Johnny Carson

by Henry Bushkin

  In the late seventies, my firm represented a developer who was constructing a ninety-three-acre mall in northwest Houston called Willowbrook. When the developer ran out of money, the firm formed an investment group to take over the project. Johnny agreed to become a member of the group.

  “Sure, Houston, I love Houston,” he responded. “Aerospace. Oil. Mike Davis says Houston is going to surpass New York and Chicago.”

  One day I mentioned that a few of my partners and I were going to Houston for the initial unveiling of the site model, showcasing all its residential, commercial, hotel, and mall components. “Great,” Johnny said. “You don’t mind if I come with you, do you?”

  How could I mind? How could I not be suspicious?

  On the plane, Johnny surprised me again. “Listen, dinner tonight is all arranged, okay?” He ticked off the names of the six or seven investment partners who would be invited.

  “Great,” I said, thinking how unusual this was. “Who made the arrangements?”

  “Remember Miss Texas?”

  “Miss Texas from Houston-Dallas-Houston?” Houston-Dallas-Houston was our shorthand for an oddly scheduled trio of club dates Johnny played in 1974: Thursday in Houston, Friday in Dallas, and Saturday back in Houston. It wasn’t an engagement he was too keen on keeping, but it turned out to be one of the best weekends in our entire time together. We had great accommodations, great crowds, and eager-to-please promoters. Phyllis McGuire opened for Johnny, and she is a very amusing person, especially when she has had a drink or two. It was on the trip that she introduced us to her then boyfriend, Mike Davis, who would become a lifelong friend of mine and with whom we would enjoy many adventures in Cap d’Antibes and other exotic locales. It was also during that trip that Johnny made the acquaintance of a nubile young lady whom we thereafter called Miss Texas. I don’t remember if she ever officially held that title, but I’d like to meet the woman who could have topped her in the swimsuit competition.

  “The same,” said Johnny. “She’s now a real estate broker. She put the whole dinner together. She’s bringing her boss. I told her she could have some sort of inside track to get some business from us.”

  “What the hell are you thinking? Who is this broad?”

  “It’s Miss Texas! Now here’s the thing—I don’t want them to pay. You pick up the tab. Okay?”

  “Really?” I asked. I wasn’t objecting to the request, just reacting to the oddness of his interest.

  “Listen, I’ve also invited her to fly with us on the helicopter tour tomorrow. That’ll give you and the boys a chance to talk to her and see what you can do for her.”

  “Just one more thing,” I asked. “How long has this been going on?”

  Johnny responded with a wink and a grin, which told me that it really didn’t matter and I really didn’t need to know.

  “So, you don’t really give a shit about the project, do you?”

  “Certainly!” he responded with the look of mock innocence with which he had been amusing audiences for decades. “Looks as if I’ll have to be visiting Houston a lot over the next few years.”

  That night we had an excellent dinner at a Houston steak house. Phyllis McGuire and Mike Davis were invited to join us, and Mike insisted on picking up the tab. The bill amounted to more than $2,000, on top of which Mike left $5,000, which was his normal percentage. Miss Texas was stunning. Johnny was happy.

  But Johnny wasn’t happy for long. Acrimony developed between him and the main local investor, a very shrewd fellow named Hugh Pike. Hugh felt, as most normal people would, that Johnny’s presence would be invaluable when prospective tenants and subdevelopers were coming in to discuss deals. For a while Johnny agreed and complied. Then there came a point when he didn’t. The relationship with Miss Texas had ended, and so did his interest in going to Houston. Eventually Johnny bought out all the partners, and years later Willowbrook became a roaring success.

  I had a lot of time to think about Johnny’s involvement in the Willowbrook deal while another deal we were involved in was having difficulties. Eight investors, including me, Johnny, and my law partner Arnold Kopelson, had formed a group that took over the ownership of the Garden State Bank in Hawaiian Gardens, California, a town about twenty miles south of Los Angeles. Our plan was to rename it the Commercial Bank of California, relocate it to Los Angeles, and, using all of our assets and connections, turn it into a profitable bank serving our clients. The bank needed to raise more money if it was to succeed; most of us couldn’t afford to put in more money, and Johnny didn’t want to. He had also pledged to promote the bank with appearances at several small gatherings, but he reneged, claiming it was too tiring for him. Eventually we had to sell the bank, and all the investors lost their money.

  Arnold Kopelson was very angry with Carson for his refusal to promote the bank and put up more money, and he was furious with me for taking Johnny’s side. Arnold maintained that a million dollars would have saved the bank, an amount that was chump change to Carson. Looking back, I think he was probably right. Our friendship ended in a rancorous lawsuit, with my saying and doing things I now regret in order to protect Carson and my relationship with him.

  In seeing how things went down in Houston and with the bank, I began to feel that there was a problem with this relationship. Johnny was willing to make appearances and use my law firm and the investment group we assembled in order to promote his connection to Miss Texas, but he wouldn’t make appearances or bolster the bank’s investment group, even if it cost my friends and me money and lost me the friendship of Arnold Kopelson, a man I really liked and admired. More and more, I was beginning to think that the relationship I had with Carson might have been suitable and even beneficial to a young man just embarking on his career, but that it didn’t work so well for a more mature person who had a more prominent place in a wider world.

