Johnny Carson, king of late-night TV, dies at 79

January 23, 2005

By ED BARK / The Dallas Morning News

Douglas C. Pizac / AP Former talk show host Johnny Carson, with his personalized coffee cup in front of him, watches clips from earlier shows during the last taping of "The Tonight Show" in Burbank, Calif., on May 22, 1992.

LOS ANGELES — Johnny Carson, the mischievous clown prince who became late-night television's once and forever king, died Sunday at age 79 in his Malibu home.

NBC, where he reigned supreme for 30 years until his 1992 departure from The Tonight Show, said the cause of death was emphysema. No memorial service is planned for Mr. Carson, who also had undergone quadruple bypass surgery in March 1999.

"His gift was the ability to make millions of Americans feel they, too, had a close friendship with Johnny," NBC Universal chairman and CEO Bob Wright said in a statement. "With his lightning quick wit, effortless delivery and immense charm, he was without peer in late-night television."

Mr. Carson in part owes his enduring legacy to deceased pioneers Steve Allen, the first Tonight host, and Jack Paar, whom he succeeded on Oct. 1, 1962. But no host before or since has dominated his field as Mr. Carson did. He jump-started the careers of Bill Cosby, David Letterman, Roseanne Barr, Rodney Dangerfield, George Carlin, Joan Rivers and many others while vanquishing a slew of competitors, including Joey Bishop, Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin.

In largely pre-cable times, Mr. Carson's Tonight was the show to see and to be seen on.

"The very first time I got invited to his show, that defined, 'You have now made it,'" daytime talk queen Oprah Winfrey said.

She had been informed of Mr. Carson's death just seconds before taking a hotel ballroom stage late Sunday morning to promote her new ABC movie Oprah Winfrey Presents: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Many of the nation's TV critics were in attendance on the last day of a two-week "press tour" of new network programming.

The news of Mr. Carson's death came just five days after former Tonight producer Peter Lassally said his longtime friend was in good health of late.

"Johnny has emphysema, which he's had for a long time, and recently has had some breathing problems," Mr. Lassally said during an interview session for CBS' new The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. "But he's fine. He's just fine."

Mr. Carson, a longtime smoker who virtually vanished from public view after leaving Tonight, remained a fan of late-night TV and "all of television," Mr. Lassally said. "I talk to him regularly on the phone and he still is interested in literature, politics and all the worldly things that he always was interested in. I think the thing he misses the most is the monologue. When he reads the paper in the morning, he can think of five jokes right off the bat that he wishes he had an outlet for."

Mr. Carson was a far bigger fan of David Letterman's CBS late show than of Jay Leno's post-Carson Tonight. He made two cameo appearances on Mr. Letterman's program in the mid-1990s and occasionally sent jokes for the host's monologue.

"And Letterman has used Johnny's jokes ... and Johnny gets a big kick out of that," Mr. Lassally said.

Mr. Leno, who did not mention Mr. Carson on the night he took over Tonight, said Sunday that "no single individual has had as great an impact on television as Johnny. He was the gold standard. It's hard to believe he's actually gone."

Born in Corning, Iowa to Ruth and Homer "Kit" Carson, Mr. Carson spent his formative years in Norfolk, Neb., where the family moved when he was 8 years old. His first brush with show business was as a teenage magician, "The Great Carsoni." After graduating from Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., Mr. Carson hosted the 1950s TV programs Carson's Cellar, The Morning Show and Earn Your Vacation before hitting his stride on 1957's Who Do You Trust?, where he first teamed with longtime sidekick Ed McMahon.

Mixing broad comedy within a game show format, Trust lasted for five years and led directly to Tonight. Groucho Marx introduced Mr. Carson on his maiden Oct. 1, 1962 Tonight before the host welcomed guests Mel Brooks, Joan Crawford, Rudy Vallee and Tony Bennett.

Tonight moved from New York to "beautiful downtown Burbank" in 1972, with Mr. Carson perfecting recurring characters such as Carnac the Magnificent, Aunt Blabby, Floyd R. Turbo and Art Fern and his "Tea Time Movie."

