January 28th 2008 Books
Only the best books about the Tonight Show are listed below!
Here’s Johnny: Thirty Years of Americas Favorite Late Night Entertainer by Stephen Cox, 2002
More than 200 photographs, most previously unpublished, commemorate the most popular features and most memorable moments from The Tonight Show in the Carson era. Included are The Mighty Carson Art Players, Carnac the Magnificent, Stump the Band, Tiny Tim’s wedding, the infamous interview with Arnold Palmer’s wife, Ed Ames’s notorious tomahawk throw, and much more. Based on interviews with Carson—the only one he’s ever granted for a book—and more than fifty major celebrities, including David Letterman, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters, Betty White, Jack Paar, Phyllis Diller, and Louie Anderson, this book provides a behind-the-scenes look at the longest-running late-night television show of all time and at the man who made it all happen. It is a revision and expansion of a 1992 book that celebrated Carson’s years on the show.
King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson by Lawrence Leamer, 2005
Leamer - as all other writers who have tried to provide insight into Carson’s life - had to rely on interviews (over 700). But, his book is the closest thing to “definitive.” The private Carson who emerges, cold and retiring, doesn’t much resemble the public outgoing, clownish Carson. The private life is all here; wives and relationships are explored in a book that isn’t a flattering puff piece. Nor is this a volume filled with Carson-bashing. The exhaustive research has culminated in a revealing and entertaining account.
Backstage at the Tonight Show: From Johnny Carson to Jay Leno by Don Sweeney, 2006
This book is a collection of celebrity vignettes and anecdotes from the peak years of the Tonight Show, and includes behind-the-scenes looks at more than two dozen celebrities, including Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Tony Randall, Don Rickles, Stevie Wonder, Martin Short, Liza Minnelli, Ed McMahon, and Johnny Carson himself. With an eye for the eccentric, amusing, or downright bizarre, Sweeney’s brief portraits offer a glimpse at celebrity from the other side of the curtain.
Leading with My Chin by Jay Leno, 1997
So what do you expect from a celebrity autobiography? Stories of an impoverished childhood and an unappreciated early career? Angst-ridden revelation? In Jay Leno’s take on the genre, tales have only one purpose - laughs. This is a book of anecdotes and humorous stories that mark the comedian’s progress to the top. The persona of the young Leno is not so different and just as likable as the one appearing nightly on television. Whether it is his mother’s advice, his teachers’ complaints, or the awkward situations he finds himself in (for example, standing before an Orthodox Jewish audience who have been mistakenly led to expect a Yiddish storyteller) Leno always sees the funny side. This book was published five years into Jay’s stint on the Tonight Show.
Jay Leno’s Headlines: Book I, II, III: Real but Ridiculous Headlines from America’s Newspapers by Jay Leno, 1992
If you’ve ever chuckled over the misspelled newspaper headlines that Jay produces on his show, then you’ll howl over the ones he captures for this book. With headlines like “Dead man found in cemetery,” “Mimes banned for abusive language,” and “USPS begins program to help ’stamp out literacy’,” you can see what I mean. Great gift, too!
