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• "Ed McMahon: Television's singular sidekick signs off"
• "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger remembers Ed McMahon"
• Mr. McMahon's bio

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Tavis pays tribute to the legendary TV showman Ed McMahon. (11:56)
 

Tavis: In November of 2005, legendary late night sidekick Ed McMahon joined us for a conversation about his memoir, "Here's Johnny." But McMahon's life was so much more than just his time on "The Tonight Show." He was a decorated Marine fighter pilot who served in both World War II and the Korean War and long before there was "American Idol," Ed McMahon helped launch the careers of a generation of young performers as the host of "Star Search."

He also became synonymous with Labor Day weekend as the co-host of the most famous fundraising event in TV history, the NBA telethon. As I began our conversation I asked him about the two words he would always be remembered for.

[Begin interview clip]

Tavis: Ed McMahon, what an honor to have you on my program.

Ed McMahon: Thank you, sir. An honor to be with you.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you here, sir.

McMahon: And I told you when I met you - we've never met in all our travels, I don't think so. Anyway, my assistant, when I left, she said, "Oh, you've got to tell me when that's going to be on because he's the best thing that ever happened." "Well," she said, "Next to you." (Laughter)

Tavis: As long you're writing checks for her, I can't be the best thing that ever happened to her. What's her name?

McMahon: Lena.

Tavis: Hi, Lena

McMahon: Hi, Lena, okay.

Tavis: Hold the last name. Hi, Lena - there you go. Nice to have you watch the program.

When I introduced you to the show a moment ago and I called the title of the book, "Here's Johnny", and just now when I reintroduced you again, I really want to try to do the Ed McMahon thing, but I wouldn't touch it.

McMahon: I'll do it for you. Are you ready?

Tavis: Please, please. Okay.

McMahon: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, here's Tavis." (Laughter)

Tavis: Oh, I love it! (Laughter) That clip will live in infamy. I will hold on to that clip forever. I only raise that because that phrase is known around the world and if you had a dime - well, you are wealthy. I was about to say if you had a dime, I suspect, for every person who's walked up to you over the years and said that to you, you'd be independently wealthy.

McMahon: Yeah. Well, I do it now, I do it for whatever. Everybody in the world has a phone that's also a camera and so they say, "I'm getting my wife on the phone, would you say hello?" And of course, I do the - well, then everything is covered.

But I thought of that, oddly enough, just that afternoon. I wanted something, I just felt it wasn't enough just to introduce "Here's Johnny Carson." That didn't seem enough to me. And Hugh Downs, the predecessor of my role, kind of, he had a great little catch phrase - "Yours truly, Hugh Downs," and that kind of stuck in my mind.

I was a big fan of "The Tonight Show;" watched it from day one, all of the different hosts of the show. So anyway, all afternoon I couldn't come up with it, all weekend. But when I did radio in Philadelphia, when a guy's name was Roger, for some reason, I would do something with the R. I would say, "Here he is, Roger." The R seems to have a roll in it; there's something in an R. And I thought of it in the last minute and I did it that night.

Now, the next morning I knew I was on to something. Every place I walked at NBC, it came back to me - "Here's Johnny." Everywhere I went. And I knew I was on to something. And I never discussed it with anybody; I never said to Johnny I'm going to do this. I never told anybody. I just did it and it became something out of nothing.

Tavis: You write in this book, "Through the years, many people felt that on 'The Tonight Show' I did nothing at all. Their dismissal of my work was the highest flattery."

McMahon: Yes.

Tavis: Explain.

McMahon: Well, the fact that I was not - I didn't intrude. I liken it to playing basketball with Michael Jordan. You're going down the court, he gets caught, trapped, he throws the ball to me. I get a couple of things, I throw it back to him, and we work our way down the court, but he sinks the basket.

Now at the end, all you know is that Michael Jordan got two points. Whoever helped him get down there didn't get any points, didn't do anything, but you know that Michael Jordan did. But I know. So I knew what I was doing and it was so nice when people recognized it - they thought I did nothing.

Fred DeCordova one night, late at night at Chasen's, the old great restaurant that we don't have anymore, unfortunately, late at night after a great meal, a couple of peppy martinis (laughter) and we're sipping our brandy, and he looked at me and he said, "I don't know what the hell you do, Ed, but you're the best at it I've ever seen." (Laughter)

Tavis: (Laughter) Oh, man. Tell me, though, what kind of - I suspect, especially in this business, it takes, though, a strong constitution to know in the inside that your contribution is valuable and to not have that as recognized as the guy you're sitting next to every night. You've got to have a strong constitution to deal with that every day.

McMahon: Well, I was satisfied with all of the other things. There were so many other things I did. "The Tonight Show," Johnny used to kid me - "He only comes by here to pick up his mail," because I had "Star Search," I had "Bloopers and Practical Jokes" with -

Tavis: - Dick Clark, yeah.

McMahon: - Dick Clark. I did a show called "Whodunnit," a prime time show about a detective kind of thing. I did a lot of other things and appeared on all of the other shows, so "The Tonight Show" was the well, and my mother said, "Never to get too far from the well." I knew where all the attention stemmed from, but I did so many other things on my own that in one that I was able to - it didn't bother me.