He often was at his best when a monologue joke bombed, prompting Mr. Carson to check his mike for sound or do a soft shoe dance to the tune of "Tea for Two." He also enjoyed playing possum with a wide range of animals, including a marmoset that wetted on Mr. Carson's head during a memorable segment subsequently replayed on anniversary specials.

"He had the ability to react to the unpredictable, whether it was Don Rickles or an animal suddenly doing something," trainer Jim Fowler said in a 1994 interview with The Dallas Morning News.

Mr. Carson's hugely popular Tonight run prompted the New England Journal of Medicine to jokingly create a malady in his honor. "Carsongenous Monocular Nyctalopia," it said, is a "vision problem caused by lying sideways in bed with one eye open to watch the Tonight Show."

As a kid, Arsenio Hall said he had that problem. He sometimes got spanked for stealing looks at Mr. Carson when he was supposed to be asleep.

"Johnny's kind of an architect for the life I'm living," Mr. Hall said when his late-night talk show was in full bloom. "I was obsessed with watching Johnny. I told my mother I wanted to be like Johnny."

Mr. Carson frequently joked about his failed marriages and also jabbed at politicians in his oft-influential monologues. Dallas billionaire Ross Perot and his 1992 presidential campaign became a favorite target during Mr. Carson's final year on Tonight.

"I don't know, he doesn't look like a president," Mr. Carson once cracked. "He looks like he oughta be giving Andy and Barney a trim in the Mayberry barbershop."

He also gave Bill Clinton an optimum chance to poke fun at himself after his widely ridiculed and seemingly interminable keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic convention. Mr. Clinton played "Summertime" on his saxophone after Mr. Carson broke the ice by asking his guest an opening question and then turning over an hour glass.

Mr. Carson increasingly did most of his talking through home TV screens, declining to do interviews even in the closing months leading to his heavily publicized May 22, 1992 Tonight Show farewell.

Co-producer and talent booker Jim McCawley told The News at the time: "He's not sentimental at all. Not even a little bit. Making a spectacle out of your feelings is in poor taste – and he won't do that. It's cheap, and it's the easy way to go. And he's never done that his whole life."

Instead his guests were effusive. Patrick Swayze, appearing during Mr. Carson's last month on Tonight, couldn't contain his awe.

"Do you realize you're a national treasure?" he asked the host. "You're a figurehead. I mean, to most people you're a god."

Mr. Carson did get a bit sentimental in the closing moments of his final Tonight, which he hosted without guests.

"It's been an honor and a privilege coming into your homes all these years to entertain you," he said, his voice cracking. "I bid you a very heartfelt good night."

Mr. Carson seldom was seen or heard again, save for the two Letterman cameos and an appearance on NBC's 1993 celebration of Bob Hope's 90th birthday.

When the 17-acre Johnny Carson Park was dedicated in Burbank, he joked that "the warm water in the fountain will be cool and aloof."

Not that he ever visited it. Mr. Carson consistently spurned invitations to return to the medium that made him hugely famous. Organizers of 1998's 50th anniversary Emmy Awards telecast were among the many who never had a chance.

"Every year we talk to Johnny about the possibility of coming on," producer Don Mischer said. "One year he told me he'd just rather sit in Malibu and watch the hummingbirds mate."

Mr. McMahon, who had nightly heralded "Heeeeere's Johnny!", said that Mr. Carson basically is "doing nothing and he's doing it very well."

"He is not a social animal. ... His attitude is, 'Ed, I did it. That's it.' No questions asked. Don't go there. It's over," Mr. McMahon said in a 1997 interview with The News,

"He at least had 10 years to live a life not being hounded," said Chevy Chase, who with Steve Martin, Neil Simon and others was a member of Mr. Carson's Hollywood Gourmet Poker Club in the post-Tonight years.

"With all you can say for Jay, David, Conan [O'Brien], they appeal to certain slices, where Johnny seemed to cut right through America," Mr. Chase told the NBC-owned program Extra.

"He was the quintessential American guy."