Producer

by Wendy Walker

  I’ve framed every F—you card he ever sent me, and I hang them in my closet with a piece of tape covering the four-letter word so my kids can’t see it. Maybe when they’re old enough, I’ll decorate my bathroom with a load of F—you cards from Larry King, one of my dearest friends in all the world.

  OPPOSITES ATTRACT

  As magnificent as Larry is on the air, he could never be his own producer. And I could never be on-the-air talent on a steady basis. It’s all about teamwork, and as opposite as we are, Larry and I make a perfect team. I have often found that combining two opposite talents makes a successful and exciting end product. After all, if we were all the same, imagine how boring life could get.

  When you take a good look at Larry and me, I’m sure no one would necessarily have chosen us as a match. Quite the opposite. We could not possibly be more different, but we share two things that cement our foundation for a successful business partnership: our sense of humor and our work ethic. We love to laugh and we love to do it right. And so, it’s not as if we decided that we were so alike, we needed to work together. It was more like, we’re so different, we need to work together. And we have been going strong ever since! I just can’t imagine my life without Larry Zeiger.

  Look at your own life and find people who are very different from you, but you still complement each other. Some of the best marriages are set up that way, so when you meet someone you might work with, your differences might be at the foundation of your success.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make

  Certain stories become an integral part of our pop culture, partly for their shock value, and partly for the intrinsic lessons that we learn from them. Included in the short list of pop culture stunners we have covered on our show are the Scott Peterson trial, the JonBenét Ramsey tragedy, the homicide of Michael Jackson, and of course, the infamous and never-ending saga of OJ Simpson and the double murder case.

  It was called the trial of the century for good reason. The effects of this nine-month-long public trial and OJ’s subsequent acquittal affected the American lifestyle at its core as people sat in their living rooms and got to follow, step by step, the inner machinations of the US judicial system. There was the double murder, the Bronco car chase, the arrest, the stunning acquittal, the civil trial, and then, there was the aftermath years later, in which the ex-football trophy-winning hero landed in jail anyway, proving that karma is real and it will get you.

  It was June 17, 1994, and I was in the control room in Washington, just like any other night. It was a little after 9 p.m., EST, and Larry was interviewing Cyndy Garvey, wife of baseball star and notorious womanizer Steve Garvey. She was on the show, however, not to talk about her husband, but rather to discuss OJ Simpson. It seemed that he was missing.

  On June 13, four days earlier, Nicole Brown Simpson, OJ’s ex-wife and mother of his children, and her friend Ronald Goldman had been found dead, lying in a bloodbath outside Nicole’s condominium in West Los Angeles. OJ had been questioned and released, but he was still a person of interest. Now, Cyndy was talking about the fact that OJ was missing, when I caught sight of a white car on a highway on a monitor feed that was coming from Los Angeles.

  I picked up a line to Atlanta and asked, “What’s going on with that car?” pointing to the monitor directly in front of me. There was an image of a 1993 white Ford Bronco, slowly making its way down the Interstate 5 freeway. It was heading south (incidentally, the direction of Mexico), and a number of police cars were following the Bronco, driving slowly and keeping a controlled distance away.

  “We think it’s OJ Simpson,” said a voice from the Atlanta control room.

  Was OJ trying to make a getaway? It certainly looked like it as the Bronco exited the freeway suddenly, the police cars still on its tail, a good distance back. Then it drove along the on-ramp to the northbound Santa Ana freeway, changing direction and heading back toward Santa Ana.

  We kept our eyes glued to the monitor and Larry began to follow it while he continued to interview Cyndy Garvey.

  KING: Aren’t you shocked by this?

  GARVEY: Not a bit. Not a bit… A psychopath… is a person who leads their lives often doing acts without any sense of remorse or feeling that maybe you and I would have. If I hurt someone, if I do something wrong, I’m saying I’m sorry until I’m blue in the face. Psychopaths tend to walk amongst us, and, because of their charm, maybe their added talent, and their acumen to garner public acclaim, they are given what’s called celebrity license to misbehave. If I hear one more time how people are sorry for OJ Simpson, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Why don’t they show a picture of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman? They have no options. They’re taken out. They’re slaughtered.

