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Here is Letterman, tortured king, fully ascended. Here he is, running Comedy. Like Carson before him, he stands alone, above the fray, whatever side of midnight. Unlike Carson, he can do nothing about his hair. Nevertheless, he has become television's most powerful fellow, paid an epic sum to mock convention and intimidate weasels. "I'm six two, I weigh 170, I have the strength of ten men!" he will boast, and woe to those who would challenge him. Even on his driver's-license photo, he glowers. "I could take Clint Eastwood, don't you think?" he says, champing cigar and looming large. He is forty-five, shy, dark, decent, obsessed. He is a caged storm. During commercial breaks on his program, he stalks the set, full of fret and fury. He suffers no fool gladly, and because he is our Greatest Fool, he suffers always.
Here is Dave, true broadcaster, unbound. He entered this, the Year of Dave, asleep on Barbados, in denial. Back in New York, he is now bearded and beset. He presides at the seat of Worldwide Pants, as he calls his television empire —itself the spoils over which a historic battle between two networks is being waged. When the smoke clears, NBC, having employed Dave for eleven years as host of Late Night With David Letterman, will lose him to CBS, which promises him an 11:30 time slot and a $14 million-a-year salary. The Carson throne — The Tonight Show and its coveted time slot — will remain in Jay Leno's possession. Blood will spill, men will weep, and lives will change forever. "None of it could be more silly," Dave is saying, pensively, fielding all bulletins from the front. Rose, his faithful assistant (played by dancer Laurie Diamond), reports, "They're looking for a picture of you hosting your show for Business Week." Dave: "I don't do a show for Business Week." Rose: "I tried to explain that." Dave: "Well, maybe I do. Check the assignment board." It is during this uncertain time that he cheerfully submits to the long and merciless debriefing that follows.
How are you sleeping at night during these heady
times?
By and large, I sleep fitfully. And when I wake up, the sheets are
drenched in perspiration. But the experts believe it's just a lack
of amino acids. So we're trying to correct that with the
cigars.
Has all the pressure driven you back to
smoking?
For Christmas, somebody gave me a perfectly humidored
twenty-five-year-old cigar, and it was so pleasant, I just thought,
well, I'll try these again for a bit.
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Aren't those Cuban contraband?
[Cups cigar away from view] Uh, these are White Owls! You
can get these anywhere!
I heard you only smoked Cubans.
You got the wrong guy. You don't know what the hell you're talking
about! Call the IRS. I pay my taxes.
By the way, now that you're getting the big dough, do
you have any plans to acquire a better hairpiece?
[Laughs] By God, when they build a better hairpiece, I'll
buy it!
Have you spoken to Johnny Carson lately?
Not too long ago, Peter Lassally, who came to our show as an
executive producer after doing the same for Johnny, told a
newspaper that Carson used to come in to work at 2:00 each
afternoon and that I was coming in at 10:00. And so Carson read
this and started calling my office at 10:00 that day. I didn't get
in till like 11:30, and as soon as I got on the phone with him, he
was screaming and howling: "Oh, get in at 10:00, huh? Where ya
been? Car trouble?" The last time I saw him, at the Emmy dinner, he
just seemed great and happy. He's really getting a kick out of
everybody else's troubles.
Are you more comfortable in your relationship with
him?
I'm more comfortable now that he doesn't have a show. I can maybe
relax a little bit and try to have a more honest human exchange
with him. For a whole generation, he kind of established the model
of how cool guys behaved. I just had so much respect for him that
right or wrong, it was an inhibitor for me.
On the air, he was always inviting you to come over to
play tennis with him. Ever go?
Yeah, I finally said to myself, "This is a living legend —
you're stupid if you don't screw up the courage to go!"
And?
He beat me. He's very good. He can stand in one place, never break
a sweat and run your pants off. But in my defense, how can you just
go to Johnny's house? First of all, his house is like a goddamn
Olympic venue. Johnny's court is like a stadium where they have the
Davis Cup trials. He's got this state-of-the-art tennis surface
— something NASA developed when they went to Neptune. The
whole experience was unnerving. And his wife was very nice to me.
But there wasn't a second I didn't fully expect to just kind of
turn abruptly and destroy a $6000 lamp or vase. I just felt,
something's going to go wrong, like I'm going to kill Johnny's wife
with the ball machine. "How could you have killed his wife with the
ball machine!" It's just like I'm too big, I'm too dumb, I'm too
clumsy.
Is it true that for years you wouldn't watch his
show?
It was too depressing for me. I know what it takes to just get
something on tape. Hosting this show, I always feel like "Man, I'm
struggling, I'm like a drowning man in quicksand!" And then you
turn on Johnny's show and say [daunted], "Oh, it's fuckin'
Johnny!" He's just easy, cool, funny. He looks good, he's got babes
hanging on him, he's saying witty things and making fun of Ed. It
so intimidated me that I couldn't watch it. But I guess like
everybody else I watched him pretty much every night during the
last month or so.
How did your own Johnny grief manifest
itself?
I can remember watching that last show and just being woefully
depressed. I couldn't sleep, I was up the whole night — which
maybe tells you more about me than I would like. I know it sounds
like I'm a complete ninny, but I felt a sadness for weeks after. It
was sort of like a doctor telling you, "Well, we've looked at the
X-rays, and your legs are perfectly healthy, but we're still going
to amputate them." You think, "Whaaa? Why is he going?"
But as with most aspects of his career, he did this retiring thing
at the right time, the right way. And I look at the mess I'm in
now, and I think [as Dumb Guy], "What the hell am I gonna
do now?" I have no clue. But Carson just figures it out and carries
it off with great skill, grace and aplomb.
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One week before he retired, you went on The Tonight
Show. At the end of the program, you said to him, "Thanks for
my career."
I knew at the time it might have sounded flip, but it's certainly
the case. He's the only reason I'm here. There have been a lot of
people in my life who have been very helpful to me and have really
done me favors and helped me in ways I'll never be able to repay.
But if there's one person to whom I owe the most, it has to be
him.
By the way, when Bob Hope came out onto the panel that
same night, did you get the feeling that he wasn't fully aware that
Johnny was leaving?
[Laughs] See, if you consider ways to end up very
successful careers, Bob Hope could have done a similar
version of what Carson did — kind of step aside. I watched a
lot of his early films over the holidays on AMC, and Jesus, talk
about a guy who was sharp and on the money and appealing and fresh
and charismatic. Then I saw his Bob Hope Kodak All-American
Football Team Christmas Special With Eva Gabor — and it
was tough to watch. If it had been a funeral, you would've
preferred the coffin be closed. It was sad. I mean, can he be
gratified by that?
If you'd gotten The Tonight Show, would you
have dared — as did Leno — to go on the Monday
following Carson's final Friday? Isn't that a no-win
scenario?
No, if the circumstances had been different — by which I
mean, if they'd given me the job! [laughs] — sure, I
would have done it. This is not to demean what Jay accomplished,
but were it I that night, it would have been handled much
differently. Because you can't just turn off over one weekend that
six-month period of genuine emotion and interest and care and
concern. You have to address that, and I would have done
it. Now you could be criticized for trying to make yourself look
good by kissing up to Johnny. But there was so much positive
feeling about this man that it would have been hard to make too big
a mistake there. I'm confident that we would have done a really
nice job for that first show. Now, I'm not saying the rest of the
week would have been anything. It would have sped downhill
immediately.
You're not a big fan of change, are you?
No, but I certainly recognize the importance of change in the
context of our show. Probably the most stringent ongoing
self-criticism I can make is that we don't do enough new things on
a regular basis. And I would take all the responsibility for that.
Ultimately, the biggest roadblock to getting a lot of new stuff on
the air would be me. I guess that's the difference between me being
thirty-five and forty-five.
So you're a pretty discerning judge of
material?
Who are we kidding? I'm a maniacal asshole.
