LOVE JOHNNY CARSON

Anecdotal glimpses of the late-night TV icon, from the host of The Carson Podcast.

For eight years, Malkoff has hosted a podcast dedicated to Carson’s three-decade run on The Tonight Show, and this book is nicely stuffed with quips, quotes, observations—and the occasional gripe—from guests and staffers. He sketches out Carson’s professional biography, from early days hosting the game show Who Do You Trust? in the early ’60s to his retirement in 1992. But though Carson was a fixture in American bedrooms and living rooms, he was also a sphinxlike figure, steering clear of stating overt political opinions and keeping a tight lid on his personal life. Malkoff’s portrait is of a generous figure who took his kingmaking powers seriously—he launched the careers of countless stand-up comics, from Joan Rivers to Drew Carey. But he could also be prickly, for example, holding a long grudge against sidekick Ed McMahon for upstaging him and freezing out guests who had, the host believed, crossed a line. (Ellen DeGeneres was banned from the show after telling a religious joke.) He outsourced touchy subjects, tapping Harry Belafonte to host for a week in 1968, bringing in guests like Martin Luther King Jr. And as the years pressed on, he weathered more criticism that he was out of touch. No question, Old Hollywood and Rat Pack swagger was his sweet spot; he declined to have counterculture figures like Andy Warhol on (“has no talent”), and when the show made a bid for hipness by having Morrissey perform in 1991, he fumed at feeling upstaged. Credit Malkoff, with the help of seasoned author Ritz, for showing Carson in his complexity while still retaining his admiration for the showman. In their reckoning, Carson was a flawed performer who knew his lane—soothing Americans looking for a laugh before bedtime—and jealously guarded it.

Well-curated glimpses of the complex man beneath the shiny talk-show surface.