The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [40]
Conan hedged: Lorne needed to talk to his agent.
Polone, the new agent, didn’t have to concern himself with sounding ludicrous. He was representing a client. He flat out told Lorne to forget the producer thing: “Conan should star in the show.” He wasn’t, in fact, entirely serious. In the back of his mind he was thinking about the 1:35 show. That was Polone’s real plan—insist on the 12:35 job in order to get the 1:35 job. Like everyone else, he expected NBC to go after Garry Shandling for the Letterman job. Who in his right mind was going to suggest Conan over Shandling? Polone was now doing precisely that, but nobody could ever accuse him of being in his right mind where a client was concerned.
The issue never really came to a head, because before Polone could push any harder Conan weighed back in. As he had pondered it, in between Simpsons writing sessions, Lorne’s idea grew less and less appealing. Finally, kicking it around in his head one night, Conan had a violent reaction to the whole notion. He decided he just had to get out of this.
Conan called Lorne in New York to tell him thanks, but “I can’t do it.”
Michaels did not hide his disappointment. He had been counting on Conan; that was one thing about this acid-inducing situation that he had been depending on getting off his plate with minimum trouble. The conversation became a bit unpleasant, the first time Conan had ever had that kind of interaction with Lorne. But when they hung up, Conan all but fell back in his chair, overcome with relief. His only thought was: I’m out of it. I’m done.
Lorne Michaels, never fazed when a live show looked as if it was about to implode, was hardly going to be ruffled by not having an easy answer to the question of who was going to succeed David Letterman. He did have a strong conviction that his choice needed to be new and fresh: No one was going to be able to stand up as a match with Letterman, so why try anyone familiar? At least a new name might start out under the radar and get a chance to grow. And young was essential, because the only way to break a new name in late night was to grab the same crowd that had made Letterman a star—college kids.
Even with Conan out of the picture, Lorne believed he had one element solved that would give him some degree of confidence. He would turn the daily control of the show over to Jeff Ross, a producer he had groomed for years for just this kind of assignment. Ross, who started as a road manager for Diana Ross (a job that included managing her famous stormy-weather concert in Central Park in 1983), segued into television when Michaels invited him to produce a series for a Canadian sketch comedy troupe, the Kids in the Hall, in 1989.
Ross wound up working on multiple projects for Michaels, including another Central Park concert, this one starring Lorne’s close friend Paul Simon. Ross had just come off a root canal of an assignment, producing a special with the comedian Dennis Miller—known for being difficult to work with—when Michaels proposed that Jeff become the executive producer of the Late Night show Lorne was assembling for NBC.
Ross knew he should be flattered—and he was—because this was obviously a potential career-making assignment. But he admitted to Lorne, “I don’t know if I want to do it.” He knew he couldn’t simply reject an offer like this, but the prospect of building a show that was supposed to follow a groundbreaking, industry-changing icon like David Letterman struck Ross as overwhelmingly daunting.
Lorne assumed Jeff would simply come around, and when he next approached Ross, it was in LA. “Are you going to produce this show for me?” Michaels asked.
Ross told him he was still thinking about it, but it would depend on who the host was.
Michaels looked incredulous. “What do you mean it depends on the host?