Some of the younger generations might find it hard to believe, but there once was a time when most of America sat down in front of the TV every night and watched the same man, Johnny Carson, the host of The Tonight Show. For many, he was the last voice they heard before going to bed every night; a safe, amusing, and comforting constant throughout decades of turbulence and uncertainty.
Writer Kenneth Tynan opined that Johnny Carson’s “blend of staying power and mounting popularity is without precedent in the history of television.” When Carson finally decided to call it quits in the early 90s, fellow entertainer Bob Hope said it was something like “a head falling off Mt. Rushmore.”
It’s hard to describe the power and influence Carson wielded. He could make or break careers. The topics he brought up during his monologue became the topics discussed throughout the country the following day. So today we’re taking a look at the life and career of the man once dubbed “the conscience of America.”
Early Years
John William Carson was born on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, the middle child of Homer Carson and Ruth Hook. He had an older sister named Catherine and a younger brother named Dick. The youngest sibling entered the entertainment business, as well, and became a television director. Dick Carson helmed shows such as Wheel of Fortune, The Merv Griffin Show, and, unsurprisingly, The Tonight Show. He won five Emmys for his work, and, in any other household, that would have made him the undisputed showbiz showoff, but not when his brother was Johnny Carson.
For the first years of Johnny’s life, the Carson family lived a nomadic lifestyle, always on the move. This was due to Homer Carson’s job as a lineman for the phone company. The family traveled to towns such as Red Oak, Clarinda, and Shenandoah, and wherever else new lines were needed. When they moved to Avoca, Iowa, in 1930, they stayed put for a few years, and Johnny enjoyed a more traditional childhood.
His dad had been promoted to manager of the power company in Avoca, so the family didn’t have to move around as much. However, when Johnny was eight years old, the Carsons did relocate once more, this time leaving Iowa and heading for Norfolk, Nebraska. With a population of around 10,000 people at the time, Norfolk was like a metropolis compared to all the other small towns Johnny had previously resided in, where the population rarely exceeded 1,000 people.
It was a bit intimidating at first, but Johnny soon found his groove. Outdoor activities such as hiking, swimming, and fishing were his favorite pastimes and, to the annoyance of his neighbors, shooting a BB gun that he got for Christmas one year.
More importantly, Johnny Carson slowly began his transition into his lifelong role as an entertainer. He was profoundly marked by a trip the family took in 1937 to California. They visited Bel Air, and 12-year-old Johnny was left awestruck by the lavish mansions of Hollywood’s rich and famous, not knowing yet that, one day, he would also live in a home just like those.
At school, Johnny began acting in plays. His first role was that of a bumblebee, and then he acted in A Christmas Carol, playing the role of the boy who goes to buy a turkey for Scrooge. In a later interview, Carson reminisced that it was at this age that he realized just how much he enjoyed the attention he received from being on the stage. He said:
“[To] get attention by being different, by getting up in front of an audience or even a group of kids and calling the attention to myself by what I did, or said, or how I acted. And I said, ‘Hey, I like the feeling.’ I think I did that because it was a device to get attention. And to get that reaction … is a high that I don’t think you can get . . . from anything else . . . and you walk off and you’re just, everything is such a high, and it’s a great feeling, and that’s why many performers have very big highs and very big lows…I know I do. …”
When he was 13, Johnny found a new passion – magic. It was another way for him to perform on stage, but it had the added benefit of focusing all the attention on him, instead of having to share it with the rest of the cast. He began practicing around the house, incessantly pestering his siblings and parents to pick a card, any card. Before you knew it, Johnny had developed his new persona of “The Great Carsoni” and was ready to stage magic shows. Initially, it was just in front of his mother’s bridge club, but when he was 14, Johnny gave his first professional performance, earning $3 for a show at the local Rotary Club.
Carson went all-in on his magic act. He used the money he made to order new tricks and props from Chicago and New York. He bought a black shirt with a white rabbit on it as his signature look. His mother even made him a velvet cape, with the words “The Great Carsoni” embroidered in gold.
The Great Carsoni Goes to War
In 1943, 18-year-old Johnny Carson enlisted in the US Navy. He spent most of the war aboard the USS Pennsylvania, where his daily routine typically consisted of mundane matters such as handling ship maintenance and decoding documents. Carson attained the rank of ensign, which was a tricky position to be in. As the lowest rank of commissioned officer in the United States Navy, he wasn’t typically seen as a peer by the other officers, but he wasn’t “one of the boys” with the enlisted men, either.
Fortunately for him, his talents as an entertainer won the others over, and before you knew it, he became the only officer invited to the enlisted men’s amateur shows. Carson even added a new skill to his arsenal – ventriloquism. He had a dummy named Eddie, whom he would use to make wisecracks about the senior officers and other authority figures, to the delight of the servicemen.