Some of your former writers are working on 'The Larry
Sanders Show,' a great neurotic satire of talk-show life. Does this
suggest that you are the real Larry Sanders?
Every time I watch that show, I think: "Hey, wait a minute! That's
me!" But I don't know if it really is me or if they have the
talk-show machine so well assessed that it looks like me. During
almost every episode, I think, "Boy, didn't that happen here once?"
They've all had an eerie effect on me. In the one I saw most
recently, Larry and his girlfriend were fighting, and she was
threatening to go back home to Chicago.
Déjà vu there?
No, that one didn't ring true. Had it been Cleveland, then maybe
— but Chicago? No.
You're famously brutal about your own performance. For
instance, your recent session with Walter Cronkite — while
genial to the naked eye — left you greatly
unhinged.
I really felt like I had screwed that up, because I was just
overwhelmed by the guy. He sits down, and you think, "Oh, my God,
it's Walter Cronkite!" So I just yammered all over him and just
fumbled it.
Your postshow drill, then, is to come back to your
office and review the tape, dwelling on the mishaps?
I have my own little ritual, yeah. But I should. If you've got men
on base and you can't drive them in, how come you're getting
major-league money? That's the point. At this stage, I ought to be
able to do a better job. I just felt that not only did I let the
show down, I let Walter Cronkite down and I let myself down.
But do you recognize you're being hard on
yourself
— No! No! Why let yourself off the hook? If I fucked it up,
I fucked it up. So obviously you come back the next day and try it
again. Fortunately, we had Marv Albert on and got right to his
blooper reel. Smooth sailing!
Do you buy the notion that awkward TV is good
TV?
Yeah, if it doesn't involve you — absolutely.
To a certain degree, if a guest brings out visible
discomfort in you, it's actually kind of
entertaining.
I've heard people tell me that many, many, many times. And I guess
if you provide yourself the luxury of some distance and a little
objectivity, that couldn't be more accurate. But at the time, you
just think the studio is filling up with room-temperature
saliva.
Pee-wee Herman was that type of catalyst. You introduced
him to the mainstream, but then he disappeared from the
show.
Something about a Florida movie theater, I think. Did you hear
anything about that?
Before all that. Was he banished?
No, Pee-wee Herman was always great for us. There was a very small
falling-out — I think it had something to do with The
Arsenio Hall Show.
I don't know whether it was him or us or both of us.
Would you have him back?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know who I really miss? There's a song
on the new R.E.M. CD that I listened to like six times before I
finally realized, "Holy shit, this is about Andy
Kaufman!"
Andy would orchestrate and rehearse each of his appearances for
maximum impact. And when the impact worked, good or bad, he would
savor it. If we could have one guest like Andy — to me that's
worth six months of new material. Steve Martin also does it for us.
He comes on and actually performs. There's nobody else like that
now.
Sandra Bernhard is a terrific foil.
We haven't had her in a while because she and I sort of wore each
other down. We had maybe done it too many times. She's very nice.
The only thing we've ever really wanted from anybody is that they
just sit down, start talking and take over, for God's sake. And
Sandra is good in that sense. I mean, we're continually surprised
by people in show business who come out and don't seem to have any
idea that the proceeding is being televised. Although I guess you
could make a case for that.
And then there's Howard Stern. Are you a
listener?
I'll listen to him a lot for a while, and then I won't listen to
him a lot for a while. Over the years I've tried to figure out a
satisfying evaluation of Howard. And I just can't. There are times
when he seems so bright and witty to me, I just think, "Damn,
this guy's blue-chip!" And then other times I think,
"How can a person possibly say this?" I listened one day
when Howard was giving away pairs of movie tickets to the first
five guys who'd come down to the station and expose themselves. And
I thought, "Oh, man — the movie company must be down on their
knees giving thanks to God!" You can't buy PR like this —
guys are in there taking their pants off! I mean, can you do
that? Can you invite somebody in off the street and have them
undress for movie tickets?
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During the campaign, Bill Clinton appeared on your
program, telephonically, and went on to become president.
Correlation or coincidence?
