well, clearly. Definitely. For me, it was on display at an early age.

MODEST AS ALWAYS. WHAT WERE YOU LIKE GROWING UP? WHAT TYPE OF KID WERE YOU? A BRAINIAC, I SUSPECT.

I was a good kid who didn’t give my parents trouble, who got straight A’s in school. I was self-motivated and very competitive. I played tennis my whole life, since I was six years old. I ended up pretty much playing every day of my life. I was a pretty good tennis player. That was my life, school and tennis. Eventually, I went to Harvard, where I still played tennis but only in my freshman year. I stopped after that. And I became the head of the college newspaper. That’s why I stopped playing tennis, because I couldn’t do both. And I was burnt out on tennis by then. But, you know, my son Andrew is starting to play tennis now, so that’s kind of cool.

AND SPEAKING OF YOUR CHILDREN, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR YOUR DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH, AND THREE SONS, ANDREW, PETER AND WILLIAM WHEN THEY TURN THIRTEEN?

I would like to see all four of my children bar or bat mitzvahed. I would hope to keep the celebrations in perspective. Frankly, I think it’s more about the values and the traditions than it is about the religion, not to diminish the religious part of it. But the values and traditions that it instills in a family are really important. It gives you a sense of community and a sense of belonging to a small group and a bigger group. It’s a way to bring family together and to bind families, generation to generation. It’s a good reminder of where you came from. To me, those are good values.

ARE YOU A RELIGIOUS PERSON, AND, IF SO, HAVE YOU BECOME MORE RELIGIOUS AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, MORE SPIRITUAL I SHOULD SAY?

Yes, because I was sick twice and confronted the possibility of dying. I don’t know that it made me more religious, but it made me reconnect with the idea of religion and the traditions and values that I think it brings along.

But I also think having kids puts things in perspective and makes you realize what’s important. I don’t think you ever lose that competitive spirit, but you figure out how to reprioritize aspects of your life.