NAME: Johnny Carson

AGE: The count stopped at 79

NATIONALITY: American

CLAIM TO FAME: The king of late night shows

FOR three decades, Johnny Carson tucked millions of Americans to bed as the host of the Tonight Show aired on weeknights. On the good nights, he was the best thing one could go to bed with — on the best nights, he was the best. He was affable, charming, accessible and amusing and with a comfortable presence that made you forget the worries of a hard working day.

Undoubtedly, Carson was the most popular star American television has known and his show was the biggest single moneymaker in television history. An estimated 50 million people watched his final broadcast in 1992. And with his passing away last week at 79, Carson will always be remembered as the guy who was the king of late night shows.

The Tonight Show started with music and the announcement: “Here’s Johnny!”. A brief comedic monologue by Carson followed, and then the comedy sketches, interviews and music. Carson’s trademark was a golf swing at the end of his monologues. If the opening monologue fared poorly, the band would start playing the song Tea for Two and Carson would start to dance, which invariably earned laughs from the studio audience. During his long tenure, virtually every American with a television set saw and heard a Carson monologue.

In his monologues Carson impaled the foibles of seven presidents and their aides as well as the doings of different big shots from the private and corporate sector, secret polluters, tax evaders, preening lawyers, idiosyncratic doctors, cunning accountants, defendants who got off too easily and self-obsessed celebrities. However, all these snippets were presented without malice, so neatly and so politely, that few were offended enough not to smile. Carson had a talent for declaring quick quips to deal with unexpected problems. He was often at his best when sketches went wrong.

With an enormous impact on popular culture, a visit to Mr Carson’s famous couch signalled a performer’s official acceptance as a star. He was a generous host, as long as he did not feel crossed. Those on the outs with Mr Carson frequently saw their careers damaged. Carson built up his on-screen family of regulars, and viewers learned to quickly identify the established comic premises. He discovered or promoted new talent like Barbra Streisand and David Letterman; advanced the careers of emerging stars like Woody Allen, Steve Martin and his own successor, Jay Leno.

Carson began his show business career as a teenage magician and ventriloquist before serving in the US Navy during WWII. In 1953, Carson joined Red Skelton, a well-known comic, as a writer for his show. In 1954, Skelton knocked himself unconscious just one hour before his live show went on the air; Carson filled in for him — and a star was born. He hosted several TV shows before taking over the Tonight Show from Jack Paar on October 1, 1962, and preferring to retire at the top of his game, he voluntarily surrendered it to Jay Leno on May 22, 1992.

An intensely private person, Carson almost stayed away from the public eye after retirement. A couple of years after leaving the Tonight Show, Carson made a surprise appearance on Letterman’s Late Show that stopped the show dead. Carson came out to read a joke and Letterman let him sit down at his desk. The resulting ovation lasted so long that Carson never had a chance to tell the joke. — S. Arshad Kamal