The closest anyone has come to filling his role in the culture was Oprah Winfrey for the quarter-century she hosted her weekday talk show. Carson’s show ceased to be simply a matter of entertainment. Carson was the nation’s common touchstone, from the things he chose to joke about to the guests he received, validated and vaulted into prominence. You liked that man so much, and you went with him.”Īmerica went with him for 30 years.
“I don’t think anybody was watching Johnny Carson to rate how his material was,” says Conan O’Brien, himself briefly a “Tonight Show” host. Meanwhile, he displayed a knack for miraculous recovery, somehow milking a misfired joke for its unfunniness and getting more laughs than if it had worked in the first place.īut ultimately, Carson’s popularity wasn’t based on his interview skills. The bad news is, he still hasn’t figured how they can get an income.” There were also jokes that zeroed in on current events, including this mid-1970s gem that, four decades later, seems as topical as ever: “President Ford is considering an income-tax cut for people in lower tax brackets. He could dine out on silly, formulaic jokes: “It was hot today,” he would begin, to which the audience chorused, How hot was it? “So hot I saw a sparrow pick up his worm with a potholder.” In addition, he was a superb stand-up comic, as the clips demonstrate. He could save you if the show needed it, or he could let you do your thing.” Hall, whose syndicated show arrived in 1989 to become Carson’s only real threat, is lavish in his praise of Carson as an interviewer: “He had the perfect barometer in his head for when to go and when to stay out. “This is a guy who was as familiar as a bedtime story,” says Arsenio Hall in a pithy description of the man who put so many viewers to bed every night. All of them labor to explain him and his appeal. The film hears from dozens of performers and colleagues, as well as from the second of Carson’s four wives, Joanne. There are also home movies and personal photos. Carson always declined, but after his death, Jones successfully approached Carson’s nephew, Jeff Sotzing, who controls his uncle’s archives.įrom that vast trove comes many clips from “Tonight,” including classic moments such as Ed Ames’ misdirected hatchet throw and novelty singer Tiny Tim’s 1969 marriage to Miss Vickie, which drew 45 million viewers - 85 percent of all television viewers. Narrated by Kevin Spacey, “King of Late Night” is written, directed and produced by Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker Peter Jones, who for years penned an annual letter to Carson seeking his cooperation in the creation of a documentary about him. “King of Late Night” follows Carson from there all the way to his retirement from the show (and, as it turned out, his total withdrawal from the public scene) in 1992, and his death, at age 79, in 2005. No video exists of his debut, just an audio tape that finds him sounding cool and confident even as he jokes about his jitters. Hired to replace the departing Jack Paar on “The Tonight Show,” Carson made his first appearance on Oct. Then, his career flaring out, he retreated to New York in 1957 to host a daytime quiz show for also-ran ABC.ĭuring his five years on “Who Do You Trust?” he was able to establish himself as an attractive, quick-witted personality, while building bonds with his chosen sidekick, Ed McMahon, who, of course, would remain at his side for the rest of his career. He scored a prime-time network show on CBS, but it flopped. Soon he went to Los Angeles, where he hosted a sketch-comedy show on a local station. A 1950 film clip captures him at work, blinking and breathless behind his desk - much in contrast to the cool, unflappable on-air manner he would grow into, but with the boyish looks and robust, man’s voice he kept for a lifetime.
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And after college, he landed a job at an Omaha radio station, where, with the advent of TV soon after, he hosted a program on the infant medium. This led to showbiz as his chosen profession. He grew up in small-town Nebraska, the son of a father who worked at the local power company and an emotionally withholding mother whose approval he seems to have sought, fruitlessly, his entire life.īut as a boy, he discovered the way to win approval - at least from others - was by performing magic: “You can be the center of attention without being yourself,” he explains as an adult.
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