Johnny carson biography zehmers

Johnny Carson was at once the most-watched and most-elusive star in television history—a familiar and even intimate presence inside American homes for three decades, yet enduringly impossible to truly know.

Bill Zehme, the author and celebrated magazine profiler, chased Carson beyond doggedly during the last years of his own life, seeking to craft a biography that would dive deeply into the opaque waters that made up Carson’s ever-roiling personality.

For a long time, the book world, the late-night TV world, and the wide world of fans of the mega-star that Carson was, wondered if Zehme’s exhaustive effort to capture the man would ever see publication.

When the author passed away in 2023, 18 years after his Moby-Dick-like subject, it seemed the answer would be no.

But thanks to a devoted editor and the work of a long-time Zehme colleague and friend, Mike Thomas, the book, Carson the Magnificent, has finally arrived.

(It hits bookstores today.)

It is not, Thomas said in a telep