Afterlives of the Rich and Famous (22 page)

He returned to Nebraska when his navy days ended and attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He graduated in
1949
with a B.A. in radio and speech and a minor in physics. In
1950
, he went to work for radio and television station WOW in Omaha as a writer and host of a morning show called
The Squirrel’s Nest
. From there he headed to Los Angeles for a staff announcing job at KNXT-TV, where he hosted
Carson’s Cellar,
a sketch-comedy show, from
1951
until
1953
. In that year Johnny’s sense of humor caught the eye of a regular viewer, comedian Red Skelton, who recruited him to join his weekly television variety series
The Red Skelton Show
as a writer. His absence from on-camera performing was short-lived. One night, minutes before airtime, Red Skelton collided with a breakaway door and was knocked unconscious. Johnny went onstage in his place and, on a moment’s notice, delivered Skelton’s monologue to a live national audience.

From the writers’ room of
The Red Skelton Show
he headed back in front of the camera again, first as host of a game show called
Earn Your Vacation
in
1954
and then with his own variety hour,
The Johnny Carson Show,
in the
1955
–
56
season. Next came two concurrent game shows—he hosted
Who Do You Trust?,
where he met and worked with his future right-hand man, Ed McMahon, from
1957
until
1962
, and during those same years he was a panelist on the classic
To Tell the Truth
.

In 1962 Jack Paar left his five-year run on NBC’s
The Tonight Show,
citing the fact that the pressure of putting on an hour of television five nights a week had become more than he could handle. On October
1, 1962
, Johnny Carson made his debut as host of
The Tonight Show,
with Ed McMahon by his side. From that night until his retirement on May
22, 1992
, he ruled late-night TV, won six Emmy awards, and wove his way into the fabric of the American culture. Across the country, everywhere from college campuses to retirement homes, the question, “Did you see the monologue last night?” might have been answered, “No,” but it was never answered, “What monologue?” On his first night he interviewed the legendary Groucho Marx. On his last night he was serenaded by superstar Bette Midler, in a historically classic television event. In between he interviewed everyone from politicians to musicians, dramatic actors, and comedians, securing some careers and compromising others, all the while keeping his own political views to himself—he believed his job was to be an entertainer, not a commentator. He could say more with one look into the camera than most television personalities can say in a long-winded paragraph, and no one appreciated talent more than he did.

No one was more frank and sometimes chagrined than Johnny about his multiple marriages, some of which ended very expensively. The first of his wives, and the mother of his three sons, was Joan Wolcott. Theirs was apparently a mutually unhappy marriage that lasted from 1949 until 1963. Next came Joanne Copeland, whom he married shortly after his “quickie” divorce from Joan Wolcott in 1963 and divorced in 1972, for which she received cash and artwork worth about half a million dollars and an annual $100,000 in alimony for the rest of her life. Wife number three was former model Joanna Holland. She and Johnny were married on September 30, 1972, just over a month after his divorce from Joanne Copeland was finalized. Joanna Holland filed for divorce from Johnny on March 8, 1983, and, thanks to California’s community property laws, walked away from the marriage with $20 million in cash and property. Last but not least came Alexis Maas, who was thirty-five when she married sixty-one-year-old Johnny Carson on June 20, 1987. They never divorced.

Without a doubt the greatest tragedy of his life was the death of his son Richard, who was killed on June 21, 1991, at the age of thirty-nine, when his car plunged down a steep embankment off of Highway 1 near San Luis Obispo, California. Johnny devoted the final segment of his first
Tonight Show
following the accident to a touching, deeply personal tribute to his son.

Johnny’s retirement as host of
The Tonight Show
in
1992
wasn’t necessarily intended to be his permanent retirement from show business. He strongly hinted at first that he might return to television if a new project excited or inspired him enough. But except for a handful of appearances on
The Late Show with David Letterman
and a
1993
NBC tribute to Bob Hope, his retirement turned out to be a permanent one after all. The notoriously private, semireclusive king of late-night spent the last years of his life quietly enjoying his home in Malibu. He was sleeping there on March
19, 1999
, when he was awakened by severe chest pains. He was rushed to Santa Monica Hospital and underwent emergency quadruple-bypass surgery, from which he recovered.

But on January 23, 2005, at 6:50
a.m.
, Johnny Carson died of respiratory arrest at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after struggling for years with emphysema. He was seventy-nine. Out of respect for the wishes of his family, his body was cremated, and no public service was held.

From Francine

Johnny emerged from the tunnel into the waiting arms of his parents, an aunt, and his son Richard.
As ecstatic as he was to be free of his perpetually struggling body, he found it almost jarring to be in an atmosphere of such peaceful, sacred bliss.
He’s commented many times that he never realized how depressed he was throughout his most recent lifetime until he came Home and rediscovered happiness.
His depression came from the difficult series of conflicts he charted for himself for what he quickly announced will be his last incarnation, compounded by the mutually challenging themes of Controller and Loner.
He became legendary for being an unparalleled host to a wide variety of people, but off-camera there were very few people whose company he enjoyed or with whom he felt comfortable—in fact, left to his own devices he much preferred socializing as little as possible.
He enjoyed the power he came to wield over countless careers, but it made him even more guarded and untrusting, knowing he was often “liked” for the doors he could open.
He was fiercely loyal, but quick to sever a relationship over a perceived slight.
He loved being loved but was, in his words, “a disaster” when it came to intimacy.
Because of all those conflicts that he watched himself act out at the Scanning Machine and the depression he’d struggled with for so long, he devoted many months, in your time, to Orientation before he was ready to resume and fully appreciate his life on the Other Side.

