Johnny Carson: A Look at the iconic figure through the lens of Bill Zehme and Mike Thomas

On this week’s episode of You Are What You Read, we are traveling back in time to 1962 when the one-and-only Johnny Carson redefined late-night television as host of The Tonight Show. Traveling with us, is Mike Thomas with the best selling biography he co-wrote with Bill Zehme, Carson the Magnificent. In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Following Carson’s passing in 2005, Zehme embarked on an exhaustive nearly decade-long research journey, interviewing dozens of Carson’s colleagues and friends to craft this biography, although his efforts were halted by a cancer diagnosis. ” Mike Thomas, Zehme’s former research assistant, completed Carson the Magnificent to offer this honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices