The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [142]
I don’t know, it seems like I’ve spent way too much time in my life concentrating on just one thing—the work. And the older I get, it now seems like maybe that was not necessarily the thing to spend all my time on. Because after almost eleven years, it’s not like we’ve got it figured out. I think to myself, “We’re doing something wrong, we’ve misplaced part of the instructions,” because after all this time, it’s still hard, and you would think at this stage of things it would be easier. I don’t think Carson ever went home with his stomach in knots because Sharon Stone was in tears.
Sharon Stone was in tears?
In fairness to me, Howard Stern made her cry in the greenroom—it wasn’t me. What a baby.
The Talk Show Wars were first made a gruesome spectacle when NBC fired Leno’s irascible manager-producer, Helen Kushnick. Did you ever feel the effects of her hardball tactics?
It was mostly just something in the air that we’d rather have done without. We were closely tied to it because we’re back-to-back on the same network and booking a lot of the same guests. But it was more of a nuisance in theory than in reality. She was just trying to do the best job she could possibly do for Jay and for the show. People operate in different ways.
Life at NBC turned especially ugly before the holidays. You labeled it “the Happy Network.”
That last day it just seemed like the sky had opened up. There was all this friction—and it had little to do with me. Even if Johnny were still hosting The Tonight Show, I’d do myself a great disservice if I didn’t explore other possibilities after ten, eleven years in one spot. The thing that’s made it so dramatic is the situation with The Tonight Show and my alleged bitterness. But I was disappointed that I didn’t get the show. I would have loved to try to follow Carson.
If you had aggressively campaigned for the job—which Jay reportedly did with NBC big shots—do you think things might have turned out differently?
Well, in regard to The Tonight Show when Johnny was still there, it would have hurt my feelings if he’d thought that I was politicking for his job. I mean, Carson was still sitting up and taking solid food—who am I to be sliding up and saying, “Oh, by the way, Johnny, when you step down—and we’re not saying you’re close, you understand—let’s grease it for me to step in”? Who could be that presumptuous? So what I did was take every opportunity, if asked, to go on record as saying, “Yes, I would like to be considered for the job.” I wasn’t comfortable with anything more than that. Because in essence what I would be saying was, “John, the clock is ticking, it’s time to go.”
Have you spoken to Jay amid all this stuff?
I speak to Jay now with the same regularity that I have always spoken to Jay. Which is not much. There’s no ill will personally. If I felt I was deprived of something that was rightfully mine, if I had fantasies about being hoodwinked or misled—then there might be ill will. I’m not the kind of person that wants to see somebody else fail on television. Whatever the future holds, I’m in pretty good shape. So, no, I’m not upset with NBC, I’m not upset with Jay.
I guess a case could be made that maybe Bush is upset with Clinton, because George didn’t get the job and Bill did. So what? Who among us hasn’t endured disappointment in our life? But for me to be upset with Jay, you would have to suppose that he did something hurtful and awful to me by being hired as the host of The Tonight Show. And I would guess that you could look long and hard and not find evidence of that.
Your relationship with him has great ironic overtones in that you’ve credited him with being among your primary comic inspirations.
Oh, without question. As he’s probably been for a whole batch of other guys who came after me. He was the best—and still is—as far as stand-up