For almost 30 years as host of "The Tonight Show," Johnny Carson was the last face millions of viewers saw before they closed their eyes and went to sleep. Carson, the critic David Thomson once noted, was "an American ideal and a mystery man, agreeable and withdrawn … always there, never graspable."

"Carson the Magnificent" was written by journalists Bill Zehme (author of biographies of Frank Sinatra and comedian Andy Kaufman) and Mike Thomas ("The Second City Unscripted"), who completed the book after Zehme died in 2023. They drew on archival research and dozens of interviews to provide an immensely informative and insightful account of the personal and professional life of this heretofore inscrutable entertainment icon.

Born and raised in Nebraska, Carson was a bright, well-mannered, reserved child, starved for approval and affection from his mother. At 14, he fell in love with magic, performing under the name "Carsoni," and got hooked on applause. After college and a short stint in the Navy at the end of World War II, Carson embarked on a career as a comedian.

In 1954, he got a big break as a stand-in for Red Skelton, who sustained a concussion during a rehearsal. He earned his own program, "The Johnny Carson Show," a prime-time variety show that ran on CBS from 1955-1956. After five years as host of a TV quiz program, "Who Do You Trust?," a knockoff of Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life," NBC tapped him to take over "The Tonight Show."

The program, Carson later recalled, featured "live, immediate entertainment," the "experimental, low-key thing" he liked best. Success, Zehme and Thomas add, depended on poise, timing, a lively personality and illusory misdirection, the staples of both magic and standup comedy.

"Carson the Magnificent" is full of compelling vignettes about "The Tonight Show." Because Johnny wanted to wear sport jackets and slacks on air, Ed McMahon, his second banana, was told to wear nothing but suits. Bandleader Skitch Henderson did not understand Carson's failure to chat with him backstage. And Johnny didn't remember why he first pantomimed the golf swing that punctuated the end of every opening monologue.

Carson's laid back persona, Zehme and Thomas demonstrate, was not always in evidence in his personal life. His four marriages were marred by infidelity and bouts of verbal abuse, fueled by alcohol. He appears to have been an absentee father to his three sons. He had not given nearly as much time and energy to his family, Carson acknowledged, as he had to the show.

Carson the Magnificent
Carson the Magnificent

After he announced his retirement, Carson asked his audience to help wean him off the show by lining up in front of his house for a couple of hours every day, to watch him deliver a monologue while sitting behind a desk and tapping a pencil. He was joking, of course. According to Zehme and Thomas, he didn't seem to miss the action or adulation.

That said, fellow talk show host and big fan David Letterman had it right: When Carson left, it was "like watching a relative fade off from a coma to the other world. The screen goes black and the television's off and Johnny's gone."

Glenn C. Altschuler is an emeritus professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

Carson the Magnificent

By: Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 296 pages, $30.