IS CARSON UP TO PAAR?
By JACK RYAN
IN 1951, bill brennan, a salesman for a Los
Angeles radio station, pitched his hardest
sell to his bosses.
"I want you tb'hear this spot announcer we've got
Johnny Carson. He put together a cohfedy show and wants
to audition it." . 1
The reception -was dourful. "The young guy with the
pushed-up nose who says, 'This is ,your friendly radio
station' every hour on the hour? He's funny?"
Brennan persisted. He eventually herded the executives
into a broadcasting studio where
Carson, aided by a bored piano
player, ran through a half-hour
program called "Carson's Cellar."
The executives were impressed
enough to give him a local show on
Sunday in an afternoon slot they
hadn't been able to fill anyway.
It was toehold enough, though,
for the puckish sophisticate from
Iowa and Nebraska, and 11 years
later Carson has moved to the fore
front of show business by taking
over television's "Tonight" show.
In doing so, he has replaced Jack
Paar who in his tenure as host be
came all things to all insomniacs
fearless crusader, vindictive cry
baby, naVve boy-next-door, sneer
ing teller of smutty stories.
The question now is can Car
son equal Paar? The consensus is
yes in entertainment, no in estab
lishing the love-hate relationships
Paar had with his audiences.
Carson's coworkers tab him
"aloof," "moody," "hard to know,"
but a professional who, before a
camera, can bring out the warmth
and interests of guests that he
cannot always bring out in him
self. His work, they say, will be
urbane, witty, provocative "but
you'll never tune in just to see the
star standing .before the camera,
emotionally naked, weeping, damn
ing his private demons."
Carson himself is thoroughly
self-contained when he says : "Jack
was a master interviewer, which is what the 'Tonight'
show needed. But his personal vendettas eventually got
tiresome, embarrassing.
"I believe controversy, if it is sincere, can be stimulating
on a program. But I won't introduce it for sensation's sake
or for my own prejudices. If it comes up fine. Let it come,
blow over, and forget it."
You get an idea of Carson's personality as he discusses
his career, which he does without the usual show-business
fantasies and hokum. "I went to Los Angeles after do
ing my own show in Omaha," he recalls, "and I promised if
I did not have a Coast program after a year, I'd quit. I
didn't wait around to be 'discovered,' though I don't be
lieve in that 'Art will out' business. I worked hard, but I
also was lucky enough to have a good friend in Bill Brennan
and to be in the right place at the right time. Friends and
luck, they make the breaks for you."
Without demeaning his own talents, Carson returns to
"luck" often in reminiscing. He was a gag writer and
. -
x ,v ... .
Insomniacs may find
Johnny witty but
"impersonal" after Jack's
tears and boyish deviltry
quiz-show host, for example, when Red Skclton injured him
self during a rehearsal. As luck would have it, Carson got
the substitute call (he did a lot of subbing at this time
including some for a rising comedian named Jack Paar)
and scored heavily enough to land two national shows of
his own.
Luck seemingly ran out in 1957. "All the shows folded,"
he says. "I had a contract, but money isn't important to
me." And he returns to the one theme that seems to stir
him: "I wanted my own show."
He put together a night-club act, but shortly afterward
an emcee spot opened on the New
York program, "Who Do You
Trust?" Since Carson was at loose
ends, he won the job. "Things just
worked out," he says casually. The
unexpected job lasted five years,
during which Carson never missed
an appearance, even while appear
ing on Broadway in "Tunnel of
Love." '
Johnny shrugs off the prized
"Tonight" role with equal non
chalance. "My contract with 'Who
Do You Trust?' ran out in Septem
ber, so it just worked out well for
everybody."
Johnny got his start doing fairs
and club meetings he always
had new audiences because his
father, an employee of a power
utility and now stationed in Co
lumbus, Ncbr., moved the family
often. Next came magic and banter
in Navy shows while he was an
ensign during World War II. Then,
bypassing magic, he did zany radio
announcing in Lincoln and Omaha
while he attended the University
of Nebraska and performed the
rare feat of preparing a serious
thesis on "How to Write Comedy."
Carson married his high-school
sweetheart while in college, but
they separated upon his move to
New York. She cares for their
three boys, Chris, 12, Ricky, lO'i,
and Cory, 9, in a fashionable sub
urb while Johnny lives in a clut
tered apartment facing the East River.
He sees his sons each weekend. "Usually we go to my
boat," he says. "We have a lot of fun but don't plan any
thing. Maybe that's why we have fun."
Jack Paar's daughter Randy indeed, his whole ofT
camera life was shared with his audiences, but that will
not be the case with Carson. He grants interviews only on
the condition "you don't get too personal."
As for his reaction' to the challenge of replacing Paar,
Johnny again shrugs. "I have my own ways. I'll do a whole
new show. One thing I won't be is an imitator. I couldn't
even if I wanted to."
Carson will be a strange nightcap for Paar fans, but if
Johnny worries about the future which he adamantly
denies he can gain solace by recalling Paar's own chal
lenge. Jack was a replacement for popular Steve Allen, and
experts claimed he could never match Allen's wit and versa
tility. He never did.
He simply went on to stardom on his own gifts. Carson
will probably do the same and chalk it up to "luck."
Family Weekly, October 7, 1K2 t
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