Still Talking (28 page)

My last Carson show with Johnny-on Friday, April 25was tremendously sentimental for me. I knew it was the end, rounding out the circle. I went on camera with such a feeling of warmth and sadness-really that I was leaving my childhood now, going off on my own. I had sent a copy of Enter Talking over to Johnny in advance with a warm note expressing my gratitude-and the book was dedicated to Edgar, “who made this book happen”

and to Johnny, “who made it all happen.” I was hoping that when he read the dedication he would call, and that maybe then I could ease into the Fox deal on the phone-if it was possible to ease into that. But he never responded.

On the show I wore the original plain black Lanz dress that I had kept, and I found a feather boa like the one I wore in 1965. I opened our segment by giving him a second book and showing him the photograph of us together on the show in 1965, and he just said mildly, “Isn’t that great.” Off camera Freddie De Cordova held up a copy of Enter Talking, pointed to the dedication, and called out, “Read the dedication.” So Johnny had not even riffled through the book and had not received my note. I thought, I’ve been so loyal to Johnny? I’ve been loyal to a stone wall, to a bunch of buildings.

After the show I sat in the car clutching the feather boa, and cried and cried. In spite of the turmoil I was feeling inside, I loved Johnny that night. Everything was still there between us, the relationship on camera, the rapport, breaking each other up, the ESP-it was all there as it had been for twenty-one years. I had just closed the door on the best comedy team since Gracie Allen and George Burns-and I think closing that door hurt him, too.

My regular one-week stint on The Tonight Show came up the following Monday.

It ended on Friday, May 2. During those weeks I had been taping The Tonight Show in the afternoon and flying up to Vegas for Caesars Palace performances. On Monday afternoon, May 5, the day before the announcement, I was in the hotel suite writing jokes, doing mail. About three o’clock Edgar called to say that word of the announcement had leaked. The radio columnist Rona Barrett was going to use the item that night. In a conference call with Barry Diller, he agreed I should call Johnny immediately.

By then it was too late. Brandon Tartikoff, hearing rumors, put two and two together and called the Fox head of programming, Garth Ancier, who used to work for him, and asked if I had signed. Garth Ancier was evasive, and Tartikoff made his deduction and phoned Carson.

I telephoned Johnny’s beach house, and the secretary, very friendly, said, “Oh, yes, Miss Rivers, one moment, he’ll be right here. Hold on.” After a pause she came back and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is.” I made a joke. I said, “He lives in an all-glass house and you don’t know where he is?” I knew I had received my answer-Johnny was furiousbut I left the message that I would call the next morning. I was still dreaming that after a night’s sleep, he would wish me well.

I telephoned Freddie De Cordova. He was shocked. I phoned the Lassallys and had to leave a message on their machine-“Please call me back.”

I flew to Los Angeles late Monday night and was so excited and frightened by this career move, I slept only a couple of hours-was up at seven-fifteen lbesday, nervous, nervous, nervous. I called the NBC executives but

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had to leave messages with their secretaries. I called Johnny at his office, but there was no answer, it was too early. I had to leave for Fox, but in my dressing room I again tried to reach Johnny. Barry Diller was impatient. I was holding up the press conference, and he could not understand why I refused to go out until I had spoken to Johnny. My secretary, Jeri, kept calling NBC, but Carson was not there. Finally I had her call his home, and he answered. She handed me the phone. I said, “Johnny, I …” Click. The moment he heard my voice, Johnny hung up. I put my forehead against the cold wall and wept.

The press coverage of the announcement was terrific, but there was a nearly permanent downside. When I arrived home from the press conference, USA Today called. The Carson/NBC broadside had also begun.

Johnny himself maintained the dignified silence of an abused innocent-except to say to the Associated Press, “I think she was less than smart and didn’t show much style.” But Carson’s hired mouths were out in force, assuming a moral tone as though I had committed some kind of sin.

They wheeled out the usual “unnamed source” who said that if I had given him the news first, Johnny would have “dropped by her show as a guest.”

