One
Beginnings
Replacing Royalty
September 1962
Johnny Carson was concerned. In a few weeks, he'd be moving from ABC to NBC, going from a run-of-the-mill afternoon game show, Who Do You Trust?, to hosting the esteemed Tonight Show.
He would be replacing megastar Jack Paar, a late-night fixture in American homes since 1957 and, according to Variety, "the most vivid TV personality since Milton Berle became Mister Television." Paar had battled NBC and the censors. He had relished his headline-making feuds with Ed Sullivan. Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa had sued him for slander. Paar had fearlessly interviewed everyone from Fidel Castro to John F. Kennedy. Hollywood legends like Judy Garland and James Cagney adored him. Journalists had dubbed him "the King of Late Night." A wit more than a comic, Paar dealt in humor that was razor sharp. Washington Post critic Tom Shales characterized him as "explosive, combative and combustive . . . It was the talk-show equivalent of a forest fire . . . He was volatile, unpredictable and uninhibited . . . notorious for being an easy weeper."
Paar had replaced the formidable Steve Allen, who, beyond his comedic talent, was a successful songwriter and jazz pianist. In many ways, Allen had created the talk show format, introducing an anything-goes attitude that made late-night TV fun. He invented man-on-the-street interviews and the kind of outrageous stunts later emulated by David Letterman.
Following icons like Allen and Paar was an intimidating challenge. Hosting a thirty-minute game show hadn't prepared Johnny to take on an hour-and-forty-five-minute talk show. Insiders were saying Carson had a hopeless task: Paar was irreplaceable. But after threatening to quit the show several times over his five years as host, Paar was on the way out, and someone had to take over the reins.
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Johnny’s decision to host Tonight required the steadfast support of his girlfriend of two years, Joanne Bee Copeland. Joanne was a brilliant thirty-year-old model, beauty queen, and former Pan Am stewardess, whom the business magnate and aerospace engineer Howard Hughes had put under contract with RKO as an actress. When she decided to focus on modeling, she moved to New York and worked on the network quiz show Top Dollar.
Johnny moved into the same York Avenue building as Joanne-she in apartment 6B, he in 8C. They had much in common. Both were voracious readers, and both loved the theater, comedy, and good music. Their early dates consisted of Johnny showing Joanne kinescopes of his former failed variety program, CBS's The Johnny Carson Show, as he carefully listened to her insightful critiques. When they went out, their favorite date spot was Eddie Condon's jazz club. Back at his apartment after nights out, Johnny would set up his telescope and point out the constellations to Joanne. He had a lifetime fascination with astronomy.
Joanne wasn't Johnny's first partner. Back in 1949, in his home state of Nebraska, Carson had married his college sweetheart, Jody Wolcott. They had three boys-Chris, born in 1950; Rick, in 1952; and Cory, in 1953. But by 1959, Jody and Johnny had separated in New York while he still hosted Who Do You Trust?
Joanne came along at a critical moment. She supplied whatever confidence Carson lacked, and her understanding of the pathways to power would form the strategy to get Carson the gig that would define his career.
Her efforts began in the spring of 1961. She was friends with Mort Werner and David Tebet, two NBC execs who were looking to replace Jack Paar as the host of The Tonight Show. On April 23, 1961, without Johnny's knowledge, Joanne convinced the two men to attend a Friars Club Roast of comedian/host Garry Moore. Having heard Johnny rehearse the material he'd written for the roast, Joanne knew Werner and Tebet would love it.
Carson won the two men over by reading a mock Variety performance review of the obviously fictitious comedy team of Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (the first human to travel in space). Carson began "Yuri and Kru Boffo in Red Square," a title that mocked Variety's overuse of the word boffo as praise, usually with regard to box-office success: "Pudgy stand-up comic Nikita Khrushchev and straight man Yuri Gagarin drew big mitt from first nighters in Moscow. Both need more topical material."
The day after Johnny's show-stopping performance at the roast, Joanne sent Werner and Tebet a reel of highlights from Who Do You Trust? and The Johnny Carson Show. They were sold.
Three days after the roast, columnist Earl Wilson reported that Paar's agent, Dick Rubin, had told NBC that Paar was serious about leaving the show and that they should look for a replacement. They already had one. Werner and Tebet persuaded NBC president Robert Kintner to approve Carson for the job, and the offer was made.