And I loved - by the way, this is important - I loved being a second banana. I loved that challenge. Every night, sitting next to him, never knowing where we were going. There was no compass, no roadmap, we just went. It was like holding on to a bullet. You didn't know where it was going to go, but there you were. I loved that role, I really did.

Tavis: You mentioned your mother earlier. Speaking of your mother, let me take you all the way back to Philadelphia. You - and speaking of Dick Clark as well - you and Dick Clark were neighbors in Philadelphia and what you really wanted to do with your life was to be in radio.

At one point, you had not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, not eight, not nine, not 10 nor 11 or 12 - at one point, you had, like, 13 radio gigs.

McMahon: No, television. I had 13 television -

Tavis: I mean television.

McMahon: When I got called back for the Korean War - I was a Marine fighter pilot in World War II and I was called back for the Korean War. So when I got called back, I was doing 13 shows, not just the star of the show. In many of the shows I was the writer and the producer because we were very short-handed.

This is back in '50, the early 1950's. I went off to the Korean War in '52. So I started in '49. Television was very new and young at that time so whatever came along, there I was and I did it. So I did have 13 shows on the air.

Tavis: I do one radio show and one TV show and it kills me. I don't know how you did 13 TV shows at once. (Laughter)

McMahon: Yeah, it was wonderful. (Laughter)

Tavis: Talk about a multi-tasker - that's like the ultimate in multi-tasking. There's so much good stuff in this book and time doesn't allow me to even do justice to it, but what was that thing that made this guy Johnny Carson so -

McMahon: Well, I think the best thing about him was that he was from the Midwest and he had a Midwestern ethic. There's kind of an ethic about a guy from the Midwest that I got to know over the years -

Tavis: Nebraska.

McMahon: Yeah, that he - you don't wave your laundry, you don't show off, you don't say, "Look how great I am." You're really like the kid next - oh, there's a shot I love. Is this the great shot? (Laughter) Look at that. You can imagine, Tavis, I carried him for 34 years, okay? (Laughter)

Anyway, there's a quality about that, that ethic, and everybody thinks - I hate it when people say he was a recluse. He was not a recluse, he was a private man. He loved being on the camera. He loved that red light. When the red light looked at him, boy, he loved looking back at it. And he was great there.

It's in the book. He said, "Ed, I'm great with 10 million, I'm lousy with 10," and it was so true. But that's what made him. He was like Peck's bad boy, the kid next door - oh, it's Johnny. He got away with little kind of risqué material once in a while, but who cared? It was Johnny, it was okay. And I think that that quality of being like a neighbor, like the kid next door, made it work.

Tavis: At any point in that 30-year TV stint, that second banana, did you ever at any point think about, for any reason, walking away, leaving it?

McMahon: No, I never wanted to leave him. I was offered a lot of things. I was offered - I was supposed to be the host of the first "Entertainment Tonight." The producer of that was the producer of "Star Search" and I later worked with him, but he wanted me for that show in a bad way.

They couldn't guarantee me that it wouldn't go before or after "The Tonight Show," and my contract, I couldn't do a show before or after "The Tonight Show," so I didn't do that. They wanted me to be the host of "Good Morning, America" when that started, and I did go in to talks with them and negotiation.

I said I couldn't do it; it was just too much, because my - as I said earlier, that was the well. I knew everything was going to come from there - every movie I did, every appearance I made, whatever it was, it all stemmed from my being on "The Tonight Show."

Tavis: Of all the things I admire about Johnny Carson - this is just Tavis talking - one of the things that stands out for me, and I've used this example a thousand times, I have never in my short lifetime seen anybody walk away from that much limelight and never appear to have missed it at all, didn't have any issues with trying to make a comeback. How are you the king of late-night TV in all of history and just walk away but never get bothered by it?

McMahon: Yeah. I thought he would come back and do something. I thought he might do a very humorous astrology show because he used to do - we'd do a character, he would do -

Tavis: - Carnac, mm-hmm.

McMahon: - Sagan, and it was wonderful, funny stuff. But he really knew astronomy. He knew all of that astronomy and he would - in his house - did I say astrology? I meant to say astronomy. Anyway, he would have telescopes all over the place and he would really know that and he could explain that to the people in a humorous way. I thought he would do that on PBS or something like that, but he didn't do it.

Tavis: Well, he didn't do that, but I'm glad you have done this, and this is the new book by Ed McMahon called "Here's Johnny: My Memories of Johnny Carson, 'The Tonight Show' and 46 Years of Friendship."

I had the chance to sit in the audience once on "The Tonight Show -" one time, I sat in the audience. I sat there in the audience one time, but I would never have imagined I'd have you sitting on my set, so an honor to have you here.

McMahon: Oh, thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.

[End interview clip]

Tavis: Ed McMahon was as kind and generous a person to me as he appeared to be on television. He passed away here in L.A. earlier this week at the age of 86.