Johnny is very shrewd. I admire that tremendously. I admire anybody with such longevity. Staying at the top requires what he did to me, takes saying, “This girl is going up against me. Let’s kill her.”

I think the way Johnny found out was a shame. He should have heard from me, and I like to think that I could have made him understand. It must have been a huge shock. Nobody had said to him, “Rivers’s contract is up. Do you want to give her one year or two?” Nobody had said, “The Rivers people have been calling for five months, but we’re stalling them.” Everybody was afraid to go up to Louis XVI and say, “The peasants are restless.” Of course he was astonished.

I think I was always the one discovery Johnny found who did not stray.

Cosby is now bigger than Johnny is. Johnny discovered Richard Pryor-who was a good-bye.

They became equals. I never became equal in his eyes. I myself always relate to people on the level of how we first met. Johnny was always the boss. I think he did not allow himself to see me grow and would have been surprised to learn I could have sold out a five-thousand-seat house.

I think, too, Carson and his people felt I was being ungrateful. My evidence is what Jim Mahoney, Johnny’s representative, told USA Today: “He put her on the show. It was probably the biggest break she ever got in her life. You don’t treat people that way. ” I wonder if they would have talked that way if I were a man. I’m sure if Eddie Murphy had screeched “The Star-Spangled Banner” the way Roseanne Barr did on that baseball field, the crowds would have cheered.

Finally, I think the real thorn was that somebody else wanted me. Nobody at NBC ever imagined that I had another place to go. I believe it was the old dynamic in which familiarity breeds contempt. I still like to think that somebody at an NBC board meeting turned and asked, “Why didn’t you renew her contract?”

I wasn’t surprised to learn Jay Leno was anointed. One, he earned it. 7\vo, we know and like him. And three, his name was already on the list back in 1985! When people ask me, now that Johnny has decided to retire, if I’m sorry I left the show, I say no.

I realized then there was no way in hell I would have succeeded Johnny Carson, so my disappointment would have been thirtyfold if I had stayed.

Instead, I found out so much about myself. Remade a life. In a way, leaving was a blessing.

None of us see ourselves as mean or cold-blooded-but we all protect our kingdoms. Sure, Carson felt terribleand I believe a lot of it was because something that helped his kingdom was being taken away. There was no longer friendship. I see now that there never was.

In the press there were headlines: NOT FUNNY! JOAN

UPSETS TV JOHNNY-JOAN GOES AGAINST HER OLD PAL JOHNNY. There were prejudging digs: “Can Rivers create the kind of atmosphere that will make her weary cavorting less wearying?” I was frightened. If I was treated that

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way now, what would the reviews be like when my show opened in the fall?

As long as I wore Carson’s mantle, they loved me. When he turned on me, they all turned. Part of the power wielded by a major news source like Carson is access. Carson had recently begun to mellow toward reporters and was being somewhat available. Anybody who did not take Johnny’s side would never have any access to him.

But much more important, I had publicly bucked Johnny Carson, something nobody had ever done. There are certain men in Hollywood who are sacred.

George Burns is one. You cannot say anything negative about Bob Hope. I had stepped on the American flag, and when you do that, the old-boy system will kill you.

I think many of the male press have never understood what I was doing and were basically offended by me. I was the woman who broke the stereotype of what they thought a woman comedian should be. I was feminine in a beaded dress, talking about falling breasts and contraception and faking orgasms.

Men do not identify with such jokes.

The Carson people announced that I was fired as of Tuesday, and Garry Shandling was given the remaining two weeks. I adored Garry. I thought he was hilarious. I used him on the road and in Las Vegas as my opening act and booked him constantly on The Tonight Show. Now I phoned him and said, “Anything you need, call me. I’ll help you. This is a great break for you.

I’m thrilled.” I have never heard from him since that day. I guess that’s show biz.

On May 22, two weeks after the Fox announcement, I took Melissa to lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. I had not heard from anybody on the Carson show, but there was Ed McMahon. He gave me a big kiss, wished me well, and we made jokes-“Hey, no pictures. ” Ed turned out to be the one person on the show with real class.

