Peter Lassally, the legendary late-night producer who died Sunday at age 93, spent decades producing the medium’s most famous hosts—but he made only one appearance on the other side of a late-night desk.
That came in January 2005, days after Johnny Carson’s death, when David Letterman persuaded Lassally to appear on a special episode of Late Show devoted to Carson.
Even then, Letterman had to plead with him.
“I had to beg you,” Letterman told Lassally at the beginning of the interview. “I had to plead with you to come on the show.”
Lassally had warned him that he would be nervous and “a horrible guest.” Letterman responded that having him there “would make me feel so great,” ultimately persuading the longtime Carson producer to participate in the special tribute episode.
Once Lassally settled into the chair, however, he offered an unusually intimate portrait of the man he had worked beside for more than two decades.
He explained that Carson retired because he feared remaining on television past his prime. Carson believed Bob Hope and Jack Benny had both “stayed too long at the fair,” Lassally recalled, and had instructed his producer to tell him when it was time to leave—and to prevent him from attempting a comeback afterward.
Lassally said Carson’s refusal to return only reinforced his admiration for him. “He knew he wanted to be remembered as he was, at the top of his game,” he said.
The producer also revealed that his relationship with Carson became warmer only after The Tonight Show ended. Freed from the pressure of hosting, Carson became more relaxed and outgoing. He continued writing monologue jokes for his own amusement, sometimes calling Lassally to read them aloud.
Lassally eventually persuaded Carson to send some of those jokes to Letterman, who delivered them without telling viewers who had written them. Letterman recalled the thrill of receiving material from his hero: “It’s like Christmas morning, for God’s sakes.”
There were lighter memories, too. Lassally recalled Carson’s impatience with technical problems, his fondness for playing Art Fern and the Tea Time Movie lady, and the time he punctured a rambling guest’s monologue by asking, “Have you ever read any books?”
The interview ended with a story about Carson unexpectedly picking up the bill for a Late Show staff dinner in Malibu. Carson had believed he was treating only Letterman’s table—not the entire group of roughly 70 or 80 employees assembled on the restaurant’s patio.
“The bill was about ten grand,” Lassally said.
Letterman closed by thanking Lassally for temporarily abandoning his preferred place behind the scenes.
“I realize I’m treading on our friendship,” he told him. “But thank you very much for being here.”
Lassally’s career famously stretched across several eras of late-night television. In addition to his long tenure with Carson, he went on to produce shows hosted by David Letterman, Tom Snyder and Craig Ferguson, while also mentoring Garry Shandling and helping give early exposure to comedians including Steven Wright.
Watch Letterman’s full interview with Lassally at the top of this post.
