Johnny Carson’s dark secrets revealed in new book about iconic talk show host

Iconic talk show host Johnny Carson could be cold and aloof and treat aspiring comedians in a way that left them riven with insecurity, a new book claims.  

Writer Mike Thomas’s new book Carson the Magnificent, which had been started by Carson’s late friend Bill Zehme, reveals the Tonight Show icons’ powerful influence. 

Carson was reaching more than triple the size of all three current network late-night shows combined, making him an incredibly affluential figure across the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.  

‘Johnny Carson was the biggest star in America,’ Thomas told CBS News. ‘Movie stars, rock stars, I don’ think anybody was bigger than Johnny, because he was on night after night after night.’ 

But with such influence, he ended up holding the cards for many who appeared on the show. 

Comedian George Wallace recalled his own invitation on The Tonight Show, which was an incredibly important step in his career. 

He told the outlet how comedians would nervously look to Carson after appearing on the show, hoping for that ever-so-important ‘OK’ from the host. 

‘Hell, yeah. I was looking for it!’ Wallace said.

And while Carson did give Wallace the ‘OK’ – he never accompanied it by a nod given to guests whose performance he’d loved.

That nod was a signal to join Carson on the couch and meant you were officially ‘in’ his inner circle.

‘I didn’t get that,’ Wallace said, which forty years later he still believes he didn’t reach his peak on the show. 

‘That meant you’re in. You got called over, you’re in the club,’ he said, adding that he was not invited ‘kinda hurts today.’    

The influence of the show was unmatched, as 17 million Americas would tune-in and many from their beds.

Carson’s audience, which was more than triple the size of all three current network late-night shows combined, made him incredibly affluential across the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

‘Johnny would say things and do things that became water cooler conversation the next morning,’ Thomas said. 

Whilst Thomas and Zehme praise the star, the book also reveals the dark secrets behind the glamourous on-screen lifestyle Carson led. 

‘I think there were two Johnnys to a certain degree,’ Thomas said. ‘On screen, impossibly cool guy. But there was also a side of Johnny that was introverted off-screen. I think some of the aloofness may have been introversion.’ 

Carson admitted in a profile in 1979 with 60 Minutes that his apparent aloof nature was down to a certain shyness. 

‘See, when I’m not in front of an audience, it’s a different thing,’ he’d said.  

Life off camera painted a different picture than the legend on stage. Carson married four times, and Thomas reasoned it to a belief that Carson ‘needed to be with someone.’ 

‘Johnny needed to be married for some reason; he needed to be with someone. He didn’t need to stay married. They would fall out. Johnny’s behavior would pry them apart. They just never lasted,’ Thomas said. 

Yet his on-screen chemistry was undeniable for actress Dyan Cannon. 

‘Aloof and cold? Never,’ Cannon said. 

‘Warm, open, willing. I’ve never known anyone like him. I’ve never known anyone like Johnny,’ she added. 

The actress was also married to Cary Grant, who she described as an ‘enigma.’ 

‘Much more of a, “Can I approach him or can’t I?” But people would approach Johnny as if he were family.’ 

‘There was nobody as big a star as Johnny,’ she gushed. 

Cannon appeared on The Tonight Show with Carson in October 1985, where she flustered the typically unwavering Carson with a, ‘Hi sweetheart.’ 

‘We’ve gone out a couple times, right?’ he said. 

Cannon laughed in response and did again as she rewatched the clip. ‘He still makes me laugh,’ she said. 

‘How do I describe a relationship where you’re so intimate with somebody, and yet, you haven’t been intimate physically? We were closer than that,’ she continued.  

Cannon described their relationship as a ‘love affair,’ and said: ‘Absolutely. Real love. Physically, we were never together. But spiritually, we were.’ 

She was then asked if she was describing the love of her life. 

‘Isn’t that interesting? Wow. Hope you’re hearing this, Johnny!’ she said.

But despite the icon he was, Carson was still followed by the ever-so-common whirlwind of fame flops. 

Carson even dabbled in ‘Cancel Culture,’ with one famed gay comedian claiming his sexuality cost him a coveted slot on Carson’s show. 

Mario Cantone, 62, recalled the incident with Allison Kugel on her podcast Allison Interviews. 

‘I was booked on [The Tonight Show] with Johnny Carson in October of 1986 by the show’s talent coordinator,’ the Sex and the City star began. 

‘When he saw me, he said, “Oh my god, you’re amazing! We are going to shape six minutes for you.’ Then he looked at the video again, because he filmed it that night and he said, “You know what? Your comedy has a gay edge to it and I think it’s going to make Johnny nervous, so I’m going to cancel you,’ Cantone said. 

But it wasn’t the only stain on Carson’s reputation, as a New York Personal Investigator came forward to divulge what Carson was truly like off-screen. 

In 2018, Joseph Mullen described working for Carson who he said, ‘thought he could do no wrong, that he was all-powerful.’ 

Mullen went on to say he had to save his life after Carson had made a move on a mobster’s girlfriend. 

‘It was 1970 and ‘Jilly’ was popular with Frank Sinatra and big-time members of the Mafia.

‘The woman’s boyfriend was in the mob and as soon as he saw what Carson was doing, he contacted the head of the family in a fury.

‘Pretty soon there were some heavies outside with baseball bats and they made it clear Johnny’s head was going to be the ball.

‘His lawyer begged me for help. I had no-one to go there so I asked my close friend Congressman Mario Biaggi, a former NYPD officer, to see what he could do.

‘Mario had officers get round to ‘Jilly’s’ and give him an escort home. There was a contract put out on Carson’s life and he was holed up at home for three days, allegedly suffering from a cold.

‘Carson had to work hard to get the contract on his life removed. On top of apologizing to the woman’s mobster boyfriend, he also had to make a substantial donation to the head of the family.

‘Carson paid for the family head’s grandson to go all the way through private school.’

In ‘P.I. Diaries’ Mullen details Carson’s bizarre behavior, seeing him use a wine bucket to relieve himself while sitting next to a shocked John Wayne and actress Phyllis Diller at New York’s ’21 Club’ in 1976.

 ‘John and Phyllis were left speechless. Carson couldn’t be bothered to get up from his table and use the restroom 40 feet away. He thought it was a funny thing to do.

‘Carson was not a nice person at all. He was cruel and thought he could do anything he wanted.

‘I’ve never trusted a person who said they didn’t like their mother and Carson would say terrible things about his. Who doesn’t like their mother?

‘But he was a client and I had a job to do. I did many investigations for him. Looking into people he was suspicious of. Some of my clients became close friends but Carson wasn’t one of them,’ Mullen said. 

Carson was described by Mullen as a ‘private, untrusting person, and he rarely engaged in idle conversation.’ 

‘Very few understood just how complex a person he really was,’ Mullen said. 

His legendary status from the late-night comedy show, however, proved irrefutable after he starred as the host for 30 years. 

Thomas described his legacy on the show as a ‘communal experience’ for the audience that can never be replicated. 

‘We’re all siloed. We’re all watching things that either confirm our own biases or that are attuned to our own specific sense of humor. 

‘There will never be that communal experience again where people watch the show at the same time and then talk about the show the next day. It was a communal experience. That was the magic of Carson: community,’ Thomas said. 

He added: ‘I think Johnny brought a lot of people peace at the end of the day. People love to laugh, but I think he gave them hope that the world would go on the next day no matter what was happening.’