He’s still the king. Carson the Magnificent, Bill Zehme‘s long-awaited Johnny Carson biography, is officially a New York Times bestseller.
Released earlier this month, the book debuted on The New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list this week at No. 15. The exploration of the notoriously private Tonight Show host was the only new release to make the chart.
The book received a Times write-up published online earlier this month, before making the print Sunday Book Review this past weekend. The prominent coverage could help push the book higher up the ranks in the weeks to come.
Zehme, the sole journalist to interview Carson after his time hosting The Tonight Show, spent a decade researching the in-depth biography of the late-night giant. He was known for generally friendly celebrity profiles, which may have been what made him an attractive writer for Carson to work with. After Zehme’s death last year, the Times’ comedy critic Jason Zinoman called the project “one of the great unfinished biographies.”
It didn’t remain unfinished for long, though, as Zehme’s friend and former research assistant Mike Thomas took on the task of finishing the book. He went through a storage locker full of Zehme’s research, completing his work to allow for the book’s recent release. Zehme’s collection included audio tapes, DVDs, photographs, binders of transcripts of recorded interviews, and an array of memorabilia.
Thomas told LateNighter that Carson the Magnificent isn’t meant to serve as a definitive biography, but instead offers Zehme’s personal tribute to Carson while looking to avoid serving as a hagiography.
The book was released on Election Day, so readers would be forgiven for having a few other things on their minds, but it looks to have found an audience. Carson died in 2005 at 79 years old—next year would have been his 100th birthday.
