Johnny Carson

by Henry Bushkin

  Naturally we were curious about what ABC had in mind, but there was no way that Johnny was going to allow himself to be caught flirting with another network. However, if one afternoon I just happened to be driving through Bel Air and just happened to turn onto Ambyzack Road and just happened to find myself outside the English Tudor home of Joan Rivers and Edgar Rosenberg and just happened to drop in to say hello, well, who’s to say who else might be there?

  Well, as it happened, I did go out for a drive the following Saturday, and I did pop in on Joan and Edgar, and lo and behold, I found Fred Pierce, the head of the ABC network; Elton Rule, the chairman of ABC; and Tony Thomopoulos, the network’s chief of programming.

  “Henry!” Edgar said. “What a pleasant surprise! You know, the fellows here were just telling me about a rumor they had heard about some sort of dispute between Johnny and NBC.”

  At this point, Joan entered the room. “All right, fellas, just relax—the floor show will start in a minute. Elton, take off your jacket. Ease up. In fact, take off your pants if you want to; we’re all family here. Now, I know this is top-secret shit that you guys are going over, real hush-hush atomic secrets kind of stuff. I let all the staff off, every body except the gardener and the maid, Edgar’s cousins Julius and Ethel. No one else is in the place, so feel free to talk about your secrets—how much Barbara Walters makes, how much you have to pay plastic surgeons to keep Joan Collins’s boobs off the floor. Can I get anybody a drink?” When she came back with the drinks, she had changed into a short, black, spangly dress, the sort of thing a cocktail waitress would wear in the high-roller room at Caesars. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s from a prop house, not Edgar’s closet.” Everybody laughed as she sashayed around, served the drinks, and then disappeared.

  “It’s never easy following a headliner,” I said a moment later, “but before we go any further, just let me remind you Johnny has an existing contract with NBC that contains a clause that prevents him from negotiating with any third party while that agreement is still extant.” Simply put, I was telling them it might put Johnny in breach of his deal if I began negotiating with them. Our position with NBC was there was no agreement, and I was dancing on the head of a pin. Nonetheless, I agreed to hear what they had to say.

  “First, we just want you to know something,” Pierce said. “Our dream is to build a network that is full of the best people at what they do, and to do that from early in the morning until late at night. We don’t think that achieving a dream like that will come cheap. None of us here knows what Johnny makes, but even in our dreams, we think we’d have to double it.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Here are some of the things Johnny dreams about. One is a more productive work schedule, one where he gets more money per show and does fewer shows than the four per week that he does now.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “In his dream, he’s on the air four nights a week, but perhaps three would be original shows and one a rerun.”

  “And the fifth night?”

  “There could be a guest host, perhaps someone like our lovely cocktail waitress.” Sitting in the corner, Edgar beamed.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Also Johnny dreams of working just thirty-seven weeks a year, with three of his fifteen weeks off coming in June so that he could enjoy his customary vacation at Wimbledon and the South of France.”

  “Sure,” Pierce said. “That sounds like a reasonable dream.”

  “Interesting,” I responded.

  I then threw out the wild card. “I’m sure all of you know that the thing Johnny really dreams about most often is starring in a show that he owns and produces himself.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment, and then Elton Rule finally spoke. “Well, Henry, you’ve heard our dream of a network full of stars. I haven’t heard anything today that would make me think that dreams can’t come true.”

  As the meeting drew to a close, I was handed a rather large book by one of the ABC contingent: a deal proposal, three inches thick.

  “This is so you know we’re not just jawboning here,” Pierce said. “These are the concrete specifics of the deal we want to make with Johnny. Everything you laid out for us today will be folded into this.”

  Although I was impressed with their preparation, I refused to even touch the thing. “Thanks, guys, but right now we’re in a dispute with NBC about what our contract obligations are to them. There is no way I can receive a document that could be construed as interfering with a contract.”

  All in all, it was not a bad little meeting. I had managed to approach the line of propriety without crossing it, and the intelligence I had gathered was priceless. I now knew just how much ABC was interested in acquiring Johnny and just how much they were willing to pay for the privilege. And although ABC’s overture was fairly meaningless until the question of Johnny’s free agency was established—and it was completely meaningless if Johnny was serious about intending to retire—I at least knew that we were holding better cards than NBC. If Johnny won, he was facing his choice of some highly interesting opportunities. If NBC won, all they would get is two more years of an increasingly disgruntled host. Viewers would tune in night after night just to hear Johnny mercilessly flaying the network executives who had haplessly hoisted themselves on their own petard.

  But by then, Fred Silverman or someone else in the NBC high command had begun to figure out that even if Carson and NBC had to be adversaries, there was no point in becoming enemies, and they began trying to make Johnny happy. Brandon Tartikoff, a young executive Johnny liked and admired, was named the network’s director of comedy, a move designed to fill the Dave Tebet gap and give Johnny a voice and an ally among the decision makers. And Silverman himself began to adjust his game, showing up from time to time to watch The Tonight Show and to offer support, admiration, and encouragement. Carson, though polite, was immune to the campaign.

  There was one gesture that Johnny couldn’t help but appreciate. When the New York Friars Club honored Carson as Entertainer of the Year, Silverman manfully took his place next to Carson among Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas, Mike Douglas, Barbara Walters, Jack Benny, Roberta Flack, Jann Wenner, the ambassadors from Egypt and Israel, and the rest of the fifty-one eminences on the dais.

  Although Johnny was ostensibly on hand to be toasted, not roasted, the Friars Club was not known for earnest, sober paeans to its honorees. And with Carson and NBC locked in battle, the 1,500 platinum-plated paying guests were expecting at the very least a deliciously dangerous evening.

  The emcee for the evening was Bob Hope, the only celebrity of that era whose prestige as a master of ceremonies could be said to be in the same realm as Johnny’s. Both had played before the most prestigious audiences, with Hope enjoying the advantage of having performed for FDR and Churchill. Both preferred the rapier to the broadsword, knowing it was better to sting than to smash, and both knew they could get away with going a bit too far if they made themselves the butt of some of the humor.

  “All NBC’s top brass are here,” said Hope. “I’m sure you’ve seen them refilling Johnny’s wine glass, cutting his steak, kissing his ring. None of them ever did get to eat dinner. They kept ordering and canceling, ordering and canceling.” He then praised Carson. “You really have to hand it to Johnny. I can’t help but admire a man who can do what John has done to his network—as many times, as many ways, and in as many positions.” Hope’s best line was about Johnny getting paid more to work less. “Next year he’s got a sweeter deal: $43 million, and all he has to do is come in once a week and pick up his messages.”

  As things turned out, the evening was far more a tribute than a roast. Maybe there was too much worry about alienating either Carson or NBC with remarks about the sensitive situation between them. There was no more important venue on which one could promote a movie, a book, or a new TV show than The Tonight Show, and The Today Show was a pretty close second. I suppose more of the crowd was rooting for Johnny, but what they really wanted
was peace. Hope noted the presence of the Israeli and Egyptian ambassadors sitting next to each other so soon after their nations had signed a peace accord. “They’re here to show Silverman and Johnny that it can be done,” he quipped, generating more nods of agreement than laughter.

  In general there was far more gentle joshing and outright sucking up than I had expected. The only real tension came near the end, when Fred Silverman finally got up to speak, and the crowd grew quiet in anticipation of a possible disaster.

  As it turned out, one of the best things Fred had going for him that evening was me. Described in the New York Post the next day as “the least recognizable, but perhaps most significant man on the star-studded dais”—there’s a line guaranteed to boost an attorney’s ego—I was a target he could attack with impunity. “I recently learned that Henry Bushkin’s dream has long been to perform in the Olympics,” said Fred, “and I immediately made arrangements to have him participate. I’m happy to announce that in Moscow in 1980, Henry will be a javelin catcher. It’s the least I can do for Bushkin after all he’s done for me.”

  I couldn’t have enjoyed that more. It’s always good news to find out that you’ve become an irritant to your adversary.

  Having taken his little shot at me, Silverman turned to Johnny. Anyone who was hoping for or expecting any poison darts or even little zingers walked away disappointed. Somewhere along the line Silverman grasped that NBC might lose the contract battle with Carson, but that didn’t mean they would have to lose him, and that meant keeping this contract dispute in the realm of a disagreement, not a war. As Silverman stood at the podium, he aimed his guns at the ripest target in the room—himself.

  “I was watching The Tonight Show the evening Johnny announced that he had decided to stay on at least until the end of the year.” Fred paused a beat. “I was so relieved I got down off the chair and put the rope back in the closet.”

  He continued in that vein for a joke or two more, but then he turned very earnest in his summation. “Johnny, you’re more, much more, than Entertainer of the Year,” waxed Fred. “You’re the entertainer of our time. You’re the best friend TV ever had.”

  Fred did about as well as he could do, but it was going to take more than a few blandishments to mollify Carson. With a polite nod of thanks and a handshake, Johnny sent him back to his seat. “There have been a lot of jokes about Mr. Silverman here tonight,” Johnny said, “but I’m delighted to see NBC’s top executive on the dais. It reminds me for some reason of another dinner—the Last Supper.” Who was Jesus and who was Judas was left to the biblical scholars in the audience to decipher, but it was a good line on which to send everybody home.

  The next morning Johnny and I had breakfast in his suite at the Waldorf Towers. “Silverman actually seems like a nice guy. I thought he was pretty much of a schmuck with the Steve Allen bullshit he was feeding me. Give him a call and let him know that I appreciated his remarks.”

  As busy as we were, nothing was more important than the upcoming private trial of the civil suit against NBC in front of Judge Hogoboom. It’s true that we had very little to lose. If the judge ruled against Johnny, he would have to spend two years working in the salt mines of Burbank, earning a salary pretty much unrivaled by anyone on the planet who was not of Saudi royal descent. NBC had much more to lose: on the line for them were a signature star, a late-night franchise, and a programming anchor. And by winning, all they got was time—two years to figure out how to woo an insulted Johnny back into the fold or find a new king.

  If we won, though, Carson’s position would be elevated from the stratosphere into a full-fledged orbit. He would enjoy complete independence, and given the way the industry had been going, he would be positioned to become a veritable entertainment mogul. Merv Griffin, as mentioned, had done it; for example, he had, with his talk shows and game shows, built a very substantial business. Dick Clark had done the same, building a huge production business that did American Bandstand, the Golden Globe Awards, all sorts of specials, and even a bunch of well-regarded television movies. Neither man had the star power or the access to talent that Johnny possessed.

  The entire trial hung on four little numbers: 2855, which was the applicable section of the California Labor Code of 1937, as interpreted by a ruling of the California Court of Appeals in 1944, the specifics of which were codified in a revision of Section 2855 passed in 1945. Known informally as the de Havilland Law (after the actress Olivia de Havilland, whose successful suit against Warner Bros. over her contract resulted in the key ruling), Section 2855 imposes a limit of seven calendar years on contracts for service, unless the employee agreed to an extension beyond that term.

  This decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood history. It undermined the old studio system under which even the biggest stars could be tied to one studio for their entire careers, and it ushered in a new era of free agent performers who would take control of their own careers. The old stars like Tracy, Gable, Cooper, and Stewart may have been very highly paid and pampered, but until de Havilland, they were also something close to indentured servants, locked into personal-service contracts that could stretch for decades. The kind of independence and clout enjoyed today by stars like Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney to choose the films they want to play in and form their own production companies to create their own vehicles owes much to the effects of Section 2855.

  There was no question that 2855 applied to the Carson case. The issue that Mickey Rudin and I would argue was whether NBC was in compliance or in violation of the law. Had Johnny already labored more than seven years under his contract as we claimed? Or, as NBC contended, had he signed a new contract, which still had two years to run?

  In early 1980, Rudin and I appeared before Judge Hogoboom. Sitting in the conference room of my law offices, a wall of West law books covering one wall, a view of Century City from the other, Mickey and I went at it for two days with all the lawyerly ruffles and flourishes, cases and documentation and precedents. But when you boiled it all down, the question before the judge was simple: had Johnny Carson been under contract to NBC more than seven years or not? Obviously, he had been in their employ, without interruption, since 1962, but the original contract was signed by NBC–New York. He had been in the employ of NBC–Burbank since 1972. It was now 1980. Whichever one of these dates you picked as the starting point, once you did the math, the only conclusion you could reach was that Johnny’s seven years expired at the very latest on October 15, 1979, and that as of now there was no contract.

  No, no, no, Rudin in effect said, you have it all wrong. Over those years, Carson and NBC had signed a series of shorter intervening contracts, the most recent of which was signed in 1978, a three-year deal that wouldn’t expire until 1981. He was free to sign or not sign that contract in 1978, and he’ll be free to sign or not sign one in 1981. But the fact is that he signed it, and NBC had made considerable decisions and investments based on his word.

  Mickey was a very smart guy and a great attorney. He presented his case adroitly. But there weren’t a lot of clever angles for either of us to exploit. The clock either started running in 1972, or it started over in 1978. After two days, the judge took our arguments under advisement and promised a decision soon.

  While the drama with NBC was being played out, other opportunities were coming Carson’s way. Most significantly, we were also involved in prolonged negotiations to buy the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.

  No other entertainer owned a Vegas hotel casino, and Johnny was the perfect candidate to become the first. His finances were platinum plated, and his reputation for integrity was golden. Given that the Nevada Gaming Commission was working very actively to separate Vegas from the wild and woolly days when mob interests pretty openly ran the town, Carson, with his own wealth, his status in Vegas as the King of the Counts, and his sterling reputation, was just the sort of person whose ownership would be welcome.

  The Aladdin had a
star-crossed history from its start in 1962, when Edwin Lowe, the inventor of the game Yahtzee, sought to prove that you could have a successful hotel in Las Vegas without a casino attached. His $12 million, 450-room, Tudor-style English Tallyho Motel, complete with thirty-two villas, four pools, six restaurants, and a par 54 nine-hole golf course, closed in eighteen months. Another owner came along and achieved the same result twelve months later. In 1966, Milton Prell bought the joint and spent $3 million losing the English décor and redoing the hotel with an Arabian Nights theme, part of which included the opening of the 500-seat Baghdad Theater show room. Prell introduced an innovative policy by offering three completely different shows twice nightly with no cover or minimum charges. He also apparently concluded that Edwin Lowe was nuts, because Prell acquired a gaming license. In the ensuing years, the Aladdin had many more facelifts, many more architectural improvements, and several new investors, many of whom ended up under indictment when it was revealed that they had ties to organized crime. Noteworthy was the fact that the Aladdin always claimed that the hotel was twenty-nine stories high, but they began numbering the floors at 11. That seemed to me to be an apt metaphor for the way business was done at the Aladdin, but the Nevada Gaming Commission seemed resolved to embark upon a new era.