His chosen passion here is astronomy, which he teaches and researches.
He also enjoys sailing, tennis, and singing, at which he always wished he were more gifted on earth.
Here at Home he has a beautiful baritone voice and loves performing with Rock Hudson, who was also a frustrated singer on earth, but who excels at it in his life here.
He lives alone in a house he says is a precise duplicate of his house in Malibu.

One of his great regrets from his last incarnation was his “completely unfair, utterly inexcusable” temporary estrangement from his son Richard, for which he takes full responsibility, and he’s deeply grateful for the friendship they now enjoy.

Sharon Tate

O
ne of the most beautiful, and by all accounts sweetest, rising stars in Hollywood in the 1960s, Sharon Tate was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 24, 1943. She and her two younger sisters, Patti and Debra, were army brats, the daughters of officer Paul Tate and his wife, Doris. Frequent army moves (six different cities in seven years) affected Sharon in two profound ways: she learned to form friendships quickly and to maintain those friendships long after the Tates had relocated again, and she developed a strong bond with her family that lasted throughout her life.

Her beauty came naturally—she won her first title, “Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas,” at the age of six months. Although her early intention was to become a psychiatrist rather than an actress, she found success in her teens as a beauty pageant contestant and model, and the lure of Hollywood began tempting her. Her first official onscreen appearance happened serendipitously. Eighteen-year-old Sharon was walking down the street, when a choreographer for an upcoming Pat Boone special approached her and asked if she’d be willing to make a brief appearance on the show. She was thrilled, and her parents gave their permission, on the condition that a guard be posted all night outside the door of the hotel room where she’d be staying. The condition was met, and Pat Boone serenaded the young, spectacular Sharon Tate on national television in
1961
.

Another promotion and reassignment sent Colonel Tate and his family to Italy in 1962. The film of Ernest Hemingway’s
Adventures of a Young Man,
starring Paul Newman and Richard Beymer, happened to be shooting near the Tates’ new home in Verona, and Sharon and some friends went to visit the set. Sharon quickly caught Richard Beymer’s eye, and in the course of the casual dates that resulted, he gave her the business card of his agent, the powerful Hal Gefsky, and encouraged her to get her inevitable show business career off the ground.

The Tate family returned to America, Sharon headed to Hollywood, and Hal Gefsky eagerly signed her, joining forces in carefully developing her skills and grooming her for stardom with Filmways chairman Marty Ransohoff. Finally Gefsky and Ransohoff decided that Sharon was ready for her official debut and cast her for a major role in the 1965 film
Eye of the Devil,
starring David Niven, Deborah Kerr, and David Hemmings. Sharon had begun a relationship with hairdresser-to-the-stars Jay Sebring in 1964, and the two of them traveled together to England and France, where the film was being shot.

In
1966
Ransohoff was casting and coproducing a film called
The Fearless Vampire Killers
with Polish director Roman Polanski. Polanski had his heart set on hiring up-and-coming actress Jill St. John for the female lead, but Ransohoff convinced him to hire Sharon instead. Polanski and Sharon were less than enchanted with each other when they first met, but as filming in Italy progressed, their relationship evolved into a serious romance.

Next for Sharon came a mediocre beach comedy called
Don’t Make Waves
with Tony Curtis, in which her wardrobe consisted primarily of a bikini. She was mortified by the film and began referring to herself sarcastically as “sexy little me.” Compounding her unhappiness was the fact that she was away from Polanski, who was still in Italy doing postproduction work on
The Fearless Vampire Killers
. But she did appreciate and continue to treasure the one positive aspect of her work on
Don’t Make Waves
—she and Tony Curtis maintained a close friendship for the rest of her life.

Don’t Make Waves
was followed by yet another movie that valued her beauty more than her acting ability, a script based on one of the
bestselling books of all time, which she considered “trashy”—Jac
queline Susann’s
Valley of the Dolls
. Sharon rose to the occasion, gave it her best, and managed to stay out of the war zone the set of the film became. Morale had seriously deteriorated as the cast went from believing they were working on an important, prestigious film to feeling as if they were trapped in a doomed, unsalvageable embarrassment.

The good news and bad news turned out to be that the eagerly anticipated drama known as
Valley of the Dolls
was greeted as an unintentional laugh riot when it debuted on November
14, 1967
. It became a cult classic, and it’s probably the film for which Sharon Tate will always be most remembered. She was featured in
Esquire,
Playboy,
and countless movie magazines around the world, and
Playboy
officially declared
1967
as “the year Sharon Tate happens.”

While Sharon was filming
Valley of the Dolls,
Polanski was busy shooting his greatest commercial success,
Rosemary’s Baby
. They reunited in London when their respective films were finished, and on January
20, 1968
, the couple the world press had proclaimed as the epitome of “rich hippies” were married, Sharon in a white minidress
and Polanski in what was described as “Edwardian finery.” Sha
ron’s “big hang-up,” as Polanski called it, was his refusal to promise monogamy, but she was utterly devoted to him and was quoted as saying, “We have a good arrangement. Roman lies to me, and I pretend to believe him.”

Back in Los Angeles, Mr. and Mrs. Roman Polanski were celebrated and embraced by a crowd that was diverse, dazzling, and without a doubt the cream of the crop in Hollywood. Sharon in particular loved that their leased house in Beverly Hills was invariably filled with friends, and friends of friends, and everyone felt comfortable, casual, and welcome there.

She went back to work in the summer of 1968 on a Dean Martin film called
The Wrecking Crew,
was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Newcomer Award, and was deeply appreciative that her career finally seemed to be on the rise. In late
1968
she was ecstatic to learn that she was pregnant, as a result of which, on February
15, 1969
, she and Polanski moved into a home Sharon called her “love house,” a place she admired every time she visited her friends Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen there—a private gated property above Beverly Hills in Benedict Canyon at
10050
Cielo Drive.