Years later, Johnny recalled one of his favorite memories during his Navy days was giving an impromptu magic performance for the US Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal. One day, Ensign Carson had to deliver a message to him. While making chit-chat, the secretary asked him if he intended to make a career out of the Navy, to which Carson bluntly replied, “No.” Magic was his passion, and he wanted to make it big as “The Great Carsoni.” When he heard that, Forrestal requested a special performance on the spot, and Johnny was more than happy to oblige.
The rest of Carson’s time in the Navy was fairly uneventful, barring one torpedo attack on the USS Pennsylvania in August 1945. After that, it seemed like the ship was destined for combat, but the war ended before that could happen, so Johnny Carson was back home in Nebraska.
In the fall of 1945, Johnny enrolled at the University of Nebraska, studying journalism. He had some experience writing for his high school newspaper, but during his years in the Navy, Carson concluded that talking was more fun than writing, so he switched majors to radio and speech. Four years later, he emerged with a bachelor’s degree and began working for a radio station in Omaha called WOW. Soon enough, Johnny Carson was Omaha’s most promising rising star, and he even got his own show on WOW-TV called The Squirrel’s Nest.
While this was happening, the Great Carsoni was still active. If anything, the magic gigs were getting bigger and paid better. Johnny even hired a pretty assistant, one of his college classmates named Jody Wolcott. The two got hitched in 1949 and stayed married for almost 15 years, the first of four marriages for Johnny Carson.
Despite the success that Johnny Carson was enjoying in Nebraska, it was one of those “big fish in a small pond” situations. He had his own morning radio show, afternoon TV show, and plenty of gigs as the Great Carsoni in between them. But Nebraska just wasn’t big enough for Johnny’s ambitions. He wanted the attention of the entire country.
Johnny Carson on TV
In the early 1950s, Johnny Carson took a big gamble and left Nebraska for California. He had a demo tape of his work and was basically going door-to-door to every radio and TV station, hoping that one of them would give him a shot. No such luck, though. Most of them wouldn’t even take a look at his audition, and those who did said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
It was one rejection after another, so eventually, a humiliated Carson returned to Nebraska with his tail tucked between his legs. For the first time in his professional career, Johnny Carson had experienced failure. There was just one glimmer of hope. While out in LA, he had met a guy named Bill Brennan who was also from Avoca. The two bonded over their shared roots, and Brennan, who worked for CBS, promised to let Johnny know if any spots opened up. He stayed true to his word, and a few months later, Brennan called him to let him know that there was a staff announcer’s position available for a CBS local station called KNXT-TV. It wasn’t much, but it was a foot in the door.
From there, Johnny began working his way up. He was given a five-minute radio show called Carson’s Corner, but his first legitimate break came in 1952 when he persuaded the television station to give him his own half-hour comedy sketch show titled Carson’s Cellar. How did he do that? By doing most of the work himself, and doing it for peanuts. He got paid around $25 per episode.
The TV station might have regarded Carson’s Cellar as just cheap filler material, but the other comedians didn’t. They knew talent when they saw it, and they wanted to work with this promising up-and-comer. Fred Allen was the first big name to appear on Carson’s Cellar. Then came Red Skelton, who offered Johnny a position as a writer on his show, an offer which Carson accepted.
More work kept on coming. Carson began making appearances in other CBS shows such as the Colgate Comedy Hour and, in May 1954, he served as host of a new quiz show called Earn Your Vacation. Carson hated that program and, apparently, so did everyone else, as it was canned after only four months.
Johnny’s natural talent was helping him rise through the ranks, but fortune also played her hand. One day, on August 18, 1954, Red Skelton was rehearsing a sketch where he was supposed to break through a prop door. Unfortunately for him, the door didn’t cooperate, and Skelton knocked himself out cold. With just 90 minutes to air, the show’s producers were frantically searching for a last-minute replacement when somebody suggested Johnny Carson. Johnny was at home when he received the call. He jumped into his car and rushed to the studio, thinking of jokes for the show along the way. He arrived in time, did the show, and everything went great, much to the relief of the CBS execs who finally realized that they had something special on their hands with this Johnny Carson guy.
It was time to go primetime. In June 1955, CBS gave Johnny Carson his own show. Simply titled The Johnny Carson Show, it aired every Thursday at 10 pm. The reviews were…mild. Words like “pleasant,” “amused,” and “agreeable” were used to describe it, whereas Johnny Carson was labeled a “nice guy” reminiscent of a “high school valedictorian.” Although the show wasn’t bad, it wasn’t the next big thing in television, either. The ratings were also middling, so after 39 weeks, CBS lost faith in its rising star and cancelled The Johnny Carson Show.
