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Carson started in show business in his home town of Norfolk, Neb., where at twelve he appeared as The Great Carsoni, the mitey master of magic and ventriloquism (he can still do both). After graduation as a journalism major from the University of Nebraska, he became a disk jockey, was a writer for CBS's Red Skelton, then quipster-quiz-master for ABC's afternoon Who Do You Trust? And in his five years of squeezing comedy out of contestants, Carson found just the honing he needed for The Tonight Show.
Carson's NBC salary is more than $200,000, and during his July vacation from the show he fleshes this out with performances at Las Vegas' Sahara Hotel for an estimated $25,000 a week. He lives in Manhattan with Second Wife Joanne and his three sons by his first marriage. By normal star standards, he is a most relaxed, easygoing man. But the frustrations do build, and he works them out on a dizzying number of interests: scuba diving, fishing, boating, drums, weights, photography, flying, astronomy, and currently singing and playing the guitar. Confesses Carson: "My threshold of boredom is low."