The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [61]
James Douglas Muir Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, feeling like a townie in a village dominated by its illustrious prep school, Phillips Academy. His exposure to that elite world gave Leno insight into what he concluded was the fundamental prep school mentality: class superiority. Jay himself was a child totally outside the WASP culture. His father, Angelo, son of Italian immigrants, was a popular insurance salesman for Prudential, and the family took pride—“That’s our company!”—when those “piece of the rock” commercials would play on television during shows of the fifties like Victory at Sea. His mother, Cathryn Muir, had survived a difficult childhood. She was sent to America from Scotland at age eleven to live with an older sister, because her mother had abandoned the family for a younger man and her father couldn’t afford to take care of all his children at home. Her formal education never extended past second grade. As Jay saw it, the experience had left her with an air of sadness that permeated her life.
Jay was born when Cathryn was forty-one, and his only sibling—a brother, Patrick—was ten years older. Jay acknowledged that he had never been close to Patrick, which had in part to do with their age difference, but also with the fact that Patrick was remarkably gifted academically. He was one of the top students in New England in high school and won an ROTC scholarship to Yale. After graduation he became an army officer, serving in Vietnam, and then it was on to law school. For a woman who never had a chance to get beyond second grade in elementary school, this outstanding, high-achieving son was naturally a source of huge pride.
At the same time that she basked in the glory of Patrick’s intellectual accomplishments, Cathryn Leno found herself often trudging off to school in Andover to hear about the latest embarrassing tribulation her younger son had brought upon the family. Teachers discussed Jay’s lack of attention and his apparent interest only in cutting up and amusing his classmates. The highlight of this experience, as Jay wove the tale (and fair context demands a note that Jay can be a world-class fabulist in the service of a humorous story), took place with a guidance counselor in high school, Mr. Neal, who decided that Cathryn had to be brought in for a conference. Jay always claimed he “overheard” the subsequent conversation: “Mrs. Leno, have you thought of taking Jamie out of school? He works at McDonald’s now and he seems to like that. Maybe he would do better at something like that. You know, education’s not for everyone, Mrs. Leno.”
As Jay remembered it, his mother was furious, telling Mr. Neal she had never heard of a guidance counselor suggesting a child be taken out of school. “Well, he’s disruptive,” the counselor complained. And then his mother took a stand, saying she was not doing anything of the sort and Jamie would stay in school to get his high school diploma.
Whether actually diagnosed or not, Jay made reference to his school difficulties by explaining, “I’m a little dyslexic.” His mother’s reaction to this was what Jay came to call her mantra: “You know you’re going to have to work a lot harder than the other kids to get the same things they have.” Leno seared that advice into his psyche. If he wasn’t as gifted as other kids—later, other comics—he would hit them where they might be weak: their work ethic. Leno especially loved to tell one story about his early days as Tonight Show host. He was at his post at home, as usual, writing jokes for the next day’s monologue, when he turned on the TV and saw a competitor. (Jay didn’t mention the name because he had resolved his differences with the rival, and good relations carried enormous weight with Jay, but it was pretty obviously Arsenio Hall.) “There he was sitting at the Lakers game,” Jay recalled. “And I thought, ‘Got ya! I’ll have a monologue