The official story is that a stroke killed Roger King, the syndication legend who sold Oprah nationwide wtih evangelical zeal when she was that talented nobody, who would one day become the most powerful woman in America. But strokes tend to be an old man's way of dying, and King, who headed up the syndication biz for CBS, was only 63. But then, a lot of those years, after he made ridiculous F-U money successfully selling not only Oprah, but Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, were rock n' roll years, filled with well-documented drug, alcohol and gambling abuse. Not everybody has Keith Richard's constitution. (Read the NY Times obit here.)

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Got to give Roger props for unparalleled sales savvy in a cutthroat biz. He had big expensive failures along the way too -- he thought Roseanne could be a daytime star of Oprahesque proportions and squandered millions trying to prove it. But you can't fault the guy for being a showman and throwing around cash when he thought it would make him some more. [Some would say he was doing a lot of what he did not to make money, but so everyone would know he had the biggest one in the room.]

The guy knew how to throw a party. Hardly surprising that the invite for his viewing and memorial this Thursday at the White & Gold Ballroom at The Mar-A-Lago Club in Boca closes with: "Dress Attire -- No Black Please!" I remember going to my first National Association of Programming Executives convention in the late 80s in Houston. Roger and his brother Michael threw a soiree to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Oprah Winfrey Show and hired The Temptations so they could join the legendary Motown group on the stage in dance moves and all to serenade their daytime superstar in the "My Girl " finale. Same convention, several years later, this time in San Francisco, Roger hired Elton John and band for an intimate sti down dinner for 500 or so biz pals. World was he wrote Sir Elton a check for $500,000 for the gig that went to the pop star's Aids charity.

Of course, none of this meant Roger was easy to work for. He treated even the most senior executives in his company like the hired help and while he could drop hundreds of thousands at the tables in Vegas or A.C., it's not like the worker bees who toiled for KingWorld, the company he founded with his brother Michael that was bought by CBS in 2000, got particularly decent benefits.

Running all of CBS syndication he had oversight not only of Oprah, Dr. Phil, Inside Editon, Jepoardy and Wheel of Fortune, he also was capo di tutti of of Paramoount''s properties. Roger was hardly beloved by on the Paramount side that's responsible for such cash cows as Entertainment Tonight and Judge Judy, who he treated just the same way he had always treated his top lieutenants at KingWorld. It wasn't like anybody said openly they wanted Roger to go out feet first, but for quite some time the Paramount crowd was hoping CBS chief Leslie Moonves would orchestrate a retirement for Roger sooner than later. In the end it wasn't necessary.

Odds are with Roger King not coming down for breakfast, it's the Paramount side of the CBS syndication family, not the KingWorld gang, that will now control the whole shebang.