One problem: Johnny turned it down. The execs were upset. In pushing for Carson, Werner had put his job on the line, and now he looked bad.
Johnny's concerns were understandable. He already had a steady hosting job that paid excellent money. It didn't matter that he had guest-hosted for Paar several years prior. He couldn't see himself, or anyone, replacing the beloved Paar. He didn't have the right skill set, he believed. Unlike Paar, Carson refused to use controversy "as a device or gimmick for shock value," he later told the Chicago Tribune. Every ad lib and dialogue with contestants on Who Do You Trust? had been written for him. Now, on Tonight, could he balance written material with spontaneous ad libs? He had never done a live show without a script. Also, he was afraid that the all-consuming demands of the show would ruin his relationship with Joanne.
Some of Johnny's friends echoed his doubts. Carson's pal, actor Tom Poston, who had won an Emmy for his comedy contribution to The Tonight Show under Steve Allen, advised Johnny to turn down the job. He argued that the first man to replace Paar was doomed to flop. After that inevitable failure, Johnny might then have a chance to make it work. Just don't be the first to try. It was a common theme; later, Johnny recalled that "everybody advised me against it."
But not Joanne. One night, while dining with Johnny at Danny's Hideaway, a Midtown celebrity hangout, she let him voice his reservations. Patiently, she heard him out, and then she dispelled his misgivings by pointing out the character traits that made him unique: his easy presence, his go-with-the-flow personality, his transparency. Because he was neither strident nor self-aggrandizing, viewers would not tire of him. They would love him. He could do it.
Joanne knew Johnny was more than ready. He'd performed nonstop for audiences since the age of fourteen. Now, at thirty-six, he had been entertaining professionally for twenty-two years. He'd clocked in at least ten thousand hours of work, everything from a morning talk show in L.A. to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
"We decided that night that we would work as a team and do it together," said Joanne.
The next day, she called Werner and Tebet to ask them to offer Johnny the job a second time. They were hesitant, but Joanne prevailed. After a raft of negotiations that landed Johnny's younger brother, Dick Carson, a job at the network, Johnny said yes to NBC.
On January 30, 1962, Paar made it official, saying that Carson was "the only man who could or should replace me."
"I became convinced that Tonight was the only network show where I could do the nutty, experimental, low-key thing I like best," Carson told The Saturday Evening Post.
There was only one hitch: Following Paar's March departure Johnny had six months left on his Who Do You Trust? contract, and ABC wouldn't let him off the hook. In the interim, NBC employed huge stars, everyone from Jerry Lewis to Joey Bishop, to guest-host Tonight.
As the first show approached, Joanne gave Johnny some advice: "Just be aware that though you tape [earlier]," she told him, [you'll be airing at] eleven thirty and invading [your viewers'] privacy . . . You're entering into people's night hours, their bedroom, their aloneness, and they're watching you to settle down . . . Don't be anything but yourself . . . Be how you are with me, and you'll be fine."
Johnny responded, "I can do that."
Destiny and Dreams
Johnny loved New York's big-city buzz, the crowded streets, the swanky hotels, the swinging nightclubs, the bustling bars. But it all began back in Norfolk, Nebraska. Though he was born in Iowa, the family moved to Nebraska when he was six years old, and he would always consider himself a Nebraskan.
Growing up, Johnny made his classmates laugh. He had a high school newspaper column, Carson's Corn. His humor wasn't always appreciated. Once, when he and his friend were working as overnight window dressers at Montgomery Ward, they placed the mannequins in sexual positions. The two friends laughed until it hurt-and were promptly fired.
Johnny's curiosity was insatiable. Briefly interested in becoming a doctor, at thirteen he went to the local hospital to watch surgical operations. The blood and guts didn't bother him. "I was fascinated," he reflected.
Magic fascinated him even more. By age fourteen, he was already performing as "the Great Carsoni." He got the idea to become a magician from an ad in Hoffmann's Book of Magic, and he sent off for a mail-order magic trick kit. "The ad said I could learn how to mystify and amaze my friends," Carson recalled. "I couldn't see how there could possibly be anything more glamorous than standing on a stage in a tall hat and tails and mystifying an audience." He did just that at Norfolk Rotary Club meetings, 4H Clubs, and an egg hatchery full of chickens squawking in cages.
