American socialite, businesswoman, political activist, philanthropist, diplomat, and former television talk show host. Herring grew up in Houston’s affluent River Oaks neighbourhood. She enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, but left after her sophomore year to marry real estate developer Robert King.
A fixture on the Houston social circuit, Herring became notorious for the lavish, decadent birthday party her first husband threw for her in 1959. The “Roman orgy”-themed affair included period costumes and a mock slave auction, and was covered by Life magazine and various local news media. In the late 1950s, she began a 15-year-long hosting tenure for the self-titled daytime talk show “The Joanne King Show” on Houston’s KHOU-TV station. By 1974, her show had moved to KPRC.
After her divorce from Robert King, by whom she had two sons, Beau and Robin, she met oilman Robert Herring and married him after only five dates. During that time Joanne served as honorary consul to Pakistan. After Robert Herring’s death, she married Lloyd Davis, owner of Fisk Electric.
Herring is well known and remembered for her long association and political relation with President of Pakistan Zia-ul-Haq, born 12 August 1924. Over the years, Herring’s influence on Zia and his military administration grew further, and President Zia became so enamoured with Joanne he would interrupt cabinet meetings to take her call. President Zia neglected the protocols and equally dismayed the Foreign Office when he appointed her his honorary consular at the Houston-based Consulate-General of Pakistan.
Throughout the 1980s, Herring almost single-handedly created the entire United States support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan by assisting the U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson to persuade the U.S. government to train and arm the Mujahideen resistance fighters to fight in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which began in 1979, known as Operation Cyclone. These events inspired the book Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History; Herring is portrayed by actress Julia Roberts in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War. Since the “September 11” attacks in 2001, Herring has stated that she “did not make al-Qaeda” and that she “cannot predict the future.”
Link to Wikipedia biography