For Laughing Out Loud

by Ed McMahon

  Katherine Mary was five days old when she arrived in our lives. The night before we picked her up I didn't sleep, I reread Dr. Spock from cover to cover. She was dressed all in white when I first saw her, with a little crocheted white hat covering her head. She was a beautiful baby. We named her after my grandmother, Katie, and Victoria's mother, Mary. And I got exactly what I wanted, an Irish lass, complete with the requisite Irish temper. When she wanted something, she bellowed. When she wanted her bottle, she let us know loudly.

  Everyone was shocked when we told them. I think it was more disbelief than surprise. My children especially didn't know how to deal with the fact that after all these years they had a new sibling. Jeffrey sighed when we told him and said, "Thank God, I'm not the youngest anymore." Linda's children, who were older than Katherine, had a difficult time understanding their relationship to her. Linda tried to explain all about the divorce and that Katherine was her new sister, just like Claudia was her sister, and that made Katherine their aunt. So when Alex met her Aunt Katherine for the first time, I said to her, "This is your Aunt Katie."

  She looked at me, sighed, and said, "Granddaddy, it's not normal to have a baby aunt."

  I discovered immediately that one of the biggest differences between having a child naturally and adopting one is the paperwork. It makes no difference in the way you love that child. It never even occurred to me that I might love her in a different way than my other kids. I don't have a control valve on love. I took one look at my little girl and I think she smiled at me and that was it. One smile and we were bonded forever. Maybe the thing that surprised me most was how many people I had known for a long time, people I thought I knew well, told me that their child or children were adopted. We got hundreds of lovely letters and cards from people all over the country. During one of the first trips we made with Katherine, a woman came up to us and said, "I'm so happy for you. I was adopted and I've had a wonderful life, thanks to two loving parents."

  A friend of ours sent us a lovely poem that begins, "Not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone, but desired of my heart . . ." and closes with the beautiful lines, "And never forget, for one single minute, you didn't grow under my heart, but in it." We framed it and hung it on her wall.

  I was able to spend more time with Katherine than I had with my other kids. I mean, I changed her diapers, I got up and fed her at all hours of the night, I took her everywhere with me. By the time she was six months old she'd been to lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel several times, although she brought her own. When I served as grand marshal of a St. Patrick's Day parade, she rode on my lap in the car, and when I visited Ireland for the first time in my life, I took her with me. Sometimes during meetings I'd keep her on my lap and feed her. I went with Victoria for every visit to the doctor. It wasn't just that I was starting a second family, it was almost as if I were starting my own second childhood.

  I wasn't used to getting up in the middle of the night, and it was tiring, but it was a pleasant sort of exhaustion. Satisfying.

  Katherine was born just before Christmas and received more presents than we could count. She had more teddy bears than FAO Schwarz; she even had two stars in the heavens named after her, one a gift from our doctor, the other from a wonderful stranger. The first time Johnny Carson saw her he picked her up and she cooed and gurgled. Of course, as I reminded him, many women have done that with Johnny. One night we were talking about my baby on the show and he admitted, "I don't know what to buy a young girl."

  I suggested, "Well, stocks and bonds are always nice."

  Instead he sent her a gorgeous silver frame engraved with her name. He knew that was much more romantic than stocks and bonds.

  By the time she was three years old she knew that Johnny was my boss. I remember one morning I was leaving for work and I gave her a big hug and a kiss and she asked, "Where are you going, Daddy?"

  "I'm going to work," I told her. "I've got to make a living."

  She considered that for a moment, then told me, "Well, have a nice day, and say hello to Mr. Carson." Three years old and she knew how to butter up the boss.

  At first Victoria and I were worried about what this would do to our marriage. We'd had a great relationship for nine years, we knew it was going to change, we just didn't know how or how much. What happened is that we became closer—at least for a time.

  If I hadn't expected to get divorced a first time, the prospect that my marriage to Victoria would not last seemed even more improbable. As far as I was concerned, we were married for life, and adopting Katherine seemed to make us even better together.

  So I guess it's accurate to say I was stunned when I found out that Victoria was having an affair. Stunned? I don't think that even begins to describe how I felt. That was about the last thing I would have thought possible. Now, in retrospect, I've been extremely fortunate. As a result of the end of my marriage to Victoria, I had the great good fortune to meet Pam and fall in love and marry her and experience a kind of love so deep and true that my life has been turned in a new direction. But at the time of my divorce from Victoria I was deeply hurt.

  It's hard for me to write about it. Some of the people who worked for me knew about it before I did and didn't know what to do. They were in a difficult situation. But after a while it was obvious even to me that something was going on. Our relationship had changed. At one point I confronted her and she denied it. But something was wrong and I had to find out for myself what it was, so I hired a private investigator. Imagine, me, hiring a private investigator to follow my wife. I wanted to be wrong.

  I had no experience with this kind of situation, I didn't know what to do. Fortunately, I was surrounded by people who cared about me, and they were incredibly supportive and helpful. They were there when I needed people to be there. The whole thing seemed like a terrible dream to me; this was the kind of thing that happened to other people, certainly not to me.