For a while, it seemed like Johnny might be done with television. Out of necessity more than anything else, he went to ABC to host a quiz show titled Do You Trust Your Wife?, later renamed Who Do You Trust? He even moved from LA to New York City to film it.
Initially, Carson saw this as a serious demotion. He went from primetime to daytime television, and he was hosting a quiz again, which he considered lowbrow. But once he settled into his role a bit, Carson realized that Who Do You Trust? allowed him to showcase his comedic talents better than the previous shows. There was a lot of back-and-forth banter between Johnny and his guests. He considered himself a “reaction” comic, and he got the biggest laughs when he played the straight man to someone else’s zany antics. And fortunately for him, the show’s producers made sure to find him plenty of colorful characters to appear on the quiz. And to top it all off, Johnny met his future sidekick, Ed McMahon, who did the narration for the show. Carson ended up hosting Who Do You Trust? for five years, and he only left in 1962 because he received an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Heeeeere’s Johnny!
The success of Who Do You Trust? provided Johnny Carson with a wide range of new opportunities, making appearances in other quizzes, talk shows, and variety shows. But even so, he couldn’t do Who Do You Trust? forever. He had to find something else eventually…
In 1962, NBC extended an offer to him. Since 1954, they had a nightly variety program called The Tonight Show, which itself was based on an even older show called Broadway Open House. Comedian Steve Allen was the original host of The Tonight Show, but he left in 1957 and was succeeded by Jack Paar. After doing the show for five years, Paar also decided to move on, so NBC was looking for his replacement. They offered the gig to Johnny Carson and, surprisingly, he said “no,” feeling that the show was too closely associated with Jack Paar and that he wouldn’t be a good fit.
But NBC had decided that they wanted Johnny Carson, come hell or high water. They told him he could tweak the show to match his style. They were willing to wait half a year until his contract with ABC expired, using guest hosts in the meantime. And, to top it off, there was also a huge salary of $100,000 a year. With all of these incentives, Carson took the deal.
October 1, 1962, saw the premiere of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Legendary comedian Groucho Marx was the first person to appear on the show, making the introduction for the new host. Then Johnny walked on stage, cracked a few jokes, and a new era in television began. Other guests that night included Joan Crawford, Rudy Vallee, Tony Bennett, and Mel Brooks.
Initially, Carson had to fight an uphill battle. During the months between him and Jack Paar, when the show used guest hosts, the ratings had dipped significantly, and the network lost sponsors. If the new version wasn’t a hit, it might not survive much longer.
But as you already know, such fears proved to be unnecessary. The reviews were in. The New York Times said that the show was “off to an attractive start. The format of ‘Tonight’ remains unchanged, but Mr. Carson’s style is his own.” Variety reported that “The Johnny Carson version of ‘Tonight’ show is heady stuff…” And the reviews got even better a few months later, once Johnny firmly settled into his new role.
The ratings lined up with the reviews. That first episode did a massive forty share, and it wasn’t long before The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was regularly doing greater numbers than the Jack Paar version ever did.
The biggest attraction of the new format was, undoubtedly, Johnny’s opening monologue, which has since become standard practice for talk shows. Everyone loved it…except the network. Those first 15 minutes were when Johnny Carson was at his most acerbic. The barbs were flying, and they often didn’t care who they hit. It was pretty controversial, at least by 1960s standards, especially when Carson made jokes about politicians.
Local networks even began cutting out the monologue. Typically, the show was 105 minutes long and ran from 11:15 to 1 am. From 11:15 to 11:30, that’s when Johnny did his monologue, but some local stations began broadcasting from 11:30. This did not sit well with Carson, who understood that the monologue was the best part of the show. That was the part that people talked about the next day, the part that got quoted in newspapers across the country.
From the beginning, Carson made it clear to NBC that he wasn’t the type to just roll over and do what he was told. When the network refused to force its affiliates to broadcast the show in its entirety, Johnny changed the format. He simply didn’t show up for the first 15 minutes. Instead, it was Ed McMahon chatting with the audience. Then, Johnny Carson walked on stage at 11:30, and he did his monologue so everyone could see it. Obviously, NBC wasn’t happy about its star host not appearing during the first 15 minutes of his own show, so they reached a compromise – they trimmed the show to 90 minutes, thus giving local affiliates the 11:15 to 11:30 spot without cutting Johnny’s monologue. Carson had won his first fight with the network, but it would not be the last.
