He was far more the ladies man than I reembered and the clips of him flirting with Angie Dickinson and her present day admittance of a desire for him were sexy! Only Joan Rivers really lit into him.no surprise there! And she admits how badly she handled the incident of her own opposing talk show.
Though he was obviously a distant and private person, there was very little evidence of him being nasty or unfair. I was never particularly a fan, but being of a certain age, recognize his place in show biz spanning well over 50 years, including 30 as host of The Tonight Show.įirst of all, I thought he was portrayed very fairly and evenly. I finally watched the PBS show at the link and found it all fascinating. The enormous scale of Carson's charitable gift is reminiscent of other generous philanthropists, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who have recently been making headlines by pledging billions to charity and asking America's wealthiest families to donate half of their money. Carson's foundation also supports several nonprofits in Nebraska, the entertainer's home state.
So far, Carson's money has been doled out to the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Free Clinic and Planned Parenthood. Carson never publicly announced the donation, letting his good deed slip by quietly until its recent revelation. After his death, the $156 million contribution was transferred from Carson's estate to his foundation, where the money is being used to support dozens of nonprofit organizations. Information has surfaced showing that Johnny Carson, the beloved "Tonight Show" host who passed away in 2005, left $156 million to charity.Ĭarson's generous posthumous donation was uncovered by The Smoking Gun, where reporters looked at tax returns filed by the John W. Like his mother, he witheld love, and affection - or simply wasn't capable of it. Why couldn't one of them work for his company, or ? Even Lucy had her kids on her show, later on. Look, we've got enough spoiled Hollywood kids, but it just sounded sad. It was said Johnny gave each a small stipend - just enough to live on. And the fact none of the 2 left were on the show, to talk about their father, tells volumes. Yet the show talked of him coming home, and retreating to his room to read, or play drums ! Anything, but spend time with his kids. And Johnny, other than the monolouge, had nothing much else to work on. Watching the Lucy/Desi doc, you saw how both kids commented on how Desi, who was acting in & producing "I Love Lucy", and several other shows, AND running a whole studio (Desilu), spent the time, when he got home ,to play with them, and engage. Talk about a distant father !!! I know people try to justify it, cause he was a hard worker, bla,bla, bla - but c'mon. At any rate Newton has told that story so many times that one interviewer said something like "it's been over thirty years and you're still going on about this?" I find Johnny Carson preferable over a prick like Wayne Newton any day. He said Carson was contrite and said something like "I'm a big fan of yours" and that the incident caused Carson to lay off. Newton claimed he stormed into Carson's office (where was security?) and grabbed Carson and demanded he lay off the gay jokes about him. In EVERY interview he gives Newton always tells the story of how he supposedly roughed up Carson in retaliation for Carson's jokes about his masculinity ("I just saw Liberace and Wayne Newton in a pink bathtub.I wonder what that meant?"). I'm surprised Wayne Newton didn't find a way to be on the show. Of course when he wasn't performing he wasn't the Johnny Carson that was seen on his show, but then why should he be? He was typical of a lot of comedians who whose comic personas are nothing at all like they are in real life. "I have always loathed this talentless and humorless man." No matter how miserable the guy was in real life I always enjoyed watching his show. I remember at the time it was a big deal and Carson was disappointed.Īfter retiring, he did send jokes to Letterman and took great pride when Letterman used them.
You could tell the guy was lying through his teeth. Regarding the transfer of Tonight Show to Leno: the CEO (President?) of NBC said that Carson didn't want any thing to do with the business side of things and didn't care that they chose Leno. They said he kept that box in his home until the time of his death. Woman just couldn't let him know how proud she was of him. However, it was mentioned that after her death the family found a box with all the news clippings of his rise. When a reporter told his mother she simply said "Well, I guess they know what they're doing.'
Another incident with his mother: Johnny was given the key to the city or some sort of Governor's award.