Back in 1977, barely two jobs into her Hollywood career, Jamie Lee Curtis landed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson—in a low-key way.
Curtis shared the story of her very first, stealth appearance on the long-running NBC late night program during her Wednesday visit to Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show.
After Fallon had said that the Academy Award-winning actress has an open invitation to drop by his show, JLC remarked, “That’s very nice of you,” and then found herself moved to tell the above tale.
“Here’s what’s weird…,” she began. “I was on The Tonight Show [for] my second job in show business.”
Well, in a manner of speaking.
As Curtis explained. “My first job was a Quincy [episode], and my second job was a Columbo.” On the latter, she played a “bitchy” diner waitress who waits on Peter Falk‘s titular detective.
When Falk himself visited Carson’s Tonight Show in May 1977, days before that episode would air, “he took that clip” of their diner scene, to be played for viewers and promote his NBC crime drama, Curtis said.
“So, my second job in show business was on The Tonight Show,” the actress beamed.
Nudged by Fallon, Curtis recounted the substance of said diner scene, at times lapsing into a pretty solid Peter Falk impression.
“Well, he walks in with a doughnut. And of course, [my character] says, ‘You can’t eat that here.’ And he goes, “Oh! Oh, yeah. Oh, I’m sorry…’ And then he hands me the doughnut. I glare at him. And then I leave.”
Following an ad break, “I come back and go, ‘Have you decided what you want?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, oh, I’m sorry… I’ll have a doughnut.’ And then I glare.”
That glare, Curtis noted, became a “patented” thing for her, that she to this day carries in her actor’s bag of tricks.
Watch Fallon’s sit-down with Curtis above.