The King of Late Night Television
By the mid-1960s, The Tonight Show was the highest-earning program on television, generating around $20 million annually from advertising revenue. But more than just a successful show, it had become a career-maker. If you were a budding comedian, The Tonight Show was the best opportunity you could find. Particularly if Carson liked you, he would invite you to sit down on the couch after your set, and that’s when you knew you made it. Legendary comedians such as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Woody Allen launched their careers with appearances on The Tonight Show, and that was just in the 1960s. If anything, the phenomenon got only bigger during the 70s and 80s, with Andy Kaufman, Roseanne Barr, Louie Anderson, Freddie Prinze, Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Wright, Jim Carrey, Don Rickles, David Letterman, Joan Rivers, Drew Carey, Garry Shandling, and Jerry Seinfeld just a few people who credited their guest spot on Johnny Carson’s show as the launchpad for their wildly successful careers. Seinfeld even decreed that getting Carson’s approval was “the Holy Grail of comedy.”
At the same time, politicians dreaded the idea of being mentioned on The Tonight Show. They knew that once Johnny Carson decided it was okay to make fun of them, the rest of America would follow. Even the president wasn’t safe, and the New York Times once wrote that they knew Richard Nixon was finished once Johnny started making Watergate jokes on his show. While Los Angeles Herald editor Rick DuBrow wrote that Carson “unnerves the politicos because of his unpredictability,” one political campaign advisor put it more bluntly when he said: “This guy, Carson, can kill you.”
Despite the immediate success, Carson and NBC butted heads on multiple occasions. Many network execs resented Carson’s influence. In their minds, the show was the star, and Johnny Carson was replaceable like any other host. These “differences of opinion” became most problematic when it was time to negotiate a new contract.
The first stalemate happened in 1967, during a strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. To fill the timeslot, NBC began airing Tonight Show reruns, but without paying Carson. This caused a rift between the two sides, with Johnny even threatening to quit. NBC called his bluff, but when the strike ended, everyone else returned to work, but he didn’t.
NBC was prepared to play hardball…at first. The network began looking for new hosts, including comedian Bob Newhart and country singer Jimmy Dean. They even filmed a few episodes with Dean, but they were a disaster. Not to mention that ABC and CBS were planning to launch their talk shows, anticipating the end of the Tonight Show and looking to fill the void.
This put the ball firmly in Johnny’s court, so NBC invited him back to the negotiating table with a significantly meeker attitude. Johnny got everything he wanted in his new contract. Not only a hefty raise from $700,000 to $1 million a year, but also complete control over the show, including being able to hire and fire whom he wanted. From then on, The Tonight Show truly belonged to Johnny Carson. And he quickly proved that he was worth it. Both CBS and ABC produced competing talk shows, hosted by Merv Griffin and Joey Bishop, respectively, but Carson got better ratings than both of them combined.
A second crisis occurred in 1979 when the two sides butted heads again over Carson’s lighter schedule. At that point, he was only doing three shows a week, Wednesday through Friday. Monday nights had guest hosts, and Tuesday featured “Best of Carson” compilations. Unsurprisingly, the new episodes with Johnny always did better in the ratings. NBC wanted him to go back to five nights a week, something which Carson absolutely refused. Just like before, he was perfectly willing to walk away from the show. The New York Times even announced his departure in the April 20 edition, but this turned out to be premature. Cooler heads eventually prevailed.
Initially, Carson agreed only to stay on for two more years, the time left on his contract. And when it finally looked like the end of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, he announced that he had signed a new contract. Once again, NBC had caved and given Carson what he wanted. This time, it was his own production company – Carson Productions. It mainly produced The Tonight Show, but branched out on occasion. The 1983 comedy-drama The Big Chill was probably its biggest outside hit.
Outside of The Tonight Show, Carson didn’t experience the same kind of success. He made a few bad investments, such as in the DeLorean car company and a failed restaurant franchise called Here’s Johnny. He had a few public feuds, including with his former protege, Joan Rivers. He went through three divorces, and the third one with Joanna Holland was very costly, public, and messy. And he struggled with a drinking problem throughout his life that resulted in one DUI in 1982 and a reputation among his acquaintances as a mean drunk. In fact, staffers at the Tonight Show could tell if Carson was in a good mood or not by what he ordered in the mug he kept on his desk. If it was good, then he asked for tea, coffee, or water. If it was bad, then he wanted a vodka tonic or a scotch and water.
Despite his failings, Johnny Carson left behind an indelible legacy as the undisputed king of television that will probably never be matched. After 30 years and over 6,700 episodes, he decided it was time to call it quits. His final show took place on May 22, 1992, and it was a retrospective episode taped in front of an audience made up of family and friends. Johnny Carson’s parting words were: “I bid you a very heartfelt good night.”
Following his retirement, Carson became an extremely private person who resisted all offers of a comeback and made only a handful of media appearances before his death from emphysema on January 23, 2005, aged 79. He maintained just one indulgence from his previous life – the monologue. Every day, he’d come up with jokes as he read the morning paper. He’d send some to David Letterman and, occasionally, Letterman used them in his monologue.
