BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN (9 page)

And when it came time for the baritone singer to rehearse, I was shocked to see he requested cue cards. Singers often used cue cards, but not for their biggest hits. When George actually began singing the song, I changed my tune. His rendition was a tear jerker. It was perfect!

Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson

When
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
debuted on May 25, 1992, Jay did not make any reference to Johnny Carson at the insistence of his then executive producer, Helen Kushnick. Jay knew it was a terrible mistake at the time and eventually did right by Johnny during the farewell broadcast, February 6, 2014, almost twenty-two years later. Calling his iconic predecessor “the greatest guy ever to do this job,” Jay signed off the way Johnny used to: “I bid you all a heartfelt goodnight.”

Jay also devoted an entire show to Johnny after he died on January 23, 2005. He dropped the monologue to spend more time honoring Johnny’s memory. We invited the late Ed McMahon, who had been Johnny’s sidekick and announcer for thirty years, to join Jay in the tribute broadcast. Ed said Johnny was like a “brother” and shared stories about recent phone conversations he had with his old boss. His presence helped draw fourteen million viewers.

We owed Ed a favor for that appearance, and he called it in later that year, asking to come on to promote a new book he had written about Johnny appropriately called
Here’s Johnny
!
The book was filled with positive anecdotes, but the Carson family was reportedly not happy about it, as the legendary host valued his privacy and deliberately avoided the limelight during his retirement years.

This put us in a difficult position because we didn’t want to offend either Johnny’s family or Ed. We ended up booking Ed, but Jay played down the book, giving it only an obligatory mention. No one complained, and
Here’s Johnny!
became a bestseller.

Nevertheless, Ed died broke four years later at the age of eighty-six. He had amassed debts of nearly $1.5 million even though he had made millions over the years as Johnny’s sidekick.

Paula Abdul

Simon Cowell is one of the most entertaining people on American television, but his public persona as a grumpy, cantankerous guy is mostly an act. He’s actually polite and easygoing. His fellow judge and sparring partner on
American Idol
and
The X Factor
Paula Abdul wasn’t playing a character. She was, indeed, as ditsy as she appeared. She was also complicated. For twelve years she was secretly struggling with an addiction to painkillers she had originally taken to ease the pain caused by arduous dance routines. Her behavior was consistently erratic. She would cancel appearances for strange reasons, and when she did show up, her speech was often so slurred we could barely understand her. But we always gave her a pass because she seemed normal on air. Well, normal enough.

Greeting her before a show was awkward. I was really there to make sure she was coherent enough to appear. I dreaded the thought of telling her we would have to cancel her segment; and, as it turned out, I never did. But there were times when I wasn’t sure what to do. It was a tough call. Many guests would get tipsy with just one glass of wine. Where do you draw the line? I reasoned that she was a professional who had always come through in the past, not only on
The Tonight Show
but also on
American Idol
and
The X Factor.
So why did we keep booking Paula? Ratings! She was very popular. Part of her appeal, ironically, was that you never knew what she might say, particularly about Simon. I think she was attracted to him, and in her heightened state of awareness she often dealt with it like a giddy school girl. People loved it.

In 2007, Jay asked Paula about a story that reported she thought of Simon as either a big brother or a lover. She denied the latter, saying she would rather have a “surprise colonic.” But she did own up to the former. Then she talked about her experience as a guest judge on the British version of
The X Factor.
She said Simon caressed her back to comfort her after one of her favorite contestants was voted off, but he warned her not to expect that kind of treatment in the States. Her face lit up, as it always did, when she gossiped about Simon. That was for real. There was nothing phony about Paula.