  KING: Didn’t you like OJ Simpson?

  GARVEY: I have to tell you, I kind of figured out OJ and many people like OJ and Steve Garvey early on, because they treat everyone about the same in the public, then, when that camera, which I call the public eye, is off, you see the true person, if you’re still around. Many times, I was still around.

  KING: Cyndy… do you think OJ—and this would just be a layman’s guess—may have taken his life?

  GARVEY: I have two thoughts on this, Larry. I think men that beat on women and have a history of abuse are too cowardly to commit suicide. That could be one. You might think I’m coldhearted. I am not. I don’t think he will commit suicide… I don’t know what he did there that night, in front of Nicole’s house. But, whatever came down there, it’s pretty heavily weighted that he was involved.

  While the slow-speed chase continued, producer, CNN vice president, and friend Rick Davis brought a copy of an LA map onto our DC set so Larry could track where the SUV was heading. We were getting affiliate reports that Simpson’s friend A. C. Cowlings was driving. It was his Bronco, in fact, and OJ was holding a gun to his own head.

  This is the 911 call from Al Cowlings:

  911 DISPATCHER: 911, what are you reporting?

  COWLINGS: This is A.C. I have OJ in the car, OK.

  DISPATCHER: OK, where are you?

  COWLINGS: I’m coming up the 5 freeway.

  DISPATCHER: OK.

  COWLINGS: Right now, we’re OK, but you’ve got to tell the police to just back off. He’s still alive but he’s got a gun to his head.

  DISPATCHER: OK, hold on a minute…

  COWLINGS: He just wants to see his mother. Let me get to the house [unintelligible] right now is OK, Officer. Everything is OK. He wants me to get him to see his mom. He wants to get to his house.

  911 DISPATCHER: OK.

  COWLINGS: All I—that’s all we ask. He’s got a gun to his head.

  The Bronco finally pulled up in front of OJ’s house and he exited the car where the police were waiting to handcuff and arrest him. As we watched the onset of the unfolding of a true American tragedy, how could we ever know how huge it would become?

  The first indication came when the network asked us to stay on the air after our usual sixty minutes. We’d been following the Bronco chase and it was another two hours before I drove home, so mentally exhausted I almost fell asleep on the road. But I was also disturbed. OJ had been caught trying to flee with money and his passport. He had held a gun to his own head, and then he was arrested and booked. The idea that OJ Simpson, a celebrated American football hero, sportscaster, and actor, could be under suspicion for two brutal murders was impossible to believe. Doubly disturbing was the fact that this family man with so much talent and so many opportunities could very well be guilty.

  During the months leading up to the trial, in which the prosecutors announced they would seek a life sentence with no possibility of parole rather than the death penalty, the world was watching. On January 23, 1995, with OJ languishing in jail, the trial began with opening statements by the prosecution and the defense. Since the judge had granted television privileges throughout the entire trial, an unprecedented decision, the networks were on high alert at a
ll times.

  As Larry’s producer, this was the first time I was faced with covering the same topic night after night. But while it was grueling in its own right, I found it easier than I had expected. Each time a friend said, “You must be so busy with the OJ trial,” I smiled to myself. They had no idea what “busy” really was. Try being a White House producer. Imagine falling asleep at night and being awakened three hours later with a call that you have to go to the White House right then. That kind of thing was business as usual back then. I could be on vacation, at a wedding, at the gym, or in bed with ice packs on my face after dental surgery, and the call inevitably came. I was in all of these positions at different times when I was roused in the middle of the night and ended up outside in the dark, hailing a cab to the White House. Or worse, at a moment’s notice, I would find myself half asleep, getting on a plane to God only knew where. It was no wonder I had come to hate flying so much.