  My assistant, Madeline Kelly, was in contact with the investigator. He compiled irrefutable evidence that Victoria was having an extramarital affair with a Beverly Hills police officer. Madeline and the investigator sat down with me and showed me the evidence. The range of feelings I experienced was unbelievable: pain, betrayal, embarrassment, anger, and great sadness. I decided immediately that we would get a divorce, but my biggest concern was Katherine. Victoria and I had taken on the great responsibility of raising a child and my heart was committed to her in every way. I didn't want to do that casually, I didn't want to be a part-time father, not again, not at this time in my life. So when I filed for a divorce, I also filed for custody of our daughter.

  For Katherine's sake we tried to make the end of our marriage as civil as possible; we even went to the opening of our friend Marvin Davis's new restaurant together the day I signed the divorce papers. I just went to work every day and did my job as best I could. But everyone was surprised when I filed for divorce. Even Tonight Show producer Freddy de Cordova, whom I saw every day of the week, admitted that he was shocked when he heard the news.

  And it was news. For a time it seemed like I couldn't open a newspaper without reading about my life in one of the columns. These stories were most often exaggerated or inaccurate, but they were always hurtful. Reporters were calling all the time asking me to make a statement. My picture was on the cover of all of the tabloids. As someone who has spent my life talking, even I knew that sometimes the best possible thing to say is nothing. The most I said to anyone was, "Look, I'm a marine, and marines hang in there." It was one of those times when you wish some major news event would take place to occupy everybody's attention.

  The only thing I could do was put on my game face and continue going about my life as best as possible. When you're going through a situation like that in public you think that every person on every corner knows all about it. Every time I noticed someone looking at me I just knew that they were thinking about this. I remember a story Doc Severinsen once told me. He was in a hotel room having an argu
ment with his wife, and right in the middle of it he heard this fluttering sound. He looked and saw a piece of paper being slid under the door. It was a note from several people asking for his autograph. So Doc and Emily stopped the fight, opened the door, signed some autographs, and had a nice chat, then closed the door and started screaming and yelling all over again. That's how I felt, as if the world was watching my life. Doing The Tonight Show was not that difficult; Johnny Carson always knew just how far he could go on the show about all of our personal lives, his own included, and he knew this was not a topic for humor.

  I hired a lawyer. Paul Tobin, a fellow marine, explained to me that in California, once the personal animosities are removed, a divorce is no more than a business deal. It's the breakup of a partnership. The only good thing about the entire divorce agreement was that I didn't have to ride that horse anymore.

  To me, the money was secondary. It was important, obviously—I had worked very hard all my life—but still secondary. I knew I could always make more money. People are always going to need a good metric slicer. But Katherine . . . she mattered to me. Eventually we settled for joint custody and Katherine spends substantial time with both of us. And, I think, because we both cared so much about her, the divorce was about as amicable as possible given the circumstances.

  My friends and my older children were very supportive. Claudia was living in San Francisco so I flew up there to be with her and Linda joined us. As a symbol that a period of my life was ending, they decided that we should throw away my one pair of white Gucci loafers. They just never thought that their father really belonged in white Gucci loafers. That was much too Hollywood for them. To them, I was a torn-socks kind of guy. But these loafers turned out to be the shoes that wouldn't go away. These were the loafers from The Twilight Zone. Three different times we tried to throw them away, but each time they returned. The first time we held a family ceremony around a wastebasket. "Okay," I announced, "I'm ready to let go of them," and dropped them in the basket. But when we came back from lunch, they were sitting neatly in my closet, cleaned and polished. That night we left them outside the room; the next day they were back in the closet. We tried the wastebasket again, again they returned.

  Changing my life wasn't going to be as easy as it appeared.

  This was so silly, but it was just what I needed. The three of us just laughed and had fun. Finally, Linda disposed of them. Being with Katherine, being reminded of the best part of that marriage, was also important to me. One afternoon when Katherine was about five years old we were on my boat and I was playing a lovely album on the stereo system, Natalie Cole I believe it was, and there was a line in one song, "Every day's a beautiful day . . ." When Katherine heard that, she put her arms around me and added her own line, "Especially if it's a day with Daddy."

  "Honey," I responded once again, "what color do you want that Porsche?"

  Once again, I was single. Being single is my second choice. For me, it isn't as enjoyable as being married to a woman I love, but there are a lot of very beautiful things about it. And I met several of them. This time, as soon as Victoria and I separated, I began getting hundreds of letters from women. After having suffered a terrible blow to my ego, this was very flattering. Some of these women were just offering advice: "What you need, Ed, is an older woman who can cook for you," "What you really need is a nice down-home type woman." Some of them made offers:

  "You've had enough of these Hollywood types, I've got a trailer you can move right into," and "I'm the kind of woman who knows how to pamper a man," and some of them sent photographs.