  The last time I saw Rick Carson was at The Tonight Show anniversary party that took place on the Queen Mary in October 1987. It was marking twenty-five years of the Carson era, and NBC really tried to impress, inviting not only the people who worked on the show, but also network executives, the entertainment press, Johnny’s family and friends, and others. Dinner, dancing, and entertainment were part of the festivities, as was a casino area, where people could play blackjack, roulette, and craps. Rick was playing in the casino and drinking heavily. His father went to see him in order to keep him under control, and a screaming match ensued. Johnny lost his temper and began yelling, and Rick responded in kind. Johnny pulled back his fist—he was going to slug his son—but somebody stepped in and hustled Johnny away. Not long before I would have been one of those stepping in. This time I left the boat and headed home. I realized as I left that the situation between Johnny and me was going downhill fast. I hated the way he spoke to his son, and I hated that I had become his “cleaner.” And I suspect that he probably had his issues with me. I was less available to play tennis with him. I became increasingly intolerant of his lack of civility toward company employees. In general, we were growing apart, and our friendship was lost.

  A couple of weeks later, October 19, on so-called Black Monday, the stock market lost 22 percent of its value. Johnny and I were scheduled to play tennis at eleven a.m., but he called and asked me to come over early. By then the market was three hours into its historic freefall. “Do you realize how much money I lost today?” he asked me the moment I walked in. “Why the hell didn’t you warn me to get out of the market?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I never had anything to do with his portfolio. Fred Kayne had always managed it, but earlier in the year, Alex had persuaded Johnny to let Michael Klein, an old friend of hers who worked at Bear Stearns, guide his investments. But all that was irrelevant. The stock market had suffered the largest one-day percentage decline in its history, and Carson was blaming me.

  Now everything could be blamed on me.

  15

  1987–1988: The End

  THERE WERE MANY things Fran
k Sinatra admired about Johnny Carson, but the thing he truly envied was Carson’s wealth. Frank, to be sure, had plenty of money, but like a lot of entertainers, he had put his money into real estate. It was safe and profitable, but it wasn’t particularly liquid. Johnny had real estate investments, too, as well as stocks and bonds, but unlike Sinatra or Crosby or Hope or any of the other truly wealthy entertainers, Johnny had The Tonight Show, a cash cow that week after week paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary and fees and expenses. And it was relatively easy money. Sinatra had to travel the world giving concerts, incurring in the process all sorts of expenses for himself and those who traveled with him. Johnny had to drive to Burbank.

  But even before his ownership of The Tonight Show relieved him of ever having to care about money, Johnny didn’t much care about it as long as there was enough of it. Even when he and I first met and he was working under terrible contracts prepared by his negligent advisors, he still had plenty of cash, and he spent it like he never gave it a thought. Once he got control of The Tonight Show, however, he was earning so much that it was like Monopoly money. He was free to do literally whatever he wanted. He could ignore a sweet deal from Coca-Cola because he didn’t want to make a lasting commitment. When he didn’t like modeling for photographers for two days a year, he could afford to close down his multimillion-dollar clothing company; when he got tired of playing nightclubs, he bailed on his dates in Las Vegas; when he decided he didn’t like going to see the rushes of movies in production, he closed up his company’s successful movie division; and when he got tired of being the CEO of Carson Productions, he decided to rid himself of the company.

  The truth is that Johnny never liked anything having to do with business. That was not only evident from the trust he placed in an entirely unworthy Sonny Werblin, but it was also clear two years later when he placed the same level of trust in me without having performed much more scrutiny, still depending only on his less-than-reliable gut. For a long time, I was able to shield him from most of the necessities of business, but that had become harder to do in recent years, and the problems that Johnny could no longer ignore were serious and painful.

  Having to approve firing a friend, John McMahon. Having to condone firing his son Rick. Dealing with the stubborn Ed Weinberger. Hearing his name embroiled in the DeLorean.

  More than one hundred investors, including Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr., put more than $12 million into a partnership for research and development while the British government produced $156 million in grants and loans in return for DeLorean locating the factory in Northern Ireland.

  Johnny’s biggest regret about the investment was driving the car. It broke down on his first test drive, and to make matters worse, he was driving the DeLorean when he was arrested for a DUI in 1982. The monetary loss of the investment was of no real consequence to him. However, the arrest for drunk driving in that car caused Johnny to never drive it again.

  One final difficulty involved a writer for The Tonight Show who wanted a raise. He was making $4,000 a week, and the producers thought that was a just and appropriate amount. When I declined his request, the writer marched into Johnny’s office and repeated his request. Instead, he got fired, but Johnny, who had carefully insulated himself from ever having to talk money with those who worked for him, was disturbed by the whole outrageous intrusion.