Jerry Mathers

In February 2001, Jerry Mathers of
Leave It to Beaver
fame was part of a parody our writers came up with of CBS’s
Survivor.
It was called
Hollywood’s Ultimate Survivor.
He was joined by Charlene Tilton (
Dallas
)
,
Gary Coleman (
Diff’rent Strokes
), Danny Bonaduce (
The Partridge Family
), Dawn Wells (
Gilligan’s Island
), Florence Henderson (
The Brady Bunch
), Adam Rich (Eight Is Enough), and Alison Arngrim (
Little House on the Prairie
). The group competed against each other for the title “Hollywood’s Ultimate Survivor.” In the four-week competition, patterned after
Survivor,
these eight stars were “marooned” in a separate studio, divided into two teams and pitted against each other in a series of silly games. After each game, the losing tribe had to vote a member off the set. The celebrities were put through the rigors of such challenges as searching through mud to find a match that would light an aromatherapy candle and participating in a “repulsive food” relay race, which involved eating whole brussels sprouts, Spam, poached fish eyes, and giant grub worms.

Finally, it got down to two survivors, Jerry Mathers and Florence Henderson. They competed against each other, and the six losers, who were then named as members of a tribal council, helped determine the winner. Jerry and Florence were given fifteen seconds to explain why they should be named “Hollywood’s Ultimate Survivor
.
” Florence said she enjoyed being with everybody on the “island;” “the Beav” said he had no hard feelings and working with the other stars was great. The tribal council voted for the Beav, who walked away with the trophy but almost didn’t survive the experience. A month later, Jerry went to the doctor after experiencing stomach pains and having lost fifteen pounds. Tests revealed the grub worm, known as a Suri, had chewed through his intestinal lining, causing rectal bleeding, intestinal cramps, and diarrhea. Suris, common in the Amazon, grow to be about four inches long and have “sharp, biting pincers.” The creatures are, indeed, edible live, but the natives always bite the heads off first.

“This was a race and I didn’t have time to study what they were giving me to eat. It was just bam! And I swallowed it,” Jerry told the
Daily Telegraph
in Sydney, Australia. His manager, Brian McInerney, said the Beav nearly died as a result. “I was dazed and confused,” Jerry said. “They put intravenous tubes into me. It took three or four days before my body could even tolerate food.”

All turned out well. According to Richmond.com, Jay called Jerry several times to apologize and to check on his condition. He eventually recovered. And just as one would expect from the good-natured Beav, he never sued
The Tonight Show
or NBC over the incident.

Robin Williams

No one was ever funnier or had more energy than Robin Williams. He worked very hard on his material and then would often set it aside and improvise. And he was always on, even when the camera wasn’t. In 1992, he played Peter Pan in the film
Hook.
My two kids loved it and jumped at the chance when I offered to take them to the show to meet Robin the night he came on to promote the film. When Robin saw the little ones, he bent down to their level and asked them if they had any questions. My four-year-old son, David, wanted to know how he could fly. Without missing a beat, Robin replied: “A little magic and very tight pants.” Both the kids and the adults laughed, but for different reasons!

During another guest spot some years later, Robin
“killed” as usual with a variety of antics. After the taping, Robin
and the other guests joined Jay to shoot a quick promotion that would be aired that night on local NBC stations. Such promos were routine, but what happened next wasn’t. Robin
tripped over an audio speaker and fell onto the hard studio floor, injuring his arm. The audience laughed, thinking he was just doing another pratfall. Ever the performer, he made the accident look like a stunt, as he clutched his arm and let out exaggerated howls of agony. In fact, though, he was feeling severe pain and was immediately taken to a hospital in Burbank where doctors determined he had dislocated his shoulder.

Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless, star of the hit television series
Xena
:
Warrior Princess
, performed most of the stunts on her show without any major injuries. But the plucky New Zealand native wasn’t so lucky at
Tonight,
where she was seriously injured while doing a routine stunt for a taped comedy sketch in October 1996. She was riding a horse that slipped on the studio parking lot tarmac and fell on her, fracturing her pelvis. I was in my office at the time, but a colleague who witnessed the mishap
said it happened in the blink of an eye. All of a sudden, Lucy
was on the ground, crying out in excruciating pain. Someone called 911 and Jay immediately ran out of the studio, got down on the ground next to her, and took her hand in an effort to comfort her. He assured her she didn’t have to worry because the show would take care of everything. And he told
her a joke, saying “We’ll even re-book you.” That got a smile out of her. Ever the gracious guest, Lucy blamed herself for the accident and said she hoped it didn’t ruin the show that night.

