Johnny Carson

by Henry Bushkin

  ABC would double Johnny’s salary—whatever it was.

  Johnny would have carte blanche to do as he pleased.

  He would own his own show.

  He would control the time slot immediately after his show.

  As the presentation concluded, Fred Pierce handed me ABC’s proposed contract with everything memorialized in detail. This time, with no contract in place that I could infringe upon, I accepted the document; negotiations would follow at a later time. But as grateful as we were for ABC’s attention, what we had in our hands now was not a contract but a lever. At minimum it would be a convenient template for whatever we might decide to ask for from NBC or whomever we decided to talk to, but it could also be something more powerful: a minimum bid that would spur further largesse. Our party debarked at Monaco, enjoyed some of the pleasures of the principality, and then cruised back to Antibes by moonlight. It couldn’t have been a more pleasant outing.

  After we returned to Los Angeles in early July, my life quickly grew more complicated. My many years as Carson’s one-man entourage had taken its toll on my family life. Many of the heady, heedless pleasures that come to kings as a matter of course also fell in my lap. I had enjoyed many adventures in Vegas and on the road that did nothing to reinforce marital bonds. Unlike Joanna, Judy did mind the other women, and as a consequence, Judy and I split up that summer. Separations are always difficult and traumatic, and especially so with children involved, and I can’t pretend to have been the blameless party. The fact that Judy and I still cared for each other and our children caused us to prolong the process, and at various times we tried to save our marriage. Even now it is hard to say whether we were wise to do so.

  I rented an apartment in a new building on Spalding near Olympic, across from Beverly Hills High. The neighborhood may not have had quite the cachet of Whittier north of Sunset, but it suited me. As anyone who has been through this process will tell you, there are moments of terrible pain when you miss your family and hate your loneliness, and there are other moments when rediscovering your uncoupled self can be quite exhilarating. Certainly I knew both feelings. I also grasped more clearly than I ever had before the toll that being Johnny Carson’s entourage had taken. It had enriched and enlivened my life beyond all imagination, but it had also been one of the factors that led to my separation and divorce.

  And here’s the kicker: because I was alone more, I was available to Johnny more.

  One of the changes that arose from my new solo existence was my new role as host at my new place of the regular Tonight Show poker game. This game had been played every couple of weeks since the show moved to LA, usually in somebody’s home (and usually to the regret of somebody’s wife). We got deli platters from Nate ’n Al’s, drank a little too much, smoked cigars, and generally relaxed. It was not a particularly expensive game, especially by today’s standards; on an unusual night, somebody might go home up or down a couple thousand, but the stakes seldom got very high. Although attendance was elastic and participants would come and go, the core group consisted of me; Carson; Fred de Cordova; Bud Robinson (a song-and-dance man who with his wife, Cece, had opened for Carson on the road, and who eventually became Doc Severinson’s manager); Fred Kayne, who was Johnny’s stockbroker and the manager of his portfolio; Bobby Quinn, who was the director of The Tonight Show and one of Johnny’s closest friends; and Pat McCormick, a comedian and writer for The Tonight Show.

  Pat was one of the funniest people who ever walked the planet. A six-foot-seven-inch oaf of a man adorned with a bushy red moustache, Pat had an off-the-wall sense of humor that Carson adored. In one of his most memorable moments, Pat wrote and performed in a sketch for one of the show’s New Year’s Eve broadcasts in the seventies. Pat came onstage as Baby New Year, suitably naked except for a humongous diaper, and Carson interviewed him.

  “So New Year’s baby, what do you see for the New Year?” Carson asked.

  “I have a new way to clean out your system.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Sit on a piece of cheese,” Pat replied, “and swallow a live mouse.”

  It was at one such poker game that Pat McCormick made me famous. We were playing seven-card stud, the game where players have four cards face up on the table and three others hidden in their hands. I had three aces face up, and I could see McCormick had a king high. I thought it highly unlikely that he had in his hand the makings of four of a kind, which is what he would need to beat me. Still, he kept raising and I kept raising back, and on and on we went, with everyone else dropping out. He was making kind of a bold play, and everyone at the table was captivated. When it came to show his hand, he had nothing, just that worthless king high.