Always in a rush, he graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in three years, majoring in radio and speech and minoring in physics.
When he was fourteen, fellow Nebraskan Dick Cavett-who would go on to write for Tonight under both Paar and Johnny and who eventually became a successful talk show host himself-went to see Carson perform magic in a church basement in Lincoln. Carson was already a big star on Omaha radio. Before the magic show, Cavett went backstage and introduced himself and his friends as fellow magicians. Johnny showed them some tricks.
"In the middle of your act, you introduced us from the audience," Dick later recalled to Johnny on Tonight. "We felt like we were on The Ed Sullivan Show." Cavett's diary entry that night read, "This is the greatest day of my life. I met Johnny Carson."
Carson loved music as much as magic, falling in love with the big bands he heard at the Orpheum Theater in Omaha. He'd arrive at 9 A.M. and sit through five straight shows, savoring the sounds of Benny Goodman.
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In 1943, with the world at war, Carson, fresh out of high school, hitchhiked from Nebraska to Hollywood.
The first order of business was trying to spot his idols. "I remember sitting outside Jack Benny's house," he said, "figuring Jack's going to come out and mow the lawn any minute." While Carson didn't get to see Benny, he kept looking for Hollywood stars during his month-long trip.
He had enlisted in the Naval Air Corps, but had not officially joined, so he didn't have a uniform. To make matters worse, at seventeen, Johnny looked fourteen. He wanted to appear older and enjoy the status of a soldier. At a serviceman's uniform shop, he bought khaki pants, a khaki shirt, a tie, and an overseas cap. In his new getup, he snuck into a USO gathering at the Hollywood Palladium, where he learned that director Orson Welles would soon be performing his magic act for the troops in a tent on Cahuenga Boulevard. Carson ran over and was admitted without question; the uniform deception worked.
Onstage, Welles was about to cut a woman in half-the woman was his wife, film star Rita Hayworth. He asked for a volunteer. The first to jump up, Johnny was called to the stage. After assisting the master, he returned to his seat. In the next act, Marlene Dietrich sang her mournful songs. Carson went back to see Welles's and Dietrich's shows three nights in a row, even dancing with Dietrich once. What could be better?
Leaving the show the final night, Johnny was walking down Hollywood Boulevard when the Shore Patrol arrested him. Where were his papers? He had none. He was charged with impersonating a serviceman and detained for hours. Only the intervention of an aunt and uncle, who lived close by and posted the fifty-dollar bond-no small sum in those days-got him released.
In June 1943, Johnny joined the navy. His service years, 1943-46, were valuable training as a performer. On the USS Pennsylvania, he performed ventriloquism and stand-up routines. He even worked a magic card trick for James Forrestal, secretary of the navy.
Then tragedy struck. In August 1945, the Japanese torpedoed the Pennsylvania as she sailed off Okinawa. Carson told Time, "It practically blew off the stern and killed 20 guys. So she headed into dry dock at Guam. I was assigned to damage control. I guess because I was the youngest officer and the most recently arrived. My first assignment was to go down into that hole in the stern and supervise the bringing out of those 20 corpses and their personal effects. That was an awful experience. They'd been down there for 18 days by that time, and I want to tell you, that was a terrible job."
The trauma was no doubt massive.
How did it impact Johnny? How did he cope with its aftermath? Those are questions he never answered.
Seeing Red
In the fall of 1951, Carson left Omaha and his job as a radio disc jockey, announcer, and TV host at WOW. He; his wife, Jody; and their one-year-old son, Chris, departed in a '49 Oldsmobile pulling a U-Haul trailer. They drove to L.A., where Johnny had been hired as a staff announcer at KNXT TV, the local CBS station.
Carson's goal was simple: Within one year, he wanted to have his own local TV show like The Squirrel's Nest, the one he had hosted in Omaha on WOW from 1949 to 1950. Carson later told Los Angeles Times columnist Hal Humphrey that the show "was essentially what I'm doing on The Tonight Show now." He had a desk and interviewed guests. He realized his goal in 1952, as host of Carson's Cellar, a local Los Angeles show on KNXT featuring sketches, guests, and satirized versions of TV shows and commercials.
Copyright © 2025 by Mark Malkoff. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