On June 8 1 received a birthday present of a VCR from Jay Michelis at NBC

accompanied by a note: A Very Happy Birthday from your only friend at America’s Number One

Television Network. I wanted to get you a car, but this was all the financial people would approve. They said something about “a bunch of pricks. ” 1 assume they meant cactus.

13

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N those days, Fox was a gamble. There were no Simpsons then. It was not a place that could lure top-notch people from the networks, so Barry Diller ended up hiring young executives in their twenties who were brand-new to late-night television. “They don’t know what late night is,” Billy Sammeth joked. “Now they can watch it and stay up for it, too.”

All of them were frightened-terrified that they had left secure jobs for a network that would not work. So everybody was under pressure you can’t believe-including Barry Diller. To protect themselves, all the Fox people wanted control, wanted to have input into the show, wanted to take over.

They became like a sorority that would not let me in.

The more they tried to control everything, the more petty the fights became, everybody grinding private little axes. Maybe the most frightened was Edgar, who right from the beginning was nitpicking: “I insist on this.

I insist on that. ” So right away the show became Edgar versus Barry-which included Barry’s chain of command: Kevin Wendle, vice president of prime time/late night; and Paul Colichman, who was directly in charge of our day-to-day operations.

Reluctantly, we agreed to Murdoch’s request to have the first show in early October, which gave us and Fox just five months to set up the smoothly running machine NBC had assembled through decades. It was a herculean task: ready the studio-build the set, install the lighting, the sound system, the seating-hire a staff with top bookers 201

to corral the guests, get excellent segment producers to preinterview and handle each guest, find first-class writers to think up the nightly monologue and the stunts, recruit a skillful producer and assistant to manage the show.

The first problem arose over the area assigned for our offices-two thirds of a floor. The space was also used by a school for children acting in a sitcom. Edgar said, “We’ll need the whole floor; you’ll have to get the school out of there.” Kevin Wendle said, “The school has to stay.”

Edgar was adamant. The Carson staff filled four buildings on NBC’s Burbank lot. Edgar told Kevin Wendle again, “We’re going to need all the space. “

Kevin repeated, “You don’t need that much space”-which was like saying, “You’re not going to need that much staff.” Edgar was now worried and impatient. “I’m telling you,” he said, “we’re going to have at least eight writers. Where are you going to put them? And where are we going to put the segment producers? They need offices. They’re on the phone all day. Where will the producers be? The music department? The bookers? The secretaries?

Where is the Xerox room? The research library? The kitchen?”

Then Edgar went to see the studio planned for the show. It was much too small. This studio’s audience would sound like one hand clapping. We had been promised the samesize studio as The Tonight Show. He said, “There are three studios here on the Fox lot. Why aren’t we getting the big one? “

Well, Diller wanted to hang on to the big stage because they were renting it for a lot of money. Edgar protested, “You want us to give you a Tonight Show, but with a little audience. You won’t get that dynamic feel, that excitement. “

We needed a Rolls-Royce, and you cannot make one out of Ford parts and the wrong tools. If you have a little show that’s operating on a shoestring with a drab little set, the audience smells that you’re a loser. Nobody wants to spend his late nights with a loser.

The ink was hardly dry on `, “Carson standards or bet ter,” and the Fox people were planning to give us what they thought we needed. I suspect that Barry Diller fig-

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ured, “Promise her the world. Get her. Then we’ll do it our way.” So he must have budgeted the show according to his own judgment, and his estimates were too low. He ended up counting pennies. And all the time he must have felt that I was disposable. I later heard that the president of Fox Broadcasting, Jamie Kerner, was telling affiliates, “If she’s no good, she’ll be out in nine months.”

Edgar never dealt directly with Diller. He bucked him by being brusque and superior to his lieutenants. Edgar was brilliant on ideas, brilliant on follow-through, but his missing chromosome was diplomacy. Getting a job done right was more important to him than finesse. And since the heart attack his patience had been stretching tight.