As unlikely as this may seem, among the hundreds of prominent guest stars who appeared on the eighty-five Bob Hope specials I co-wrote, Johnny Carson was the shyest.Â
In fact, among people he didn't know personally, he was the most ill-at-ease professional entertainer I ever met. Speaking with him off-stage, it was hard to believe that he actually hosted a show before an audience.Â
In 1980, he was signed to appear on our two-hour special entitled "Hope For President," playing a campaign PR-man delivering Hope’s life story to the media. He would read Hope’s biography while displaying photographs (mostly comic scenes from his early movies) displayed on a large easel.
Since I had written the jokes that matched the pictures, I was
sent over to Johnny’s office to rehearse the segment with him. While I had never spoken to him, he had to have seen me around since we often stood in the wings with his writers to watch his monologue. And here I was, a fellow-jokesmith working for a comedy icon, someone in the same business — someone around whom you’d imagine he’d be able to relax.
Instead, he was — I clearly remember thinking at the time — as taught as a violin string.
You'll better understand Johnny as he really was after listening to this two-minute audio excerpt, read by the author, from his book THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers (c) 2009 by Robert L. Mills and published by Bear Manor Media.com in both print and an unabridged audio version.