The Man Who Would Be King

Inside Piers’ new talk show

Piers Morgan — a British former newspaper editor best known here as the no-pulled-punches judge of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” — was crowned as King’s successor last September.

Since then, according to Melanie Lefkowitz at nypost.com,  he and his executive producer, Jonathan Wald, have proceeded at a breakneck pace, hiring a booking staff even as they booked some of the biggest names around — Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Rice, Ricky Gervais and George Clooney all appear this week.

He listed painstaking research and “cheeky impertinence” — not to mention flirting — among his trade secrets.

For the Oprah sit-down that airs tonight, he spent days watching two decades of past interviews with the talk-show diva. This, he said, helped him find her fault lines, inspiring him to ask how many times she’s been “properly in love.” (Two, not counting Steadman.)

“One difference between me and Larry is, Larry has prided himself for years on winging it in interviews,” Morgan said in his office, a sparsely decorated corner nook with sweeping views of Central Park. “It worked brilliantly for him. I’m a very different type of interviewer.”

Read more here.

NPR Interview

Piers Morgan, the man who is taking over for CNN's Larry King, is known to American viewers almost exclusively as a judge on America's Got Talent. But his British career is one of a tabloid editor who mixed with politicians and celebrities before his disgrace and resurrection as a celebrity interviewer on British television.