Inside Johnny Carson and Joan Rivers’ Rise and Fall on The Tonight Show

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you from the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. They were the King and Queen of late-night TV until it all came crashing down. Johnny Carson reigned supreme as the host of The Tonight Show, and by his side was Joan Rivers, his trusted protégé. But in 1986, Joan did the unthinkable. Here with the story is Mark Malkoff, author of In Love with Johnny Carson. Take it away, Mark.

Johnny was secure enough that he would let anybody guest host the show that he thought would be interesting. Johnny felt he needed rest from the show to do the best that he did. So, it would be anybody from golfer Arnold Palmer to Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Cray, to Don Rickles, to Michael Landon guest hosting the show. You would have Kirk Douglass, a big movie star, guest host the show. Then you would have quarterback from the Jets, Joe Namath, guest host. You never knew who was going to be guest hosting the show. Joan Rivers in 1965 probably had the best comedic debut.

You know, in the last few years, you find out, especially in television, people who usually write comedy material for other people — comedy writers, that is — they are not usually amusing themselves. I don’t know why, but here’s a young lady who, who not only writes funny, she is funny herself. Would you welcome, place, Joan Rivers.

She went on Johnny’s show. She was introduced as a female comedy writer. She was writing for a TV show called Candid Camera, which was a hidden camera show, and she went on the show, and Johnny told her that night, ‘I have a feeling you’re going to be a big star.’ Joan Rivers. The next day was Harold, and the Press is the biggest comedic female find since Carol Burnett. Back with Johnny less than two weeks later, and Joan’s life changed. Johnny loved Joan. In 1982, Johnny decided, ‘I want to have a permanent guest host, and that’s going to be Joan Rivers.’ Joan ended up breaking Frank Sinatra’s record. It was either in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, and she became one of the highest-paid entertainers in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, because she was the permanent guest host on The Tonight Show and Johnny absolutely loved her. Miss Rivers was able to get her own show opposite Johnny on the Fox Network, which had just started, and she launched that in 1986. Barry Diller, who was the head of Fox, had told me that he had told Miss Rivers, ‘You need to tell Johnny you were going to be competing against him.’ Barry Diller, who played in a poker game with Johnny Carson, was friends with him. It was Neil Simon, Chevy Chase, Carl Reiner, Steve Martin. And Barry Diller told Joan, ‘You to tell Johnny this.’ Miss Rivers did not tell Johnny, and he found out the day be work that Miss Rivers was to announce a press conference and was devastated.

Carson, as you know, is going off this week, and I wasn’t asked… Here I go. I wasn’t asked to come on and say goodbye, or wasn’t.

Asked in any way, shape or form.

See, part of that with NBC, even though we did call, and when it had gone down with me and with Johnny, Carson was something private if I left, as you know, do my own show. And as we get, ’cause I get more and more sentimental, peoples who coming up and saying me, ‘Carson, Carson, Carson,’ some of you may remember as the first woman ever hosted the show permanently.

And it was a lot of steps in my life. And I had come out of no way of one passive put his arm around me on my first shot. I had been brought up seven times, by the way, and the girl from Marchmont throwing very hard to be a comedian when ladies were not comedians. We go back to 1966 and my first sight on the show. I’d been working as an office temp, and he had gone to do the show, and that night Carson said to me, ‘You’re going to be a star.’

And I was so stupid and young.

I looked drad.

I didn’t know who was talking to. But I just want to say, because they won’t let me say it on The Tonight Show, the show changed my life. I am totally grateful. I wouldn’t be wearing this watch, I wouldn’t be wearing this Shohn. But I said I wouldn’t be having this show.

But at him, he was very, very hurt that somebody he gave the big break would not tell him to his face that she was going to compete.

It was horrible for me. And when the deal was going to be announced, the first one I called was Carson, and he hung up on me and never spoke to me again. Right before the deal was going to be asked, she said, ‘Johnny, it’s Joan, and I think of leaving the show. I have my own show at Fox,’ and click. So then I called him back, and I said, ‘Johnny,’ and he clicked down again. Would not be killing, but it became business. He became what he was, what we all are. Rawson didn’t become Johnny. Dawson didn’t get himself out of Nebraska because he was a sweet kid. You get out because you have drive. Johnny was a tough, aggressive killer. That’s how he got to be Johnny Carson. And I look back and I think maybe I should have just gone and asked Johnny.

Everybody said he would have said, ‘I’m happy for to you. I wish you all the best,’ but I would advise you against it. Johnny was concerned that her style would just not work every night. Every five weeks, it worked, but Joan Rivers would make fun of Elizabeth Taylor’s weight and do a lot of cruel jokes, and didn’t think it would work every single night, and it didn’t. The thing that Johnny Carson had his heart broken even more is Joan Rivers tried to take Johnny’s producer, Peter Lesally. Every talent coordinator to that Johnny had was offered double their salary to go to Miss Rivers’s show, and he could not believe that the woman that he mentored would try to take his staff, and he never talked to her again. Miss Rivers. After nine or ten months, her show ended because Barry Diller, the head of Fox, told Miss Rivers that she needed to remove her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, who’s producer of the show, and Joan Rivers said she wouldn’t do it. And then Barry Diller said that, ‘You’re going to be fired.’ She thought mister Dilla’s bluffing. He wasn’t. Miss Rivers was removed as the host of The Late Show on Fox. Two months later, Edgar Rosenberg took his own life. But Joan Rivers, even though that they had their issues, would always say Johnny was the best straight man in the history of the business.

Johnny Carson was the best straight man ever. He knew you were going. He knew when to come in and say, ‘How fat was she?’

He knew when not.

To say it.

No. Well, my wedding night was a disaster.

You know that a lot of men smoke after they make love. Egg of smoke during. Now.

That’s asked me for a like. Do you think that’s nice? I say, ‘Getting yourself in the dashboard, what’s the matter?’ It was an immedia connection. You knew you were bringing your little gift to him of a joke, and you knew who’s going to open it up.

I must say publicly, you always compliment me on this show, telling you that jewel so much to The Tonight Show, and so will work to you, not to The Night Show, to you.

And a special thanks to Mark Malkoff, his book In Love with Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend. And my goodness, the suicide of her husband, Edgar, a Shakespearean tragedy. Here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss, and your stories. Send us your story, small or large, to our email: OAS@OurAmericanStories.com. We’d love to hear them and put them on the air. Our audience loves them too.