Heeeeere's Johnny!

By Stefan Kanfer

Frrrrrrom Hollywood, New York and Nebraska, a scandalmongering biography, King of the Night (Morrow; $19.95) by Laurence Leamer, who invites you to join Johnny Carson and his uninvited guests: resentful ex-wives, assorted children, girlfriends, colleagues, producers, comedians. And now, ladies and gentlemen, heeeeere's Johnny!

Or a dart board. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. Carson would not consent to be interviewed for the book, so Leamer, whose previous work includes biographies of the Reagans and Ingrid Bergman, was forced to assemble a life from the often bitter testimonies of others. One of three children of a utility-company executive, the Iowa-born, Nebraska-bred Carson came from a rigid, authoritarian family. "Once when he was drunk," recounted Truman Capote, a frequent Tonight show guest, "he told me that his mother would throw herself on the floor and scream, 'I bore you from these loins, and you do this to me! All that pain, and this is what I get in return!' "

Given that history, it is no surprise that the entertainer has had difficulties with women. In 1949 he married Jody Wolcott, with whom he had three sons. Carson started to enjoy modest success as a West Coast comedian. But in the late '50s he began to drink excessively, and there were several instances of physical abuse. "He could have accidentally killed me and not have known about it until the next morning," Jody recalls. When Carson's career pointed him to New York City, the couple tried to reconcile. But Jody saw ominous signs: "When we were unpacking, I found some magazines on the top shelf in his den of men beating up women, chained up and things."

Before Johnny shed Jody, he acquired an announcer named Ed McMahon. This was to become one of the enduring show-business partnerships, but not until some rules were established. Carson's first Tonight show bandleader, Skitch Henderson, remembers the "many times I watched Johnny trying to get rid of Ed." Then McMahon stopped reaching for his own laughs and settled into the long-running role of Mr. Subservience.

Other than Johnny, Ed is the only survivor in King of the Night. One producer ended up selling real estate in the San Fernando Valley. The talent manager significant in Johnny's early triumphs was fired, and his clients were barred from the Tonight show; he retired to a farmhouse in upstate New York. Carson got married a second time, in 1963, to Joanne Copeland, a game-show hostess. The marriage started disintegrating after its sixth year, and they were divorced in 1972.

There were other tribulations: Carson's only feature film, Looking for Love, bombed, as did a chain of fast-food restaurants that bore his name. He switched coasts, married sometime model Joanna Holland and took a mistress, Mary Jane (Emm-Jay) Trokel, a TV production assistant. Both relationships ultimately failed. In 1987 Carson acquired his fourth wife, an executive secretary, Alexis Mass. Meanwhile, Leamer asserts, all three of his sons became dependent on their father for jobs and income.

And yet . . . and yet. Despite these shortcomings, Carson has enjoyed unprecedented affection from a notoriously fickle audience. His annual income is estimated at $20 million. For more than 25 years, a series of diverse personalities, including Dick Cavett, Joey Bishop, Joan Rivers and Alan Thicke, have tried in vain to depose him. Perhaps the best explanation for Carson's durability comes from the King himself. "If I had given as much to marriage as I gave to the Tonight show," he told the Los Angeles Times, "I'd probably have a hell of a marriage. But the fact is I haven't given that, and there you have the simple reason for the failure of my marriages. I put the energy into the show."