Carson the magnificent / Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A much-anticipated biography--twenty years in the making--of the entertainer who redefined late-night television and reshaped American culture.

In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson--the only one he'd granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend. Shortly after Carson's death in 2005 and urged on by many of those closest to Carson, Zehme signed a contract to do an expansive biography. He toiled on the book for nearly a decade--interviewing dozens of Carson's colleagues and friends and filling up a storage locker with his voluminous research--before a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatments halted his progress. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it "one of the great unfinished biographies."

Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most inscrutable figures in entertainment history: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson's rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to a Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show --which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child.

In one passage, Zehme notes that when asked by an interviewer in the mid-80s for the secret to his success, Carson replied simply, "Be yourself and tell the truth." Completed with help from journalist and Zehme's former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent offers just that: an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Prologue Tiptoeing Up the Mountain (1)
• Part 1 There Will Be a Tomorrow (15)
• Part 2 Kind of Like Television Roulette (55)
• Part 3 A Tight Suitcase (99)
• Part 4 It's Ail in the Timing (127)
• Part 5 The Difference Between Love and Lust (179)
• Part 6 A Gesture from God (231)
• Part 7 And So it Has Come to This (265)
• Epilogue Like the Widow at a Funeral (279)
• Acknowledgments (291)
• Original Interviews (295)
• Notes (297)
• Index (309)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

After biographer Zehme (The Way You Wear Your Hat) died in 2023, journalist Thomas (The Second City Unscripted) stepped in to finish his long-gestating account of the life of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson (1925--2005), with splendid results. Eschewing a chronological approach, Zehme opens with a detailed recap of a 1973 Tonight Show episode featuring Carson at the height of his popularity. The narrative also describes the fracas within NBC caused by Carson's abrupt decision to leave the show in the early 1990s, and covers his low-profile retirement, during which he turned down NBC's frequent entreaties for him to host various specials. Such seclusion was typical for the intensely private Carson, Zehme suggests, noting that the host often demurred when asked about his adolescent stint in the Navy during WWII's final months and feigned nonchalance in the lead-up to his 1962 debut as Tonight Show host (according to his second wife, Carson was restless in anticipation of his first show, constantly "pacing like a caged animal"). Though the tone is mostly laudatory, Zehme's nuanced portrait presents Carson as plagued by a bottomless need for "validation, most any damned kind of it," which fueled his workaholism and frequent marital infidelities. Carson's fans will appreciate the glimpse behind the curtain. Agent: Chris Calhoun, Chris Calhoun Agency. (Nov.)

Booklist Review

Although it has been more than 30 years since the last episode of the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson aired, Carson retains the title as the undisputed "King of Late Night." Beloved for his disarming charm and sardonic humor, Carson had a seemingly effortless rapport with audiences and guests that belied his self-deprecation and doubt; in his mind, he was only a "prince." Celebrated celebrity profiler Zehme offers a meticulous biography, compiled before his death in 2023 and completed by his longtime research assistant, Mike Thomas. The result is a buoyant, reverential homage to the entertainer Zehme admired above all others. Sourced from scores of original interviews with family, staff, crew, and guests, plus voluminous print and digital archives, the narrative bounces from Carson's early TV career as a game show host, to his All-American Nebraska boyhood, multiple marriages, and ultimate command of late-night television from 1962 to 1992. The emerging portrait shimmers with nuance and wonder, praising Carson's impeccable comedic timing while probing his inherent emotional reserve. Although Carson did not invent the celebrity talk show genre, he defined it for the hosts who now preserve his legacy. Few people could truly know Carson; Zehme came closer than most.

Kirkus Book Review

A biography of American late-night television's biggest star. Zehme, author of biographies of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner, had a lifelong love ofTonight Show host Johnny Carson. In 1973, at age 15, Zehme was "already a full-blown Carson fanboy." As a reporter forRolling Stone, he tried unsuccessfully to secure an interview to coincide with Carson's 1992 retirement after a 30-year run. In 2002, Zehme, now withEsquire, "gets extended face time" with the star for a piece to mark 10 years since Carson's departure. Shortly after Carson's death in 2005, Zehme began work on a biography. The task was overwhelming--"there was always more to be gleaned"--even before Zehme's 2013 diagnosis of stage 4 colorectal cancer. He died in 2023, having finished only the first three-quarters of this biography. Thomas, a longtime Chicago arts reporter, has completed the book in time for Carson's 2025 centenary. The result is an admiring work that nonetheless acknowledges the lows as well as the highs of Carson's life--he had three divorces--and career, from his ill-fated 1955 variety programThe Johnny Carson Show, to his 1957-62 stint as host of the ABC game showWho Do You Trust?, to his taking overThe Tonight Show from Jack Paar in 1962. It's easy to tell where Zehme left off and Thomas took over. The tone changes dramatically, from Zehme's florid style to Thomas's drier approach. Those florid passages, which make up most of the book, are baroque in the extreme, with lines like, "And so, like sun and moon and oxygen and ionosphere, Johnny Carson was always there, reliable and steadfast." Despite the purple prose, the result is an entertaining look at not only a unique figure in 20th-century popular culture but also a bygone era in American television. A fun if overly flamboyant appreciation of a TV giant. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.