He had no clue to the damage he was doing there. He knew what he
was doing by appearing on The Arsenio Hall Show —
but if he'd known what he was doing in our case, he would've had
nothing to do with us.
You supplied him with a campaign slogan: "We don't have
a clue, but we don't have a Quayle."
It's so embarrassing to me. I can remember early on — right
after Clinton did the 60 Minutes thing — I was
talking to Tom Shales, and off the record he asked, "What do you
think of Clinton?" I said: "The guy's a pretender. He doesn't have
a chance in hell. This guy, he's not a president." Two days later
this shows up in the Washington Post — my assessment
of candidate Clinton, where I just completely write him off as a
loser without fiber. [Laughs] And now he's the
pars-dent. So I know I'm going to pay for this. I know
something ugly will happen, and he'll be behind it. Some huge tax
audit, or he'll start nosing around my domestic staff.
You've got a domestic staff? Do you have a
houseboy?
Don't we all?
What about your housewoman? That is, Margaret Ray, the
disturbed woman who kept breaking into your home in Connecticut.
Were you ever genuinely frightened by her?
Yeah, it was cool — and I say "cool" only because it's now
over and done with. But there were two hilarious scares in
particular. One time we had come back from vacation around two in
the morning. There was an immediate sense of something not right.
Things had been moved in a way that you would never move your own
belongings. The kitchen sink was full of dirty dishes. So I
realized that somebody was in the house. We got out and called the
police and watched — it was odd — the police going from
room to room turning on lights. They finally found her asleep in
bed and bounced her. The incident that was most frightening came a
week later. We had just gone to bed. For some reason, I thought I
smelled smoke, which is not a good sign. So I sat up in bed, and at
the end of the hallway I could determine the silhouette of the
woman standing there. That scared me. It scared me for a second,
and then I realized, "Oh, I know what this is, there's no trouble."
I rolled over, and I called the New Canaan police.
I heard that you once gave her a half-hour to get
away.
Yeah. She was on the property and wanted a glass of water, and I
went in to get her one — well, first I said, "Finish raking
the yard, then I'll get your damn water." So I went inside and
called the police. But then I thought, "She's never threatened me,
it's not like I have children that she's terrorizing, it's not like
I'm finding dead raccoons in my disposal." I just felt like "Wait a
minute, this is lopsided." So I went back out, and I said,
"Margaret, I've phoned the police; you better get out of here." And
she — not went
nuts, she is
nuts — she started shrieking, and then took off and the
police picked her up.
So there was never any threat of bodily
harm?
No, never. There was a time when I felt frustrated and annoyed by
it. But I never really felt I was the victim — this woman is
the victim. She's had a very sad life. She's got like six or eight
kids and is estranged from them all. We gave her many, many
benefits of the doubt. Finally, she went to jail for about a year
and got out last fall. I don't think we'll hear from her again.
And all along her fantasy was that she was your
wife?
Oh, no, that part's true. Oh, God, we were married, what, eight,
ten years. A beautiful woman.
The night Sonny and Cher reunited on your show, you
spoke of the futility of mixing business and romantic partnerships.
You were alluding, I guess, to your relationship with Merrill
Markoe, with whom you created this show.
Right, right. One night I think maybe Merrill and I will get back
together on the show and do a couple of songs. I'm still very fond
of her, and she's one of these people to whom I owe a great debt.
Sadly, I haven't talked to her in years. This is so silly, but in
the time that has elapsed, Merrill's mother died, and I never knew
about it. Two more years go by, and her dog Stan dies. So I sent
her a note of condolence over the death of Stan — completely
ignorant of the fact that her mother had passed away. I somberly
wrote, "I now take pen in hand..." and she must have thought:
"Yeah, but what about my mother? She's been dead for a year and
a half, and you never said anything!" But with Stan, word came
to us that he'd somehow eaten an entire ham. Oh, God.
[Chuckles] And it just killed him. Too much ham.
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As I recall, your dog Bob was on the West Coast with
Merrill when he died. That must have been a tough night for you to
get through the show.
