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Last week he surprised New York showfolk by hosting a post-premiere party after Singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme opened at the Waldorf-Astoria. He was as ill at ease as he is cool on the air, and his eyes twitched noticeably before he and Joanne finally called it a night, long before many of his guests had left.
Yet, says Carson, "I get annoyed when people tag me as a loner. Jackie Gleason loves to mix with people, so they say he's a boozer. You can't win. Because I don't like cocktail parties, some writers translate this to mean 'Carson is hostile to people.' " If he is not precisely hostile, he at least shares a celebrity's distrust of strangers—and distrust sometimes seeps over into contempt. Johnny and Joanne are people who do not need people. "Johnny," says McMahon, putting it mildly, "is not overly outgoing or affectionate. He doesn't give friendship easily or need it. He packs a tight suitcase." One lady author, who was a guest on the show, puts it more bluntly: "He is a cold fish."
What Counts. Johnny's kicks, says Joanne, "are challenges, any kind of challenges—a book, a person, a sport, a show." His latest reading ranges from his attorney Louis Nizer's The Jury Returns to Vidal's Washington, D.C. Once he has mastered something—scuba diving, archery and flying—he tends to drop it and move on. Right now he is playing the drums to stereo-set accompaniment, studying astronomy with his 2.4-inch Unitron telescope, and fiddling around with motion-picture photography and video taping.
He also visits a good deal with his three sons who attend boarding school on Long Island. Carson divorced their mother, a University of Nebraska girl, in 1962. That subject is barred from discussion, although one associate explains: "Johnny is a man of tremendous growth, and people who don't grow with him, don't stay with him."
What counts with Carson is that his audience, faceless and distant, stays with him. "I think you can tell I'm having fun out there," he says. "I love the applause, the cheers, and sometimes when an audience rises to their feet—that's a hell of a thrill. It's a great thrill to go home in the evening and know you've entertained thousands of people—that all those people are saying, 'Gee, I had a good time.' I wanted to be an entertainer and to be myself, and I made it."
Not that he ever doubts it himself, but it is not at all unusual to find him at home—like millions of others—tuning in the show that begins, "Here's Johnny!" He thinks it's pretty funny, McGee.