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What he is skilled at is eliciting the opinions of his guests. Admirer Al Capp notes that "so many other interviewers are so busy trying to formulate the next question that you can say, 'I just murdered your sister, and am planning to rape your grandmother,' and they'd say, 'That's great, A1. Now . . . ' Moreover, Johnny does not step in to kill his guests' lines. Says Comic Woody Allen: "He appears to be most pleased when the guest scores. He feels no compulsion to top me." Adds Actor George Segal, another Tonight veteran: "Johnny always makes people look good." Carson describes that talent as "an affinity for editing and pacing"—putting together the right combination of guests, switching subjects when things get dull, throwing in a lively comment at the right moment. "I feel uncomfortable making the guest uncomfortable," he explains. "I don't like to embarrass people on the air."
The one person who is required to play strictly second banana is Ed McMahon, 44, who serves as straight man and prompter as well as announcer. For example, when Carson got caught in a dangling conversation and extricated himself with a cliché, "The grass is always greener," McMahon chimed in: "Could I write that down?"
Certain other contributions are considered "stepping out of line," says McMahon. "Johnny was doing a thing once about how mosquitoes only go after the really passionate people. Without thinking, I slapped my arm. It was instinctive. But it killed his punch line." For restraining himself, McMahon is well reimbursed. Just as Announcer Hugh Downs rose from the brow of Jack Paar to become a TV "personality" (Today, Concentration), McMahon is now a "star." He is host of his own daily daytime show, Snap Judgment, handles NBC's Monitor mike on Saturday afternoons, and plays "spokesman" for Budweiser beer. He's got his own suite of offices and a 14-man staff, and earns about $250,000 a year.
"Take a Card." Today an announcer, tomorrow a spokesman. Such is another peculiarity of the show-biz equation. For Carson, the rise was a little more gradual. He is not a Horatio Alger hero but an updated and inner-directed Huck Finn. He was born in October 1925 in Corning, Iowa, where his father Homer—dubbed, inevitably, Kit—worked for a utility company. When Johnny was eight, his family moved to Norfolk, Neb. (pop. 15,200), where Homer (who is now retired) was appointed to the district managership of the Nebraska Light & Power Co.
By the time he was twelve, Johnny had found his course. "That's when I answered a magazine ad that promised to make me a magician and also 'The Life of the Party.' " Not to mention the death of the household. He worked for hours every day at card tricks in front of the mirror. His mother says he was a pest: "He was always at your elbow with a trick." To this day, reports his sister Catherine (now a