  “Ah,” he seethed. “Bombastic Bushkin has done it again.”

  Everyone doubled up in laughter, roaring at the line, his timing, and knowing that he had deliberately played out a losing hand and threw away a lot of money just so he could deliver a line that he had been saving in his pocket for the right moment.

  The next night, the moment went from hilarious to priceless as Johnny used his monologue to introduce America to his crack financial advisor, Bombastic Bushkin.

  Johnny had called that afternoon to alert me and make sure I wasn’t offended. Offended? No way! I instantly called my parents to tell them to make sure they watched the show that night because something big was going to happen.

  You’d think that the moment I became a pop-culture footnote would be indelibly recorded in my memory, but honestly, I cannot remember the first surefire money-making deal that Bombastic supposedly brought to Carson. There were a lot of them over the years, including Roto-Rooter tampons, Orson Welles designer jeans, Mike Tyson charm schools, Krazy Glue toothpaste, a skinny and sweet diet drink (you won’t even taste the rat poison!), Club Med Beirut, a doggie-bag factory in Bangladesh, and a five-star restaurant in Chernobyl.

  What I do remember most clearly was that minutes after Johnny delivered the Bombastic joke, my mother called, crying bitter tears. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you going to get fired?”

  “No, Mom! Why would you say such a thing?”

  “He called you bombastic!”

  When I told Johnny about Mom’s reaction, he laughed and said, “I thought your mother had a sense of humor. Look, call my secretary tomorrow and give her Mary’s number. I’ll surprise the hell out of her. Tell your dad to make sure she’s available at five-thiry tomorrow.”

  Dad not only made sure Mom was available, but he alerted the entire condo building. Johnny called promptly at five-thirty and reassured Mom that he thought I was a good guy and one of his best friends. “Watch,” he told her, “Bombastic Bushkin is going to become a household word.”

  Johnny was true to his word. Bombastic Bushkin became a running gag, and my mother became Johnny’s biggest fan.

  Years later, I learned that when he was in college, President George W. Bush’s fraternity friends nicknamed him the Bombastic Bushkin. I only regret that I have but one nickname to give for my country.

  Though things were going well for Johnny, his mercurial nature made him capable at any time of finding trouble in the bosom of pleasure. In 1979, The Tonight Show won its third straight Emmy, and Johnny took all of the show’s insiders to Chasen’s for a celebratory dinner.

  At that time Chasen’s was the most famous celebrity restaurant in town, the Spago of its day, renowned for the long list of movie stars and other celebrities who dined there since the days of Clark Gable and Howard Hughes. Chasen’s had its special tables for special guests, and stars were generally seated in the small room to the right of the entrance. On this evening, Fred and Janet de Cordova, Ed and Victoria McMahon, Bobby and Tangley Quinn, Joanna and Johnny, and Judy and I comprised a table of ten.

  As the evening progressed and the restaurant filled, more and more people approached the table to offer their congratulations on the award. I can’t say that the award meant little to Johnny because it is always nice to be r
ecognized, but deep in his Nebraska soul, Johnny was suspicious of flattery and the blandishments that all too easily came to people in his position. He knew audiences and was pleased when they liked his work. He knew ratings and took pride in what they proved about his appeal. He treasured the respect of his peers in the industry. Awards were all but irrelevant.

  Sitting across the room was Tom Snyder, the host of The Tomorrow Show, the NBC program that followed Johnny’s. Snyder, who was dining alone, sent our table a round of drinks. The polite thing on our part would have been to invite Tom to join us—after all, he was Johnny’s network mate and a fellow laborer in the talk-show vineyards. The only problem was that Johnny had long harbored a serious dislike for Snyder, based on nothing but his performances on TV. He thought Snyder had no talent and was an officious bore, and after Johnny had his second glass of wine, we could see his anger bubbling just below the surface. Tonight, Bad Johnny was in the house.

  Thankfully the food came and distracted Johnny, who was crazy for Chasen’s chili and its hobo steak. Bobby Quinn diplomatically excused himself and went to sit with Snyder (a pal from the Bel-Air Country Club) in hopes of disguising the awkwardness, and everyone was striving to distract Carson’s attention away from Tom Snyder. Still, Johnny kept eyeing him and finally said, “Why the fuck is he staring at me? I’m going to go over there and kick the shit out of that guy.”

  Once it became clear that Johnny’s second drink had turned him into Mr. Hyde, our party was over. An embarrassed Joanna left with Judy, with Victoria McMahon, Tangley Quinn, and the de Cordovas hot on their heels. That left Ed and me sitting with Carson and Quinn standing guard with Snyder. Suddenly Johnny got up and went over to Snyder, with Ed and me close behind. Johnny peaceably enough took a seat, though it was clear that he was drunk.

  “Whaddya say, fellas—let’s have a round of drinks,” Snyder said, knowing full well that this would provoke Johnny even more.

  “Tom,” a furious Bobby Quinn said, “I am going to punch you right in the kisser.”

  Before Bobby finished the sentence, Johnny lunged across the table and grabbed for Snyder’s throat. He got nowhere close. Quinn got in front of Snyder and I pulled on Johnny’s arm and McMahon moved his bulk in between. All of a sudden they were all best friends, and Ed shrewdly changed the mood by convincing us to take the party to the Beverly Comstock Hotel on Wilshire near Beverly Glen. It wasn’t far away, but it would give Johnny a minute to clear his head.

  We left Chasen’s and arrived at the Beverly Comstock around two a.m. Richard Simmons was the maitre d’ of the restaurant (he had yet to become a fitness guru), and he was going out of his way to showcase his flamboyant routine for the party of television personalities and friends who had been left in his care. (“Johnny and Ed!” he trilled when we entered. “Hello, boys! What brings America’s favorite couple to our door?”) Quinn and I were eager to split, but once again the drinks were flowing, and Ed and Tom and a suddenly jovial Johnny were ready to party on. I knew it would be risky to leave Johnny at this point, so I phoned Judy and asked her to call Joanna and let her know it would be a while before Johnny came home. Not until five a.m. did Quinn and I pour Johnny into the limo to take him home. McMahon and Snyder and Simmons continued to drink.

  When we approached the St. Cloud residence, Johnny insisted that we stop the car outside his home. He decided that rather than wake the guard and have him open the security gates, he would scale the wrought-iron fence. Somehow he succeeded and found his way inside.

  The next day Joanna banished him from the house, and he checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel. The next day I went to see him there and discovered that he had a guest, a lady whom I had met at various social occasions any number of times. She had always seemed to be a close friend of Joanna’s. I had no idea that she and Johnny had a relationship. I was, of course, sworn to secrecy but shocked nonetheless. Perhaps in the only way he resembled a Boy Scout, Johnny was always prepared. A couple of days would pass until he was permitted to return home.

  With summer over, it was time to focus on our options and make some decisions. ABC had made a compelling offer, but Johnny was no longer angry with NBC. I informed Brandon Tartikoff that regardless of what we ultimately decided, Carson wouldn’t be packing up and leaving on the quit day we had given them.

  To assist us in clarifying our choices, we recruited the hot, up-and-coming Creative Artists Agency for advice. CAA and its managing partner, Mike Ovitz, would become dominant figures in Hollywood for most of the next two decades (CAA is still quite powerful), and even at that relatively early point in its history, the work CAA did for us in scouting out and then negotiating opportunities for us was very shrewd. But for help in answering the key question—which network to select—Johnny turned for advice not to Ovitz, the man who was to become the most influential man in Hollywood, but to the man who already was.

  Lew Wasserman, the respected chairman of the entertainment conglomerate MCA Universal, had for decades been regarded as the town’s shrewdest, savviest, most insightful agent. Now close to seventy and at the height of his powers, Wasserman was credited with both building and destroying the studio system, and his ability to make money and steer careers had led to him being widely acknowledged as the “King of Hollywood.” Johnny asked me to go visit with him in an effort to decide whether he should stay with NBC or go with ABC.

  Wasserman had a sharp nose and a sharp chin and dramatic snow-white hair combed straight back from his forehead. What gave his face the most character, however, were his glasses, which had amber-tinted lenses encased in thick black frames. They made him look like some kind of raptor.

  Like most oracles, Wasserman gave an opinion that was simple and sensible (but unambiguously presented, thank goodness). “It is not prudent,” replied Wasserman, “to ask people to change their nightly viewing habits. Once they are used to tuning in a given channel, they find it hard to make the move, no matter how good an alternative is being provided elsewhere.”

  Was that it? All of our thinking and talking and arguing and agonizing came down to the belief that Americans won’t change the dial? Somebody ought to find Dave Tebet and have him give this man a remote control. We walked out shaking our heads. We asked God, and this is the answer God gave us. It was as good a reason as any.

  Wasserman’s advice sealed our decision privately, but there was no reason to announce that. Negotiations for a new post-October arrangement began in earnest with NBC, even as we kept discussions going with ABC.

  But by then something outside of our little Hollywood universe was going on: Iranian militants deposed the shah of Iran, and in late 1979 seized the United States embassy in Tehran and took fifty-two Americans prisoner. ABC had begun a nightly program in the eleven-thirty time slot called America Held Hostage, which gave a daily update on the story.

  As the hostage crisis went on, ABC became both Johnny’s nightly nemesis and his ardent suitor. As the crisis wore on, Carson’s ratings eroded in the face of the news coverage, even though there were days at a time when nothing of significance took place. After a couple of months of not much happening, it looked like viewers might resume their old reliable viewing habits, but ABC was smart enough to begin using the time slot to augment the network’s Winter Olympics coverage in February and then to expand its coverage of an exciting 1980 presidential primary season, which featured a Carter vs. Kennedy contest in one party, and a Reagan vs. Bush, Baker, Dole, Kemp, and others in the GOP. Eventually ABC grew increasingly proud of the popular and profitable and critically acclaimed news program it had pioneered in that time slot.

  Word began circulating that the powerful head of ABC News, Roone Arledge, was coveting that late-night period for an in-depth news program that would be hosted by his new star, Ted Koppel. The thinking was that the show could provide a real alternative to the same jokesters and songstresses Carson was parading out for the umpteenth year. The ABC brass could read a ratings report as well as anyone, and they were paying a
ttention.

  And so Johnny made up his mind. On May 2, 1980, long before the embassy hostages were released, the NBC executives who’d themselves been prisoners of Johnny’s decision-making process were finally let off the hook. A network delegation headed by Fred Silverman arrived at Carson’s Bel Air home for the biggest signing ceremony since the Japanese met General Douglas MacArthur on the deck of the USS Missouri. They brought with them what was by far the richest deal ever offered to any single individual in the history of television, and of entertainment.

  Carson’s salary was set at $25 million a year. For that, he worked one hour a night from eleven-thirty p.m. to twelve-thirty a.m., three nights a week, thirty-seven weeks a year, with fifteen weeks off.

  In addition, Carson and Carson Productions became the owners and producers of The Tonight Show. NBC still provided all the production support we needed; every week, Carson Productions’ profits alone neared $50,000. Ceding Carson ownership of The Tonight Show was one of the more shortsighted of NBC’s concessions. Carson also took ownership of all the show’s episodes that had been made since his arrival in 1962 (to the extent that they existed; into the seventies, the networks routinely destroyed, discarded, or taped over much of their programming). We then created Carson’s Comedy Classics (from old Tonight Shows), a series of 130 half-hour shows that Columbia Television’s Herman Rush bought for $26 million. And he had zero cost for the material.

  Carson Productions also would own the one-hour slot after Johnny’s show, and own and produce the show that played there. David Letterman hosted that show. NBC also gave Carson Productions a commitment to air a minimum of five series that we would develop. And even with these commitments and relationships, we remained an independent entity, with full freedom to pursue any and all deals we pleased in movies, TV series, or any other business, with any partners we chose.