Jay Leno’s retirement last week after 22 years hosting “The Tonight Show” brought back memories of his predecessor. The king of late-night TV in his heyday, Johnny Carson came across not only as witty and inventive, but as genial and genuinely nice. On the small screen, he seemed like a regular Joe who could have been an ordinary ”“ albeit side-splittingly funny ”“ guy next door.
But Henry Bushkin, the six-time Emmy Award winner’s personal legal advisor for 18 years, who recently published a no-holds-barred biography of his former employer imaginatively titled “Johnny Carson,” implies that in order to find out what kind of a neighbor the native Nebraskan would have been, you’d have had to reside in a 5,000-square-foot luxury apartment in New York City, or within a palatial mansion inside a gated Hollywood community.
When the author first came into Carson’s life, the comedian distrusted all lawyers, and with good reason; his previous attorneys had all been inept, larcenous, or both. Bushkin became the famous entertainer’s counsel through a series of coincidences, many of which were, in retrospect, laced with irony.
Shortly after detailing how Carson had been repeatedly victimized by ethically challenged barristers, Bushkin describes how the comedian and a small entourage (including his brand-new attorney) arranged to break into his wife’s apartment, hoping to find evidence she was cheating on him. (She was.) However, Carson getting upset over his wife’s unfaithfulness was the equivalent of Whitey Bulger complaining about an overly vicious business associate. Carson was to fidelity, according to Bushkin, what Elizabeth Taylor was to, well, fidelity.
The book is purported to be the inside story of Carson’s life as told by someone who knew him better than almost anyone, but its author writes like a jilted lover with multiple axes to grind. Any positive anecdote about the comedian (he was capable of being inordinately generous, for instance) is accompanied by three examples of his being petty, selfish or vengeful. One sample: Carson is lauded for arranging a job in the entertainment industry for one of his sons, Rick, who fought a more-or-less lifelong battle with addiction. However, in relating that fact, Bushkin endlessly reiterates to readers that Carson was a lousy father who seldom saw any of the three sons the first of his four wives bore him, which he then explained away by revealing ”“ and frequently repeating ”“ that Carson had been rendered incapable of loving anybody by his cold-hearted, emotionally numb mother, who he constantly referred to with disrespect and outright hatred. Nearly every bit of faint praise Bushkin has for Carson is accompanied by something damning.
And just in case confiding to readers that the man who made him fabulously wealthy (at least for a time) was all too often mean, petulant and/or inebriated wasn’t enough, Bushkin sullies the names of a several other famous folks no longer around to defend themselves. Dean Martin was a drunk, Buddy Hackett shot up his dressing room in a fit of pique, Ed McMahon was a brown-nosing toady, and Carson’s idol, the much-beloved comedian Jack Benny, was, according to impresario Sonny Werblin (yet another “name” who gets trashed in the book) “the unhappiest man I have ever known.”
It’s hard to say who is depicted as less attractive: the book’s subject or its name-dropping, character-assassinating author. Both come off as vain, self-absorbed, entitled and avaricious. Bushkin initially portrays himself as an earnest, ambitious young fellow who, blinded by celebrity and money, eventually became too preoccupied with serving his famous employer. His journey into the fast lane and endless pursuit of material wealth cost him his marriage and much of his remaining humanity.
Those making it to the book’s conclusion will read a brief apology to those Bushkin hurt, although one wonders if his ex-wife and ex-business partner, to name two, think the short confessional is enough. Carson, on the other hand, is depicted as insecure and insensitive throughout the tell-all tome. The author professes a goal of painting a true, unbiased picture, but whether or not his tales are accurate cannot be verified, since Carson died of emphysema in 2005, ensuring that those still interested will never have an opportunity to get the other side(s) of Bushkin’s lurid tales.
Reading “Johnny Carson” reaffirms several valuable life lessons, including the one about money not buying happiness. What unlimited wealth, fame and privilege can purchase, though, is a toxic sense of entitlement as well as some prohibitively expensive problems that are in many cases far more poisonous than tobacco or alcohol, which were just two of Carson’s lifelong vices.
Anyone still wanting to read “Johnny Carson” should borrow it from their local library. The $28 you’d spend purchasing the book will do far more good in your pocket than it would in the author’s.
— Renowned media critic Andy Young hasn’t seen “The Tonight Show” since Johnny Carson was its star. He’s still right on top of America’s pop culture scene though, and wishes great success to the show’s new host, Jimmy Kimmel. Or Jimmy Dean. Or Jimmy Carter. Or whoever it is.
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