  By the late ’80s, Johnny’s heart and breathing problems were worsening, and he was taking cortisone, which affected his mood and left him with less patience for managing problems. Moreover, Alex was having an effect on his business decisions, as new wives in any marriage are wont to do. She talked Johnny into replacing his longtime art dealer, Tom Paul, and hiring her father instead. When Fred Kayne (his longtime stockbroker) left Bear Stearns, Alex had campaigned for him to be replaced by her old friend Michael Klein. I honestly don’t know if these changes happened by coincidence or if she had a plan. I certainly don’t know if she ever considered replacing me with someone she thought could do a better job as her husband’s lawyer.

  Even as Johnny’s mood soured and his interest flagged, Carson Productions had turned the corner. Amen showed Weinberger in full possession of his creative magic, and in a sign of tremendous confidence in Carson Productions, Paramount, the company for whom Weinberger had helped create Taxi, offered $50 million to us in production financing. That meant being able to hire more writers, commission more scripts, and produce more pilots.

  That tremendous news, however, did nothing to alter the fundamental trajectory of Carson’s feelings: he announced that he had decided to sell the company. Relying on Michael Klein of Bear Stearns to act as the company’s investment advisor, Johnny set the sale price of the company at $90 million, which I thought was unrealistic.

  “Look at the record,” I told Johnny. “We’ve had five series on NBC, not one of which ever made it past twenty-two episodes. We had a modest hit with Mr. President, but we structured the production costs so poorly we had to beg Fox to put us out of our misery. So there isn’t anything in the library to sell. We currently have a hit in Amen, but we need three more years of production before we can get into syndication and make some money. After that, we’ve got a couple of miniseries and TV movies. The only thing we have of real value to sell is The Tonight Show, and while I have no idea who might contemplate paying $90 million for this collection of odds and ends, I have no doubt that whoever it might be, he or she is going to do exactly what Coca-Cola did and require you to commit to do the show for a few more years.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous,” replied Carson. “I won’t agree to that bullshit demand. I’m going to go year by year, and they can go fuck themselves.”

  And that’s where we left it. I wasn’t dissatisfied with his stubbornness. If he held his ground on $90 million, we would probably end up not selling and instead use the Paramount money to create new shows.

  But once word got out that Johnny was interested in selling, Weinberger called. “I wasn’t going to mention this,” he hesitantly began, “but I’ve been approached by the Tribune Company. They told me that if I wasn’t happy with the terms of the sale of Carson Productions, then they would like to talk to me about running their television operations.” But that wasn’t what he had really called to tell me. “Here’s the thing. It would be much better if they bought Carson Productions,” he argued. “Amen could continue to remain in production and build value, and you and I could remain in our positions.” Implied but unspoken was the additional benefit—we wouldn’t be working with Johnny anymore.

  I liked the picture Ed had painted, and so unbeknownst to Carson, I met with the Tribune people. After long consideration, they advised me they would offer $60 million for the business, with Weinberger and me remaining as senior management.

  I was disappointed at the price. I didn’t think we would be offered the $90 million Bear Stearns was seeking, but neither did I believe that the company would go for as little as $60 million. I thought that $65 million would be right. In the past I would have known how and when to share this kind of news with Carson, but with his new heightened level of anger, I was unsure of myself. I called Fred Kayne for advice.

  “Don’t tell Bear Stearns about this,” he warned me. “It really wasn’t up to you to talk to other people about selling the company. Let them get the best offer they can, and you keep the Tribune offer under your hat for now. We’ll see if maybe you should mention it later.”

  Fred also gave me some good personal advice. “Face facts,” he said. “He’s involving new people. It’s because so far he likes what he’s hearing from them, so give them some space to show what they can do. But don’t make the mistake of underestimating Alex or Michael Klein. Don’t think they’ll play nice. Michael Klein cannot help himself—he will find a way to screw you.”

  That was sound advice, but for some reason, I chose not to follow it. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to advise Michael Klein of the offer. “Keep it confidential,” I told him.
“Consider it a backup. If everything else fails, that deal is out there.”

  “Of course, Henry,” Klein agreed. “This is entre nous.”

  Whereupon he directly went to Carson and told him that Ed Weinberger and I were trying to steal his company.

  Carson summoned me to the Malibu house. It had been a long time since we had last played tennis together; it was just no fun anymore. I’d heard that he’d been expanding the place; now it was enormous. I’m told that when Bob Newhart came to visit, he asked Johnny, “Where’s the gift shop?”

  Johnny didn’t say why he wanted to see me, although I knew that if Michael Klein had broken his promise to keep a secret—and if twenty years in law practice had taught me anything, it’s that nobody keeps a secret—Johnny would be angry with me. I just wasn’t prepared for how angry.

  He didn’t even bother to ask me to sit down. “I hear you’re trying to steal my goddamn company,” he said when I walked into his living room. “Sixty million, huh? Where the fuck did that number come from? You and Weinberger got a sweet deal for yourselves?”

  The implication that Ed and I had finagled some other way of getting paid in order to keep the price down was insulting, but I never got the chance to address it. “I’ve talked to Ed Hookstratten,” Johnny continued, referring to one of Beverly Hills’s most prominent lawyers. “He’ll take over. Let’s talk about you. What’s fair between us?”