Johnny Carson

John William Carson was born on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, the second of three children born to Ruth Elizabeth Carson and Homer Lloyd Carson, a power company manager. He grew up in several Iowa towns, including Avoca, Clarinda, and Red Oak, before his family relocated to Norfolk, Nebraska, when he was eight years old. At twelve, Carson discovered a book on magic at a friend's home and subsequently ordered a mail-order magician's kit, practicing card tricks on family members. His mother sewed him a cape, and he gave his first public performance before the local Kiwanis Club, billing himself as "The Great Carsoni" at age fourteen and earning three dollars per show.

Carson enlisted in the United States Navy on June 8, 1943, receiving officer training through the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Columbia University and Millsaps College. Commissioned as an ensign near the end of the war, he was assigned to the USS Pennsylvania in the Pacific, arriving on August 14, 1945, the day Imperial Japan announced its surrender. While the ship was in drydock in Guam following torpedo damage, Carson was assigned to damage control and tasked with supervising the removal of the bodies of twenty servicemen. He later described the experience in an unpublished 1967 Time magazine interview. Carson also served as an amateur boxer aboard the Pennsylvania and finished his military service decoding encrypted messages. He later recalled that a personal highlight of his Navy years was performing a card trick for Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal.

Following his discharge, Carson enrolled at the University of Nebraska under the educational benefits provided by the Navy, joining the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and continuing to perform magic at twenty-five dollars per appearance. He initially majored in journalism with the goal of becoming a comedy writer before switching to speech and drama to pursue a career in radio. His senior thesis, titled "How to Write Comedy for Radio," combined taped skits and jokes from popular radio programs with Carson providing explanatory voice-over commentary, enabling him to complete his degree in three years. He graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts in radio and speech and a minor in physics.

Carson launched his broadcasting career in 1950 at WOW-AM and WOW-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, where he hosted a morning television program called The Squirrel's Nest. A connection through the wife of an Omaha political figure led him to Los Angeles television station KNXT in 1951, where he produced and hosted the low-budget sketch comedy program Carson's Cellar from 1951 to 1953. Comedian Red Skelton, a fan of the show, invited Carson to join his writing staff in 1953. The following year, Skelton knocked himself unconscious during rehearsal an hour before a live broadcast, and Carson stepped in to fill the role successfully. In 1955, Jack Benny invited Carson to appear on one of his programs, and Benny predicted Carson would have a successful career as a comedian. Carson went on to host the game show Earn Your Vacation in 1954 and the variety program The Johnny Carson Show from 1955 to 1956.

After the primetime Johnny Carson Show ended, Carson moved to New York City, where in 1957 he appeared on Broadway in the comedy The Tunnel of Love. That same year he began hosting ABC's daytime program Who Do You Trust?, a position he held until 1962. It was on that program that Carson first worked alongside Ed McMahon, who would become his longtime sidekick and straight man. Carson also served as a guest panelist on the original To Tell the Truth beginning in 1960, becoming a regular panelist from 1961 to 1962.

Carson's work on Who Do You Trust? brought him to the attention of NBC, which invited him to take over the late-night Tonight show from Jack Paar in 1962. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ran from 1962 to 1992, establishing Carson as one of the most recognized figures in American television. His conversational style and quick wit distinguished his approach to the format. Over the course of his career, Carson received six Primetime Emmy Awards, the Television Academy's Governor's Award in 1980, and a Peabody Award in 1985. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993. Carson retired from The Tonight Show in 1992 and died on January 23, 2005.