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Johnny Carson Filmography
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Johnny Carson: Retirement
Carson retired from show business on May 22, 1992 when he stepped down as host of The Tonight Show. NBC gave the show to occasional guest host,
Jay Leno, despite having promised the job to
David Letterman in the 1980s. Letterman, who had been a longtime friend of Carson's, called him to ask him what to do about losing the show. Carson told him to walk. Leno and Letterman were soon competing on different networks.
At the end of his final
Tonight Show appearance, Carson indicated that he would return with a new project, but instead chose to go into full retirement, rarely giving interviews and declining to participate in NBC's 75th Anniversary celebrations. He made the occasional cameo appearance, most notably as a voice actor on an episode of The Simpsons ("Krusty Gets Kancelled").
Carson's most famous post-retirement appearance came on Letterman's late-night CBS talk show, The Late Show with
David Letterman, on May 13, 1994. During a week of shows from Los Angeles, Letterman was having "Bud" Melman (Calvert DeForest) deliver his "Top Ten Lists" under the impression that a famous personality would be delivering the list instead. On the last show of the week, Letterman indicated that Carson would be delivering the list. Instead, Melman delivered the list, insulted the audience (in keeping with the gag), and walked off to polite applause. Letterman then indicated that the card he was given did not have the proper list on it, and asked Carson to bring out the "real" list. On that cue, the real Johnny Carson emerged from behind the stage curtain; when the audience realized that it was truly Carson, they exploded into a standing ovation. Carson then requested to sit behind Letterman's desk; Letterman obliged - and the audience, seeing Carson back behind a desk for the first time in two years, went absolutely berserk. A clearly overcome Carson mouthed "I'm back home" to the stage director, ran his hands over the desk, and - after a moment - walked back off stage without delivering his planned joke. (It was later explained that Carson had laryngitis.)
Just days before Carson's death, it was revealed that the retired King of Late Night still kept up with current events and late-night TV, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman.
http://www.newscoast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050120/APE/501200517 Letterman would then use these jokes in the monologue of his show, which Carson got "a big kick out of" according to CBS Senior Vice President Peter Lassally, who formerly produced both men's programs. Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor".
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/21448.htm Letterman frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac" (with band leader Paul Shaffer as Carnac) and "Stump the Band".
At 6:50 AM on January 23, 2005, Carson died at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, of respiratory arrest arising from 20 years of emphysema. He was 79 years old. According to his family, a public memorial service would not be held. Following his death Carson was cremated, and the ashes were given to his wife.
On January 24, 2005,
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno paid tribute to Carson with guests Ed McMahon,
Bob Newhart,
Don Rickles,
Drew Carey and k.d. lang. Letterman followed suit on January 31 with former
Tonight Show executive producer Peter Lassally and bandleader Doc Severinsen. Letterman surprised everyone by announcing after his monologue that night that it had consisted entirely of jokes sent to him by Carson in the last few months of his life.
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