  A moment on March 6, 1991, stands out in my mind. I had worked all day and I was at the gym exercising when my pager went off. I called in to find that President Bush was going to address the nation and I needed to go directly to the White House. My hair was wet, I had on my pink sweats, and I rushed over to the White House. I still have a picture on my wall of a group of us standing in the Oval Office with George H. W. Bush, with me still in my gym clothes.

  Years earlier, in 1983, when the Beirut bombing occurred, 241 service members were killed, including 220 Marines. I’d just had four wisdom teeth extracted and I was in bed doped up with cold packs on my face, when the news of the bombing hit the airwaves. I dragged myself out of bed and made my way to the White House, looking like someone had hit me in the face repeatedly since my cheeks were swollen, I was in a lot of pain, and my voice wasn’t working very well.

  Dean Reynolds, the first person I saw, was mortified when he looked at me, his producer. “Why the hell are you here?” he asked me. “You look terrible.”

  Dean and I had seen each other at our worst. Back in 1983, I had been Dean’s White House producer when he was CNN White House correspondent and he had been demonstrating some irritable behavior. When I got a call that day that my father had had a stroke, Dean met me outside the White House to talk. “I’ve been a little tough on you lately,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that my dad is sick, too, and I haven’t told anybody. I’ve been under a lot of pressure and I’m really sorry.”

  My father was in the hospital recovering from the stroke when I had a bad feeling some days later. I picked up the phone in the White House where I was working and called my father’s hospital room. My mom answered and said in a shaky voice, “Dad just died.” He was sixty-eight, which we considered old at the time.

  I hung up the phone and before I could figure out what to do next, Dean called the CNN bureau and said, “Wendy’s dad just died. I want to leave the White House and take her home.”

  A producer said, “But your story will be late.”

  Dean said quite calmly, “I just told you that Wendy’s father died. I’m taking her home right now.”

  He drove me home, and later that day I got a flight back home to Jackson, Michigan, to attend the funeral and be with my mom and my sisters. Ironically, Dean’s father, Frank, died a few days later. When I got back to Washington a little bit earlier than planned so I could attend the Reynolds wake, Dean was very glad to see me. “I can’t believe you made it back, Wendy,” he said. “Thank you so much for being here.”

  I stared at Dean and then at the casket. “Dean,” I said, “we got the exact same casket for my father.” That was kind of eerie. Contrary to my father’s modest funeral service, however, Frank Reynolds’s funeral was a huge affair.

  Back to the present, as my face was swollen almost beyond recognition. I mumbled an answer to Dean, unable to speak clearly, and I ordered clear soup for lunch because I couldn’t eat. A reporter, I don’t recall who, called me Face that day, and the name stuck. We remained in the newsroom until someone announced that it was all over and we could go home. Especially Face. They wanted me out of there and I don’t blame them.

  With my new job, however, all that was over. I figured it would be easier than what I had just come from, and it was, even when I woke up in the morning with no idea who or what would be on the show that evening. Now, with the OJ debacle, it was a lot easier because that same story went on and on. But it had its own difficulty level as well. It’s like learning to play golf. When you first swing a club and you manage to hit the ball, you think, Hey, this isn’t so hard. But the more you learn about golf—stand just so, concentrate, hold the club a certain way, and all the rest of it—the more complicated it becomes. The same was true with my new job. But with OJ, at least I had a clear direction.

  Each morning when I got up during the trial, I already knew where I was headed and with whom we needed to speak. I based it on what happened yesterday during the trial, and what was scheduled for today. I once heard Larry say, “I do infotainment,” and I was incredibly turned off. But during the trial, I understood what he meant. The whole idea is that people have to want to watch us. In my opinion, the extraordinary length of this trial marked the beginning of reality television, which offers the audience real information that is entertaining. The OJ trial fit that description to a tee since each evening, reality met entertainment on our show. For the first time, the public at large was watching a criminal trial from start to finish during the daytime. Then, at night on Larry King Live, we would discuss the threefold topics that were triggered: our judicial system, domestic abuse, and racial prejudice.