Yep, yep. At the time, Merrill and I were estranged. It turned out
Bob was ridden with cancer. He had eaten a Presto log, and as a
result, his lungs were covered with tumors. But they give off a
nicely colored flame if burned — very festive for the
holidays. So she called and said the vet thought we should put him
to sleep. I said I'd be off the following week and would come out.
But the vet said we couldn't wait. So they put him to sleep right
there, which was — it was sad.... But I can't — I'm not
sure I would have been much good had I been there.
Merrill recently published a tell-all book about life
with Bob and Stan, didn't she?
We wanted her to be on the show to promote it, but the only
request we made — because of her relationship with me and the
show — was that we wanted her to do our show first. It made a
difference to me. But because of scheduling, it couldn't happen.
She did every other show: Howard Stern, Arsenio Hall, Jay. Which is
fine. She's one of the smartest people I've ever known in my life.
I mean, we haven't had a good idea since she left.
For the last four years, you've been involved with a
mystery woman. Does she enjoy her anonymity?
[Laughs, embarrassed] Well, no. Her name is Regina Lasko.
Of the Ohio Laskos. When I met her, she was equipment manager for
the Rangers. Marv Albert introduced us one night between periods.
She was leaning on the Zamboni, and I knew then my life would never
be the same. [Ms. Lasko, a former Late Night staffer, has
since become a production manager for Saturday Night Live.
— Ed.]
Is there a downside to being in a relationship with
you?
Do the words moody drunk
mean anything to you?
Many would imagine you're every gal's
dream.
Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But I'm no day at the beach,
let's just say that.
Do those lingering hugs you lately give to fabulous babe
guests cause any trouble at home?
You know, almost everything I do represents trouble at home. The
truth of it is, as I get older, I'm actually getting away with far
less. That's why if an opportunity presents itself at work, I feel
like I have an obligation to exploit it. But some of them are
genuine. I remember with Goldie Hawn, I'd always wanted to do that,
so here she is, why not?
You could say you're doing it for the guys at
home.
Believe me, I ain't doin' it for you at home.
Does fatherhood beckon?
Well, I get very excited about kids. A while back, all of my
friends started having kids, and I was spending more time with
infants than I had ever spent since I was an infant. And I found
them just a wonder. It was something that I hadn't really thought
about until the last two or three years. So I've decided that as
soon as I get everything in my life just perfect, then I'll start
having kids. I'm looking at maybe six, eight months of fine-tuning,
and then we're on to the family.
Are you feeling pressure to get yourself
hitched?
Well, you know, I've had that kind of pressure for as long as I
can remember. In fact, the only one who didn't pressure me was the
woman I was actually married to. And I think she was greatly
relieved when we were no longer married. I don't know, it seems
like I've spent way too much time in my life concentrating on just
one thing —the work. And the older I get, it now seems like
maybe that was not necessarily the thing to spend all my
time on. Because after almost eleven years, it's not like we've got
it figured out. I think to myself, "We're doing something wrong,
we've misplaced part of the instructions," because after all this
time, it's still hard, and you would think at this stage of things
it would be easier. I don't think Carson ever went home with his
stomach in knots because Sharon Stone was in tears.
Sharon Stone was in tears?
In fairness to me, Howard Stern made her cry in the greenroom
—it wasn't me. What a baby.
Do you have a message for young comedians, of which
there continues to be a glut?
Well, my message to young comedians, as it has been for the last
ten years, is, don't do it, stay home, go into another profession,
we don't want you, there's plenty of competition, I'm having
trouble hanging on to my job, I don't want you breathing down my
neck, don't bother me, don't give me something else to worry about,
we have enough professionals now providing all the laughs this
country needs, we don't need you!
Try to be more clear.
I guess I've been accused of being snobbish on this topic. But we
used to have a lot more stand-up comedians on the show.
[Co-executive producer] Bob Morton and I have this conversation
once every six weeks: "Do we have anybody, is there anybody?" And
I'm told by these people who spend a lot of their time traveling
around to clubs that no, there isn't. The product is not as strong
as you would like it these days.
