Carson the Magnificent
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3.8 • 85 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The definitive biography of Johnny Carson, the entertainer who redefined late-night television and American culture, told through intimate insights and riveting accounts of his legendary career and complex personal life.
In 2002, celebrated Esquire writer Bill Zehme landed one of journalism’s most coveted assignments: the first and only major interview Johnny Carson granted after retiring from The Tonight Show. The resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend, and after Carson’s death Zehme began work on this “immensely informative and insightful” (The Minnesota Star Tribune) biography. Though illness prevented him from completing the project before his death in 2023, the pages he left behind illuminate one of the most inscrutable figures in entertainment history, what New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman called “one of the great unfinished biographies.”
Zehme traces Carson’s rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to a navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show. He also captures the turmoil, and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, trouble with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child. Completed with help from journalist and Zehme’s former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent is “perceptive and beautiful” (Library Journal), offering an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Biographies are rarely two things, but Carson the Magnificent manages the feat by being both a look at one of the most dominant figures in television history and the culmination of a quixotic saga. Before his death in 2023, entertainment journalist Bill Zehme spent years working on this examination of The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, leaving fellow journalist Mike Thomas to finish it. It’s easy to see why Carson was a tough nut to crack. Having started out as a magician, he was a master at showing what he wanted to be seen. The interviews from friends and colleagues can only penetrate up to a point on subjects like his difficult relationship with his parents and his four marriages. Yet that’s what ultimately makes it fascinating in a present where everything is shared: Carson offered almost nothing but his talent. Ultimately, Carson the Magnificent serves as a testament to both its subject and its author.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After biographer Zehme (The Way You Wear Your Hat) died in 2023, journalist Thomas (The Second City Unscripted) stepped in to finish his long-gestating account of the life of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson (1925–2005), with splendid results. Eschewing a chronological approach, Zehme opens with a detailed recap of a 1973 Tonight Show episode featuring Carson at the height of his popularity. The narrative also describes the fracas within NBC caused by Carson's abrupt decision to leave the show in the early 1990s, and covers his low-profile retirement, during which he turned down NBC's frequent entreaties for him to host various specials. Such seclusion was typical for the intensely private Carson, Zehme suggests, noting that the host often demurred when asked about his adolescent stint in the Navy during WWII's final months and feigned nonchalance in the lead-up to his 1962 debut as Tonight Show host (according to his second wife, Carson was restless in anticipation of his first show, constantly "pacing like a caged animal"). Though the tone is mostly laudatory, Zehme's nuanced portrait presents Carson as plagued by a bottomless need for "validation, most any damned kind of it," which fueled his workaholism and frequent marital infidelities. Carson's fans will appreciate the glimpse behind the curtain.
Customer Reviews
Carson, the magnificent
Wonderful biography
Here’s Johnny
Great read! Took me back to the nights my husband and I would watch Johnny every nite ! Still miss him.
I did not care for the writer’s style
I thought this would be a chronological bio with funny stories thrown in about an interesting person I wanted to know more about. The writer made it more about himself and how he feels about his observations of Carson. He is not direct and tries too hard to impress the reader with his language.