The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [42]
“Whatever this audition is going to be, you need to meet with Jeff Ross,” Michaels told him. “Jeff’s going to produce it. You guys should arrange to get together and talk it out.” Conan agreed, took Ross’s number, and called as soon as they hung up.
He introduced himself to Ross, who had obviously been waiting for the contact. “Where are you?” Conan asked. Ross told him he was staying at the Four Seasons—a very short walk from his apartment on Wetherly. “I’ll come over and meet you in the lobby,” Conan said.
When he arrived, he called Ross, who said he’d be right down. As he waited Conan looked around and noticed that directly past the concierge’s post in the lobby was a small officelike room with a faux fireplace. It also had a desk. Without hesitating, he slid into the chair behind it.
When Ross entered the lobby a few seconds later, he quickly spotted the guy he was looking for: really tall, really red. Ross walked over and held out his hand. “I’m Jeff.”
Conan extended his arms wide over the desk, slapped both hands down on top of it, and said, “Whaddya think?”
“Well,” said Ross, looking at this guy behind a desk in a hotel lobby pretending to be on television and wondering just how crazy this was going to get. “I, uh . . . I—I . . . guess?”
Conan had only a couple of weeks to get ready. He worked on writing a little monologue, but had to cover a few more bases. Not only did he own no suits, but he didn’t even own a sports coat. He contacted Lisa Kudrow, his one female confidante at that point in his life, and they went jacket shopping. They picked out a pale linen sports coat—a little casual, yes, but that was what they were going for. What they weren’t going for would only become apparent on the air—a pale coat on a pale face was not a good look.
Polone weighed in with some help. The actress Mimi Rogers was a friend; she agreed to act as a first guest. Larry Charles, one of the top Seinfeld writers, was a Polone client; he helped get Jason Alexander as a second guest. NBC carved out some time in Jay’s studio at The Tonight Show. Ross took care of the details, and though the process was rushed, it would do as a reasonable facsimile of a late-night show.
On the evening of April 13, 1993, Conan arrived at the Tonight studio, possibly among the few present who could compare what was about to take place to a Pirandello play—though almost all of them surely appreciated that it was all a little absurd. Ross fell easily into the flow of production, but he more than anyone else recognized just how bizarre the situation was. This kid nobody knew was going to sit on the set of The Tonight Show and try to justify NBC’s picking him to replace David Letterman. It was totally nuts.
Conan was not suffused with fear—this was nothing like Harvard and the Radcliffe Pitches. It was too crazy to get wound up about. Sure, it loomed like the ramp onto that dreamscape freeway, but the circumstances of how it had come together were so bizarre. Why get overwrought about something that wasn’t actually real?
Robert Smigel had checked in to help with a few of the jokes. The Tonight Show researchers had dug up information Conan could use in talking to Rogers and Alexander. All he had to do was walk out and pretend he knew what he was doing.
Conan waited for that night’s taping of The Tonight Show to end. As he hung out in the hallway backstage, Jay came by after closing the show. Spotting the tall guy in the ill-fitting coat—he had obviously been clued in to what NBC was up to—he stopped briefly and said, “Oh, Conan,” in his earnestly pleasant way. “Oh, hey!” Jay’s greeting seemed to echo in the air like a distant train whistle as he went by.
After the seats were cleared the audition audience was brought in, many of them NBC types, others guests of either Conan or Polone. A few minutes before he was to go on, someone told Conan he had a call in the control room. It was Lorne, back in New York. He would be watching on the satellite feed.
“So listen,” Lorne was saying in his apparently half-distracted way, lowering the flame