  I was better at being single this time than I had been in the past. Well, I had more practice. And this time, this time I was certain I wasn't going to get married again. I had my career, I had my two families, I had so many wonderful friends, and I had several attractive women in my life. Although some of the women I dated were beautiful, it was obvious they weren't right for me, and I knew that immediately after the first seven or eight dates.

  Whee-yoooo!

  There just was no need for me to marry again. But at Milton Berle's eighty-third birthday party, Lillian Crane, a former Ziegfeld showgirl married to the great comedy writer Harry Crane, whispered in my ear, "I have the perfect woman for you. She's beautiful on the outside and the inside."

  Since Lillian is a woman of great style, taste, and good humor, I knew I wanted to meet this person. I called Pam Hurn and we made a blind date, lunch at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. For years I've had lunch in the same booth at the Polo Lounge; people knew they could often find me there sitting right behind a full plate.

  When Pam walked in the door, I was instantly attracted to her. Pam is tall and elegant, but it was the warmth of her smile that lit up my heart. I took one look at her and thought, if Lillian is right, if this woman really is as beautiful on the inside as I see she is on the outside, then this could be something serious. From our first moment together she was so easy to be with. Three hours passed in minutes. It was obvious we were going to see each other again. I didn't tell her I'd decided never to marry again. In fact, I completely forgot that I'd decided that.

  Pam later told me she'd decided that day that we should be together. Well, as they say, the groom is the last to know. We met on a Tuesday afternoon. That night I invited her to a small birthday party I was throwing for my housekeeper. On Thursday we went to see Frank Sinatra performing at the Greek Theatre, and during intermission we went backstage to have a drink with him. On Friday we had dinner on my boat, where I had been living since the divorce. On Saturday we went to Tony Bennett's concert, then went backstage to spend time with him. That was some first week, and by Sunday I was convinced that she was as special as Lillian Crane had promised.

  The better I got to know her, the more attractive she became to me. Pam had a son, Lex, by an earlier marriage, whom she'd raised by herself. He was then serving in the Marine Corps. Maybe I had Sinatra and Bennett and a large boat to impress her, but on her side she had the United States Marine Corps. No contest. And the fact is that although she enjoyed all the things we did together, she was not the type of person who was impressed by celebrities or glitz. She was one of the most down-to-earth, sweetest people I'd ever met. As my daughter Linda would later say, it was as if the skies opened up and she dropped out of heaven just for me. Pam was working in advertising when we met, but by passion she was a dress designer. She'd had her own company, she'd designed and manufactured ready-to-wear hand-painted fashions. For a while it was a successful company; she had showrooms in New York, Dallas, Atlanta, and sales representatives all across the country. Major department stores and upscale boutiques carried her clothes. When the 1980s recession hit, these shops couldn't pay their bills. She had to abandon her dream. She was working as an advertising executive.

  Everything I learned about her was impressive. She had been active in everything from the rock music industry to her church, a mostly black church in south central Los Angeles ministered by Dr. Frederick Price. Years ago Dr. Price had founded a day-care center for single mothers living in that area that had grown into a school. He had added a grade each successive year until in 1996 he graduated his first six high school students, each of whom was accepted by a major university. The school now occupies thirty acres no more than a well-placed nine-iron shot from the spot where the recent riots started and has 310 students. Pam donates 10 percent of all the profits from our company to this school, and after we were married I produced a concert for the Price School Scholarship Fund that raised almost one hundred thousand dollars. We had the brilliant songwriter David Foster, Kenny G, Shanice, Billy Porter, a two-hundred-voice choir, and a full orchestra.

  Our relationship progressed with all the subtlety of two locomotives racing toward each other on the same track. From the day we'd met, everything seemed so right. It was as if we were destined to be together. Several weeks after we'd started dating, my son Jeffrey came to California for the weekend with his lovely girlfriend, Marth
a. The fact that Jeff had brought Martha out to spend time with me meant that he was serious about her. The three of us took my boat to Catalina. Pam was working and couldn't go with us. Jeff and Martha were so obviously in love that I pointed out, "As captain of this ship, once we're three miles off land-mass, I can marry you. That's one of the oldest traditions of the sea. It won't last a lifetime, but it will certainly tide you over for the weekend."

  I missed Pam terribly. Since meeting we'd spent so much time together that I hadn't had the opportunity to feel what my life was like without her. Well, it didn't feel good at all. So I spent most of that weekend on beautiful Catalina island standing at the pay phone just outside the ladies' room in the Black Buffalo Nickel Cafe telling Pam how much I cared for her. "I'm in love with you," I told her, "and if you're feeling the same way I am, you know where it's going to lead."

  "I was just waiting for you to catch up with me," she said.

  Those are the moments about which love songs are written. Not particularly the fact that I was standing outside the ladies' room, but that instant when you realize and accept that this is the person with whom you'll be sharing a future. Seven months after we'd met, we eloped. I wanted to be married by Father Ward in the chapel at St. Jude's Ranch. Father Ward and the judge who would perform the legal service were the only people we told. Our plan was to fly to Las Vegas with Katherine and my assistant, Toni Holliday, after The Tonight Show and drive out to St. Jude's the following morning to be married.