Book Excerpt: Love Johnny Carson By Mark Malkoff With David Ritz

No host is more synonymous with The Tonight Show—or late night itself—than Johnny Carson. With his effortless charm, sharp comedic instincts, and unshakable sense of control behind the desk, Carson set the standard for everyone who would follow.

But Carson wasn’t always the King of Late Night. In fact, when he was first announced as the replacement for the hugely popular Jack Paar, Carson’s success was far from assured. Though he came to Tonight after a successful run hosting the game show Who Do You Trust?, an earlier attempt to build a show around him—CBS’s The Johnny Carson Show, which aired first in prime time and later in daytime—had been a ratings flop.

In this exclusive excerpt from his new book Love Johnny Carson, author (and LateNighter contributor) Mark Malkoff draws from more than 400 interviews with Carson staffers, guests, and confidants to take us behind the scenes of the lead-up to Carson’s Tonight Show debut on October 1, 1962.

October 1, 1962

In Johnny’s York Avenue apartment, the morning crawled by. He read every New York newspaper as he watched the clock. The sweep of the second hand seemed slower than usual.

Ten . . . 10:30 . . . 10:45 . . . 11:15 . . . high noon.

Finally, 1:00 p.m.

He left his apartment in a chauffeur-​­driven Cadillac. Making his way across town, he considered what was ahead: facing millions of viewers in a role he’d never attempted in front of a studio audience. In years to come, other hosts would have the benefit of unaired test shows with live audiences. Not Carson.

Showing up at Rockefeller Center, Johnny stepped out of the car and passed under the neon NBC marquee. In his tan trench coat, he could have been mistaken for an accountant or a stockbroker. He walked to the elevator and rode to his cramped, windowless sixth-floor office, with ​its tacky brown carpeting and fake-wood paneling. The worn rug had belonged to Jerry Lester, host of the first NBC late-night show, in 1951.

Johnny looked over the writers’ material stacked next to packs of unfiltered Pall Malls, Life Savers, a TV monitor, a painting of his wife Joanne by Jan De Ruth, photos of his sons, and a mug filled with freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils. He lit a cigarette and, to calm his nerves, put on Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!

Carson was not happy that on this very day and in this very studio, Merv Griffin was also taping his debut afternoon talk show. Sharing the space with Griffin on an ongoing basis made logistics difficult, as Johnny couldn’t get into the studio early.

While Merv’s program was concluding at 3:00 p.m., four talent coordinators came to Johnny’s office with pre-interview questions for him to ask his guests on air. There was also a list of suggested ad libs.

The lineup that day was strong: Joan Crawford, Rudy Vallee, Mel Brooks, Tony Bennett, the Phoenix Singers, and a surprise guest. Each was paid the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists minimum: $320.

Ed McMahon dropped by. The announcer on Who Do You Trust? for the past five years, Ed was grateful that Johnny had brought him to Tonight. He was also apprehensive. According to Joanne, Carson’s first choice had been Hank Simms,  his friend and announcer for the daytime version of The Johnny Carson Show. Simms was reluctant to leave California, and though Johnny had flown to L.A., shown up at his house unannounced, and begged him on bended knee to reconsider, Hank wouldn’t budge.

Carson still hadn’t given up hope that he could convince Simms, but McMahon wanted the job badly. He invited Joanne and Johnny for dinner at Danny’s Hideaway and made his fervent plea: “I’ve just bought this house in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania,” McMahon said. “I’m remodeling it and I don’t even have the money to pay for the pewter door knobs my wife selected. If you don’t take me along, I’m gonna lose everything!”

“Tears were coming down his face,” Joanne remembered. “People at other tables were looking at Ed . . . Johnny was so embarrassed that, just to shut him up, he said, ‘Okay, Ed. I’ll take you along.’”

Despite the unsure beginning, Carson would come to see McMahon as an emotional anchor. Ed’s demeanor was steady—no wild highs, no sudden lows. And he was great at setting up Johnny’s jokes.

Before the first show, Ed was nervous about the future. “Johnny,” he asked, “how do you see my role on the show?”

“I don’t even know how I see my own role,” said Carson. “Let’s just go out there and entertain the hell out of them.” They had little preparation time. Carson’s last episode of Who Do You Trust? had been taped three weeks prior to his October 1 Tonight debut. Carson; McMahon; Johnny’s brother, Dick; producer Perry Cross; and other key staff flew to Fort Lauderdale to create a blueprint for the show, developing characters like Aunt Blabby and Carnac. In Florida, the days were all work and the nights all partying. The group hung out at the famed Polynesian restaurant Mai-​­Kai, where Johnny donned a hula skirt and danced onstage. One raucous evening, he got behind the drum kit while Ed belted out show tunes. When the music stopped, Carson wandered over to the beach to skinny-​­dip in the moonlit Atlantic.

Now, just two weeks later, the 7:30 p.m. showtime was only an hour away. Mel Brooks entered the greenroom. The comic was on a roll. He had just received a second Grammy nomination for the sequel to The 2000 Year Old Man, his hilarious comedy album with Carl Reiner. Variety also announced plans for his new Broadway show, Springtime for Hitler.

Yet, for all his accomplishments, he was overwhelmed when he encountered that night’s surprise guest—his hero Groucho Marx, who’d flown in from California for Carson’s big night. “I was a kid from Brooklyn,” Mel told me, “and there was the great Groucho Marx. When he agreed to give me his autograph, that was enough. I was ready to go home.”

Across the hall, as she paced around her dressing room, film legend Joan Crawford considered going home. She had nearly canceled her appearance. Two weeks prior, she had completed shooting Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and the gossip columns were filled with tidbits about an alleged feud with costar Bette Davis.

A week before the show, Johnny and staff members, including talent coordinator Sy Kasoff, had ventured to Crawford’s duplex apartment at 2 Fifth Avenue to lock down her upcoming appearance. Their first sight was of Crawford, dressed in slacks, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, standing at an ironing board, where she was meticulously pressing a sweater. The actress introduced them to her three poodles before giving them a tour of the apartment. (In her capacious living room, all the pillows were covered in thick plastic, very common for the time.) By the end of the visit, gentle Johnny was able to persuade Joan to honor her commitment.

Now, with only thirty minutes to showtime, Carson was as nervous as Crawford. He did his best to focus on the monologue cue cards being held up by his assistant, Mike Zannella.

NBC pages “loaded” the two-​­hundred-​­plus audience from the seventh floor, where the raked seating looked down on the sixth-floor studio. The men wore suits and ties; the women wore dresses. They no doubt felt fortunate to have scored the hottest ticket in town.

At 7:15 p.m., Ed stepped through the studio’s double doors to warm up the eager crowd. Then bandleader Skitch Henderson led the eighteen-piece band in a mini concert, creating even more anticipation.

Johnny’s secretary came on set, placing a mug filled with vodka and tonic on his desk. This ritual would continue throughout his New York run. Never more than the single mug of booze sipped over an hour and forty-five minutes. Producer Perry Cross and other ​­Tonight staff emphasized that Johnny was never drunk or impaired on air.

As he paced the hall backstage, Johnny could hear the music. 

The clock was ticking, the moment of truth quickly approaching.

From the booth, director Dick Carson counted down from ten.

Seven thirty P.M.: showtime.

Excerpted from the book Love Johnny Carson by Mark Malkoff with David Ritz, to be published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Reprinted by permission.