NY Times: Johnny Carson, America's Late-Night Host for Decades, Dies

[imenja]

I'm including this in LBN because the other threads had no article or details attached.


Johnny Carson, America's Late-Night Host for Decades, Dies
By RICHARD SEVERO New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/arts/television/23cnd-carson.html?hp



"Johnny Carson, the droll, easy-going comedian who dominated late-night television for 30 years, becoming a national institution tucking millions of Americans into bed as the host of “The Tonight Show,” has died, NBC announced today. He was 79 years old.

The cause was emphysema.

Mr. Carson took over “The Tonight Show” from Jack Paar on Oct. 1, 1962, and, preferring to retire at the top of his game, voluntarily surrendered it to Jay Leno on May 22, 1992. During those three decades, between 10 million and 15 million Americans could not sleep weeknights unless they were reassured by the durable and droll Mr. Carson. The critic Bill McKibben called him the "nation’s emotional thermostat, readjusting our mood every night so we could go to sleep.” Billy Wilder, the film director and wit, regarded him as “the valium and nembutal of the nation.”

During his reign, Mr. Carson was one of the most powerful performers on television, discovering new talent, rescuing old performers from oblivion and earning millions of dollars for his network, the National Broadcasting Company. In his heyday he generated approximately 17 percent of the network’s total profit and was, by any reasonable assessment, its most lustrous star since Toscanini. He held an overwhelming majority of the late-night viewers in the palm of his hand and his show was the biggest single money-maker in NBC history. "

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