  We booked some terrific guests for the show who continually reported on the ongoing trial, including slow-talking cowboy defense lawyer Gerry Spence, a judge who looked particularly unassuming, and a couple of pundits. Each day, my staff would contact the trial principals to try to get interviews, but booking them was unreliable because so many venues were vying for them. We got Kato Kaelin (whom I took to a restaurant in Washington one night and everyone was all over him), OJ’s maid Rosa Lopez, who made a big splash during the trial, and once in a while we got one of Simpson’s primary defense attorneys. But we relied on our loyal panel who appeared most nights to cover what had occurred that day and to discuss what it all meant and where it appeared to be heading. People responded to our core group, and I would duplicate that format when future stories became extended for weeks or months on end.

  We were at the bureau in Washington when Larry and I heard that F. Lee Bailey (of Patty Hearst kidnapping fame) was going to be part of the defense team that had been nicknamed the “dream team.” It consisted of Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, and now, F. Lee Bailey was joining the ranks.

  “Larry,” I said, “you know Lee. He’s a good old friend of yours. Why don’t you give him a call and see if he’ll come on the show tonight?”

  “I don’t have his phone number,” Larry said.

  I called Miami information to discover that Lee Bailey’s phone number was unlisted. When I told Larry I couldn’t get his number, he picked up the phone himself and called information in Miami.

  “Can I help you?” said the operator.

  “Hi, there,” said Larry in his raspy New York accent. “Larry King here. What’s your name?”

  “Laurie,” she said. She knew it was really Larry because no one else has a voice that remotely sounds like his.

  “Well, Laurie,” Larry went on, “here’s how you can help me. F. Lee Bailey is a good friend of mine and I need to talk to him. But his phone number is unlisted. Laurie, can you please give me his number?”

  She did it. In the next moment, Larry was talking to F. Lee Bailey. “Hey,” Larry said, “how are you going to do this? OJ doesn’t have a prayer.”

  “Doesn’t have a prayer?” repeated Bailey. “He was set up. This is a racial situation. It’s gonna be a piece of cake. He’ll be fine.”

  F. Lee Bailey called in to our show that night. By now, we had become so involved with this trial, we were c
onsidered OJ Central, and Larry and I were traveling between LA and Washington regularly. For example, during a midmorning break in court a few days later, Larry and I were ushered toward the back of the courtroom, down the hall, and into Judge Ito’s chambers. Larry and the judge chatted, Ito seemed to be really enjoying himself, and I could hardly believe I was sitting opposite the most controversial judge in the country. He became so well known, by the way, that this many years later, there is no name plaque outside his office because people keep stealing it, so he stopped replacing it.

  The recess had gone long over the proposed fifteen minutes—almost forty minutes—when Larry said, “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

  Judge Ito stood reluctantly, it seemed, and said his good-byes. Larry stood, too, but to my dismay, he followed the judge through the rear door into the well of the courtroom. He was going the wrong way. I tried to guide him in the opposite direction, but when OJ spotted him, he yelled out, “Larry!” He stood to shake Larry’s hand until the bailiffs quickly returned OJ to his seat. “Thanks for being so fair,” OJ called out. I cringed. All we needed was for the courtroom to think we were being partial. I just had to get Larry out of there.

  Before I could guide him away, however, Robert Shapiro stood and gave Larry a bear hug. Next, Larry shook hands with F. Lee Bailey. I groaned when Suzanne Childs, part of the prosecution team, rushed to Larry’s side and led him over to the prosecution table. “I watch you all the time,” Marcia Clark said.

  I reached for a door, any door, to get Larry the hell out of there and into another room when a bailiff said to me, “That’s the door to the lockup. Most people try to stay out of there.”

  Jeffrey Toobin, reporter, senior analyst for CNN, and writer for The New Yorker, wrote a definitive book in 1996 called The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson. Toobin says: