Johnny Carson
Page 16
We now occupied a position that offered us almost limitless opportunities and had at the same time been launched on a trajectory that promised enormous success. And great success would indeed come our way. But in time we would learn that the Johnny Carson who loved what he did every night as an entertainer nonetheless possessed enormous ambivalence about acting as a businessman and taking on the mantle of entertainment mogul. We would also see that the friend and colleague who had helped Johnny attain that success came to be resented by him for securing him power he did not want.
But on that afternoon, and for the rest of his career, Johnny Carson occupied a position the likes of which had never before existed and has possibly not even been matched, except perhaps many years later by the estimable Oprah Winfrey.
New York Times, December 22, 1977. Often the financial numbers reported were deliberately misleading. I never wanted Johnny’s actual income to be known.
© 1977 the New York Times. All rights reserved.
The Wall Street Journal article that appeared after Johnny’s 1980 agreement with NBC.
Reprinted with permission of the Wall Street Journal, © 1980 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
I took this picture of Frank Sinatra and Johnny during the rehearsal for the 1981 Reagan Inaugural Gala. Two giants onstage at the president’s first inauguration.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
Sinatra and Dean Martin at the presidential gala rehearsal. Frank is ordering Dean offstage because of his intoxication.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
Johnny and the legendary Toots Shor, 1969. Toots Shor’s restaurant was one of the classiest saloons in New York and was the place I had my first dinner meeting with Johnny in 1970.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny and his second wife, Joanne Copeland, just before their separation in 1970.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
New York, 1971. Johnny and Joanna Holland with Rosalind Russell shortly after Johnny and Joanna began dating.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny with Fred Silverman at the Friars Club tribute to Carson in May 1979. We were locked in a major battle with NBC, and Silverman was its chairman. No love lost between the two.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny and Ed McMahon with Rodney Dangerfield, who was one of Johnny’s favorite comedians. Rodney was my neighbor and always fun to be around.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Judy Bushkin with Dana and Scotty, 1977.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
Johnny, Joanna, and Bob Hope during the 1979 Friars Club tribute. Hope was the emcee for the event. The diamond-and-emerald dazzler around Joanna’s neck was a peace offering from Johnny for some prior offending act.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
These two made a helluva pair for thirty years.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Irving “Swifty” Lazar, agent of doyens, with Johnny and Joanna in 1981. Bald as a doorknob, diminutive in stature but a giant talent agent, Lazar was called Swifty because he represented many top directors and novelists, not always with their prior knowledge. He always had the top Academy Award after-party.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Joyce DeWitt, Johnny, and the author in the NBC pavilion at Wimbledon, 1985.
Sylvan Mason
The Carsons and the McMahons in 1982.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny with Ali McGraw, 1984. McGraw dated Johnny after his divorce from Joanna.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Because Johnny was good friends with John and Christina DeLorean, he invested in DeLorean Motors and attended the car’s debut in 1981. Johnny’s favorite car was the white Corvette he regularly drove to Burbank. Johnny’s parking spot was a featured part of the NBC studio tour.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny’s brother, Dick, his sister, Catherine, and (behind Dick) her husband, Ralph Sotzing, in 1987.
Jim Smeal / Getty Images
Johnny hosting the 1981 Academy Awards in a Barry Certo–designed tux.
Courtesy of Barry Certo
This ad, which appeared in Life magazine in 1969, was the only commercial endorsement that Johnny ever did (outside of The Tonight Show). The original copy was given to me by my friend George Wallach.
© 1969 Diageo. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
July 1956. Johnny at home with his first wife, Joan “Jody” Wolcott.
Corbis Images
Johnny and Alexis Carson, 1988.
Jim Smeal / Getty Images
Barbara Walters, Johnny, and Alexis, 1991.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny and Joanna Holland and son Tim Holland in the chambers of Judge Mario Clinco (second from right). Richard Trugman (far right) arranged for the judge to perform the marriage ceremony, and I was there as best man. The ceremony took place hours before the tenth anniversary party of The Tonight Show in October 1972. Johnny’s next marriage, to Alexis Maas, had even fewer participants.
Courtesy of Richard Trugman
Wimbledon, 1987. From left: Mr. and Mrs. Bob Wright, tennis pro Bob Trapenberg, Mary Hart, and me. Bob Wright was chairman of NBC and the clear boss at the network.
Sylvan Mason
The Aston Martin I bought in England in 1977. Behind it is the Daimler limo that broke down while transporting the Carsons. Johnny drove the Daimler back to London, shirtless, during a horrible heat wave.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
The first meeting of the board of directors of the Commercial Bank of California, 1980. Left to right: Arnold Kopelson, Michael Miller, Jerry Staub, Richard Ransier, Don Stockdale, Carson, Ralph Smith, Leon Stern, and Gordon Baskin.
Courtesy of David Stern
Jilly Rizzo, producer Sam Spiegel, Matty Jordan, and Frank Sinatra in Monte Carlo, 1970. Johnny first met Frank in 1965 at a benefit in St. Louis where Sinatra and the Rat Pack were performing. (Johnny was filling in for an ailing Joey Bishop.) Matty Jordan owned and operated Matteo’s Restaurant, where Frank would dine every Sunday night when home in Los Angeles.
Courtesy of Jackie Jordan
Johnny and Angie Dickinson in 1983. The two were always good friends and dated for a while.
Ron Galella / Getty Images
Johnny and me during a 1981 cruise to the Greek isles. The cruise with our wives did little to help our respective marriages.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin (left); Courtesy of Judy Bushkin (right)
Hôtel du Cap, Antibes, France, 1979. Bill Cosby and I played every summer for the “du Cap Cup.” Looks as if I won.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
Hôtel du Cap, 1983. Johnny and me on the court.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
Sammy Davis Jr. and friend watching Johnny and me play doubles at the Hôtel du Cap, 1980.
Courtesy of Henry Bushkin
9
1980–1981: The Inauguration
A FEW MONTHS AFTER the new contract was signed, late in 1980, Johnny received a request that was a singular honor, the kind of thing that would establish beyond any question his stature as a national institution. Ironically, the act of fulfilling that request revealed fissures and cracks in the foundation of the wonderful world of Johnny Carson.
The story begins in Matteo’s Restaurant on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles, a classic old-style ristorante that serves southern Italian fare, very reminiscent of the restaurants in the Little Italy section of New York. The food was terrific, but one of the factors that helped to increase its popularity was that its owner, Matty Jordan (née Matteo Giordano), grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, across the street from a kid named Frank Sinatra. Matty and Frank became lifelong friends, and when Matty opened a restaurant in Los Angeles, Frank made it a point to come by with people he met at work, like Dean Martin, Gregory Peck, and Sophia Loren, who in turn drew other famous figures, like Sam Giancana and Mic
key Cohen, who added a certain edginess (funny how the same combination of celebrity and crime helped popularize Jilly’s, that other spot owned by a friend of Frank’s). Eventually, this Rat Pack in-spot became the place where the Hollywood establishment showed up on Sunday night to have dinner—other nights, too, but Sundays really seemed to draw the boldfaced names. Regulars included Kirk Kerkorian, who owned MGM Studios and the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Al Davis, whose Oakland Raiders were in the midst of a run that was going to lead to a Super Bowl championship, but who constantly talked about moving his club to Los Angeles. Getting a reservation on a Sunday evening was nearly impossible if you didn’t know Matty or his brother, Mikey, who was the maitre d’. It didn’t hurt the business that Matty had a gorgeous wife, Jackie, who made going into the joint a rather pleasant experience all by itself. As it happens, I knew the boys, but since I brought along Johnny, the whole point of a reservation was moot, because every restaurant in town had a table ready for Carson at a moment’s notice.
Johnny and I were dining with good friends Bruce Singer and Michael Hattem, enjoying the atmosphere. As usual, the place was full of celebrities, most notably Frank Sinatra, who was dining with Jilly Rizzo and Mickey Rudin. I had been through a legal war with Rudin, but we came out of that battle better friends than before. Our conversation skipped around the usual events of the day: gossip, sports, politics. Ronald Reagan had just defeated Jimmy Carter for president of the United States. Given Reagan’s longtime association with Hollywood, everyone seemed to have a distinct and personal view of this development, pro or con, based on some impression formed long before Reagan ever ran for office, and even before Johnny had come to New York, when Ronnie was still acting and working for GE and was just one of the crowd you’d see around town. Johnny liked Reagan personally, and while he was scrupulous to never share a political view with his viewers—“Why lose fifty percent of my audience?”—he was by instinct and upbringing definitely Republican, but of an Eisenhower sort that we don’t see much anymore: strong on integration and civil rights, skeptical of the military and war, big on personal responsibility. Overall, you’d have to say he was anti-big: anti–big government, anti–big money, anti–big bullies, anti–big blowhards. We were waiting for dessert when Matty stopped by our table and surprised us all by saying, “Bushkin, Frank would like to talk to you.”
“Me?” I had met Frank a number of times, but even so, this wasn’t the sort of venue where I was asked to swing by Frank Sinatra’s table. (The casino owner Steve Wynn once ran a hilarious television commercial in which he welcomed Mr. Sinatra to his casino. Barely taking notice, Frank peeled off some bills and said, “Here, make sure I get enough towels.” In the back of my mind, I was always ready for Sinatra to send me for towels.) But before I could lift my jaw off my chest, Johnny jumped in and said, “I’ll go and say hello and see what’s up.”
For whatever reason, Frank Sinatra had a special effect on Carson; he made Johnny uneasy, and that often manifested itself in a kind of obsequiousness. “He . . . makes . . . you . . . nervous!” a gleeful Don Rickles razzed Johnny when Sinatra made a Tonight Show appearance in November 1976. Rickles was thrilled because he had at long last spotted a flaw in Mr. Effortless’s persona, but nobody laughed harder than Johnny, simply because it was so obviously, undeniably true. Who knows, maybe Frank was crooning over the radio during all of Johnny’s formative romantic experiences. To Johnny, Frank was and would always be the Chairman of the Board. “With my luck,” he once told me, “I’ll be on a plane flight with Sinatra that goes down, and the headlines will read ‘Sinatra and Others Perish in Crash.’”
Johnny popped up and went to see Frank. He didn’t stay more than a few minutes, and when he came back, he seemed peeved. “Why don’t you go over and speak with them? Frank wants to talk about the inauguration of Reagan. It was awkward for me to be cornered like that.”
So I went over, feeling slightly more ridiculous because the cat was at least partway out of the bag. Frank was cordial but he cut to the chase. “I’ve agreed to produce the Inaugural Gala show for President Reagan and I’d love it if Johnny would emcee the event. Carson is the best in the world for this sort of thing, and if he does it, it will be a fucking great show.”
Then Rudin chimed in, making it clear that if Johnny agreed to do the show, all of the costs of the trip, which would include me and Judy and Joanna, would be covered in full. It went without saying that none of the performers would be paid for the gig, but in addition to transportation, meals, and suites at the venerable Hay-Adams Hotel, the Republican National Committee would provide tickets for any and all of the inaugural events, including the swearing-in ceremony. Of course, I would have expected no less, but it was good of Mickey to make it all clear.
Then Frank closed the presentation. “Tell Johnny,” he said, “it will be a personal favor to me if he does the gig.”
I felt like I had been dropped into a scene from The Godfather. If Frank had been wearing a ring, I suppose I would have had to kiss it. “I’ll speak to Johnny and call Mickey with his answer,” I said, which everyone at the table correctly interpreted as a maneuver that would entitle Johnny to say no but that would entitle Frank, if I turned out to be the messenger of bad news, to behead me.
But Frank didn’t want that. What was he going to do with a lawyer’s head? “Should I phone Johnny tomorrow and go over it with him again?” he said, making it clear that while Frank was giving Johnny the chance to say no, he wasn’t going to let him.
“No, Frank, I’ll talk to him,” I said. It would have been very uncomfortable if Frank phoned Johnny and put him on the spot. Johnny would have been forced to say yes, and Johnny never liked being forced to do anything. That left me no choice: I would talk to Johnny. Certainly it was his decision whether to do the show.
Singer and Hattem were impressed by my audience with Sinatra and pumped me for details, but I could see that Johnny was in no mood to talk about work. He was enjoying himself and began to tell jokes. “Have you heard the one about the mother cooking breakfast for her kids?” Carson always had the newest jokes, but comedians always ask if you have heard the joke to make sure their punch line is secure.
“This mom calls her three sons down for breakfast,” Carson continued. “She says to the oldest, ‘Son, what would you like for breakfast?’ He says, ‘I think I’ll have some fuckin’ French toast.’ With that, his mother slaps him across his face and sends him to his room with instructions to never use that language again. She then asks the next-oldest boy, ‘Son, what would you like for breakfast?’ He replies, ‘I’ll also have some fuckin’ French toast.’ His mother grabs him by the collar and sends him to his room screaming at the boy about his language. Finally she asks the youngest boy what he would like for breakfast. He thinks for a couple of moments and replies, ‘I’m not sure what I want, Mom, but I sure don’t want any of that fuckin’ French toast.’” We all roared.
Suddenly he got serious again and brought up the time Sinatra talked to him about sharing a week of dates at Radio City Music Hall, half with Frank getting top billing, half with Johnny. It had happened a few years earlier, only then we were at Chasen’s. “Remember when Frank asked me to do that date? And I agreed. And Frank asked that you work out the details with Rudin? Remember?” Of course I did. “You called Rudin and he told you the date wouldn’t work. And why? Because there wasn’t enough money in it for Frank.”
“Right, but money’s not a factor here. Everybody’s working for free. So either you want to do something for the president—and even more important, for Frank—or you don’t.” I was realizing that Johnny was more disappointed than he’d let on that the dream pairing hadn’t come off. Perhaps playing on a bill with Sinatra was a dream he didn’t know he had. Anyway, we left the matter there.
After talking with Rudin the next morning, I phoned Johnny with the lowdown. “It’s just what Sinatra told you last night, except the request actually came from the new president. Sinatra’s prod
ucing, but you are the choice of the president-elect to host the show.”
“God, January in Washington,” he said, “one of America’s most charmless cities in one of its most charmless months. Ronnie does know that I answered my country’s call once already, doesn’t he?”
That the incoming president had requested him to emcee was not taken as a compliment by Carson. He looked at this as just more work. “Ah, you barely left Nebraska,” I reminded him. “And besides, it’s not like he’s asking you to kidnap the ayatollah or anything. I think you have to do it.”
Personally I didn’t much care whether Johnny did it or not, but I didn’t feel like telling Sinatra no. Besides, I had a new law partner in Washington. It would give me—and him—a chance to show off.
“Who else is going to perform?”
I didn’t know, although I should have expected the question. In Hollywood, stars are willing to do things if their peers are also doing them, but nobody wants to be the biggest fish in the net; it lowers your stature. “I assume things will work from the top down,” I told him, hoping and believing this to be true. “If you commit, others will fall into place.” With Carson headlining the bill, I was pretty sure Frank Sinatra could put together a show.