Paramedics quickly arrived and transported her to the hospital, where she was listed in stable condition. Everyone was grateful her injury wasn’t worse. Still, it was the most severe injury sustained by a guest at the show. Jay said on the air that night how sorry he was and that he wanted Lucy back as soon as possible. In the days that followed, he sent bouquets of flowers to her hospital room, visited her, and called her. Miraculously, Lucy was able to return to the show in only twenty-two days, only this time she wasn’t riding a horse. She was carried on stage by two very muscular men dressed in loincloths, an entrance befitting a warrior princess. She assured everyone she was all right, although she had not fully recovered. Then she related an anecdote about a mysterious visit she had recently made to a fortune teller while vacationing in Turkey. The clairvoyant had warned her: “You are going to get very, very hurt, and a man will fall into your eyes, and he has got a very big chin.” The fortune teller described the man’s hair as long and grey. Lucy said she was lying in a fetal position after the accident and remembered seeing Jay come into her vision just as the fortune teller had predicted. Was she telling the truth or just a tall tale? I worked with Lucy for almost a decade, and she was always a straight shooter. But you never know!

Shirley MacLaine

The 1994 Northridge earthquake in Southern California was one of the worst disasters ever to hit North America. While seismologists attributed the cause to a previously unknown fault nine miles beneath the earth, actress Shirley MacLaine had a different take. She told an audience in Kansas City the quake happened because Mother Nature was sending a message that “she” wasn’t happy with the way we humans were treating the earth.

Shortly after that, I booked Shirley to appear on the show. A writer told me he had an idea for her segment and handed me a sketch of a fake printout from a seismograph. The squiggly lines spelled out the word
repent
in large, bold letters. I thought it would be fun if Jay brought the sketch out during the interview. She was famous for her off-the-wall ideas and usually had a sense of humor about them.

When Shirley showed up for her appearance, I was excited to show her the printout. I thought it would get a big laugh out of her, but I was wrong. She looked at it, gave me an icy stare, and asked: “What part of this do you think is funny?”
Needless to say, the “seismograph printout” was removed
from her segment, and Shirley performed splendidly without it.

I could never bring myself to throw out the modern-day prophetic warning, so I placed it on the wall over my office door. It stayed there for fifteen years, enduring several more earthquakes.

Abigail and Spencer Breslin

There’s an old adage in show business: Never follow kids or animals. Cute kids and furry creatures are a draw, but there’s a downside with kids. Hollywood is full of very messed-up adults who were once child actors. I witnessed the ruin of many young lives over the years. It was so common that whenever a child actor debuted on the show my colleagues would speculate how long it would take him or her to go over to “the dark side.” Six months? One year? Two? It was dark humor, but often when the child returned for a second appearance they were already showing noticeable signs of disrespect for their parents and handlers. In subsequent visits, it got even worse. It was sad to watch cute, smart kids turn into spoiled brats—and then monsters—in only a few years. Not all cases were this extreme, but suffice it to say that Hollywood was not a family-friendly place.

There were some notable exceptions, especially Abigail
and Spencer
Breslin
, who were entertaining guests and wonderful kids. Best known for his roles in Disney’s
The Kid, The Santa Clause
film sequels, and
The Cat in the Hat,
Spencer
first came on the show at age four. Abigail
made her debut appearance at age eight and had often accompanied her brother in the dressing room during his guest spots. She was in
Signs, Little Miss Sunshine
(for which she received an Oscar nomination), and Broadway’s
The Miracle Worker.
Thanks to their mom and manager, Kim, Abigail
and Spencer
lived relatively normal childhoods, attending public schools, going to church, and doing chores like taking care of pets for small weekly allowances. Kim was involved in making decisions about every aspect of their young careers, including the films and television shows they were in. As a result, the Breslin family stayed strong, and the dark side of Hollywood was held at bay.