When was the last time you were inside a comedy
club?
It's been years and years and years. I actually get cold chills
and sweats in clubs. I can't enjoy the experience because I
remember my own difficulty in doing it.
Did you ever subscribe to the notion that comedy is the
new rock & roll?
I think I read that issue.
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What do you think?
Well, I think what's happening now is that rock & roll is the
new comedy.
You're actually a proponent of loud rock
music.
Yeah, yeah. We like no-nonsense, knock-people-down and
blow-the-roof-off-the-dump music
Carson always maintained that all comedians long to be
singers. Do you harbor the urge?
No, my true love will always be ballroom dancing.
Word is, you've given up your dream of movie stardom and
paid back Disney the production-deal money they gave
you.
It just seemed unrealistic to believe that I was going to star in
a movie. So we settled up the contract. They needed the cash. They
were working on this EuroDisney thing and needed a little seed
money. I did what I could.
By the way, you actually turned down $25 million to be a
pitchman for Ralston-Purina dog food?
Yeah, years ago. I know it was a long time ago because people
haven't offered me any money in a long — well, I can't say
that now. Anyway, the Ralston deal came down to $5 million a year
for five years. And I never even had to mention the product....
Jesus Christ! And I said no? I suppose I thought that was the cool
thing to do. But, jeez, what a fool I was!
You' ve hired CAA superagent Michael Ovitz, the most
powerful man in all of show business, a formidable man who's
universally feared Do you think you could take him?
[Laughs] Maybe. Not in any kind of martial-arts
discipline, but maybe straight fisticuffs. I don't know. I have
nothing but positive things to say about this guy. He lives up to
all his advance billing. I'm very comfortable with our association
— that is, until he starts squeezing me for commissions. Then
there's going to be trouble.
The Talk Show Wars were first made a gruesome spectacle
when NBC fired Leno's irascible manager-producer, Helen Kushnick.
Did you ever feel the effects of her hardball
tactics?
It was mostly just something in the air that we'd rather have done
without. We were closely tied to it because we're back-to-back on
the same network and booking a lot of the same guests. But it was
more of a nuisance in theory than in reality. She was just trying
to do the best job she could possibly do for Jay and for the show.
People operate in different ways.
Let's address your geographic quandary: New York offers
energy and attitude. L.A. offers greater guest supply. Where do you
want to host your show?
Well, you become comfortable wherever you happen to be. Right now,
I like doing this show here. I can't imagine
doingthis
show at 12:30 in Los Angeles — although we would have better
luck getting all those fabulous TV stars.
But you want to be on television at
11:30.
I'm too old to be on at 12:30. There's nobody watching —
just guys on death row who haven't lost their TV privileges. No
one's watching. I'm too tired to watch — not tired of being
on at 12:30, because I'm lucky to have had a job for this long in
television. It's all I've ever really wanted to do. I just feel
that in order to extend my career, my public life, I've got to make
this change.
You've often said you couldn't do this show at
11:30.
Maybe you could. But I think people spend too much time addressing
that issue. We'll do a show that we're happy with that's also
palatable for the time period. Automatically, there are things that
we would change if we were on at 11:30, although the changes may
not be that dramatic.
What's the most obvious change you'd
make?
The only thing I can think of — and we've discussed this
with consultants — is for me to go with the jet-black Wayne
Newton hair and the pencil-thin mustache. And I'd oil it back.
Do you belong on prime time?
No. I have no interest in being on prime time. It doesn't make any
sense. Whatever the future holds, my hope is that I'll be able to
continue to do the show — an hour talk show. I wouldn't know
what I could do if I didn't have this as a creative outlet, and I
use the term "creative" in only the wildest interpretation.
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Life at NBC turned especially ugly before the holidays. You labeled it "the Happy Network."
That last day it just seemed like the sky had opened up. There was all this friction — and it had little to do with me. Even if Johnny were still hosting The Tonight Show, I'd do myself a great disservice if I didn't explore other possibilities after ten, eleven years in one spot. The thing that's made it so dramatic is the situation with The Tonight Show and my alleged bitterness. But Iwas disappointed that I didn't get the show. I would have loved to try to follow Carson.
If you had aggressively campaigned for the job —
which Jay reportedly did with NBC big shots — do you think
things might have turned out differently?
Well, in regard to The Tonight Show when Johnny was still
there, it would have hurt my feelings if he'd thought that
I was politicking for his job. I mean, Carson was still sitting up
and taking solid food. Who am I to be sidling up and saying, "Oh,
by the way, Johnny, when you step down — and we're not saying
you're close, you understand — let's grease it for me to step
in"? Who could be that presumptuous? So what I did was take every
opportunity, if asked, to go on record as saying, "Yes, I would
like to be considered for the job." I wasn't comfortable with
anything more than that. Because in essence what I would be saying
was "John, the clock is ticking, it's time to go."
This is you, on the record, six years ago in the New
York Times: "In the back of my mind, if I weren't asked
someday to do it, I'd feel kind of sad. Yet, doing It —
that's my worst nightmare. That I'd be foolish enough to take the
Carson position if offered to me, that I'd die a miserable death in
that time slot, and meanwhile NBC had given my old show to someone
who was quite happy to keep doing it. Maybe the prudent thing would
be to let some other poor bastard walk into the fray for several
months and then try doing the show."
[Chuckles] Those are wise words, children. That
was a wise, wise man speaking years ago... Well, those were honest
expressions. I stand by that.
Have you spoken to Jay amid all this
stuff?
I speak to Jay now with the same regularity that I have always
spoken to Jay. Which is not much. There's no ill will personally.
If I felt I was deprived of something that was rightfully mine, if
I had fantasies about being hoodwinked or misled — then there
might be ill will. I'm not the kind of person that wants to see
somebody else fail on television. Whatever the future holds, I'm in
pretty good shape. So, no, I'm not upset with NBC, I'm not upset
with Jay. I guess a case could be made that maybe Bush is upset
with Clinton, because George didn't get the job and Bill did. So
what? Who among us hasn't endured disappointment in our life? But
for me to be upset with Jay, you would have to suppose that he did
something hurtful and awful to me by being hired as the host of
The Tonight Show. And I would guess that you could look
long and hard and not find evidence of that.
Your relationship with him has great ironic overtones in
that you've credited him with being among your primary comic
inspirations.
Oh, without question. As he's probably been for a whole batch of
other guys who came after me. He was the best — and still is
— as far as stand-up comedians go.
On the flip side, he's said repeatedly that he wouldn't
be where he is if you hadn't given him a showcase on Late
Night.
Well, he's being gracious, because he did as much for us as we did
for him — maybe more. He could have accomplished for himself
what he did here on any other show. But for us, like I said
earlier, to find a regular guest who could always come out and who
really could deliver, jeez, that was money in the bank.
So, if one thing's probable, there's going to be a
gaping hole at 12:30 on NBC. Whom would you handpick as your
successor?
I hear a lot of talk about this Dana Carvey. There's a boy we
ought to look at... But you know, I started watching The Dennis
Miller Show before it was canceled, and I thought, if you're
looking for a guy to do a talk show at 12:30, Dennis would be a
pretty good choice.
How long might you disappear from the air before
reappearing in some new incarnation?
Having been out of work at one point in my television life for
over a year, it's my hope that I wouldn't have to be gone any
longer than it would take for the reconstructive plastic surgery to
heal. So what are we talking about here? If you get yourself a good
doctor in Switzerland? What? Six, eight weeks?
On the first day outside parties were permitted to bid
for your services, you opened your monologue by saying, "I feel
like a million bucks!" Just how does a million bucks
feel?
Beats me. I'm just tickled by the phrase.
You're saying you've yet to feel like a million bucks
during any of this?
No, no. I'm embarrassed by all the attention.
So what kind of dollar value would you place on how you
feel?
I feel like a million bucks.
[From Issue 650 — February 18, 1993]
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