Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 24, 1993 TAG: 9307240299
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
"That's delicious!" he booms, his tone as ebullient as during the three decades he played sideman to Johnny Carson. "Fat-free margarine! Anything fat-free is a big deal."
Television's best-known second banana has found much to crow about in the 14 months since NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" closed up shop as the undisputed champion of late-night talk.
His health is excellent, McMahon says, the result of a strict diet and exercise program. "My cholesterol count is 119," brags the 70-year-old McMahon, trimmer now than in his "Tonight Show" salad days.
"Star Search," the syndicated talent show hosted by McMahon, is doing well, and big plans are afoot for its 11th year. And there's plenty of time to enjoy his family, including 7-year-old daughter, Katherine Mary.
"I'm a happy man," says McMahon, perched behind a desk in the study of his home in a exclusive section of Los Angeles. Retirement is not for him, he says.
"I just always felt that I would never stop doing things," he says. "I was never the type like that. I never wanted it to end. I never wanted the party to end."
Memorabilia fills the small study, including a sword and other gear from his Marine Corps days. Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, John Wayne and other stars smile along with McMahon in photos.
There's a treasured ad poster showing a dapper, tuxedoed Carson and McMahon: "All Late Evening Television Entertainment Is Measured Against This Standard," it reads.
"The way they did it, it looks like I'm holding him up, like he's sitting on my shoulder. It looks like he's leaning on me," McMahon says, smiling.
A few weeks before starting a "Star Search" audition tour on July 31 that will take him to 20 cities and end up at the show's theater in Orlando, Fla., McMahon reminisced about his partnership with Carson.
"You can't imagine hooking up with a guy like Carson," he says. "There's the old phrase, hook your wagon to a star. I hitched my wagon to a great star."
They first teamed up on the game show "Who Do You Trust?" and then, four years later, moved over to "The Tonight Show."
"Heeeere's Johnny!" was the trademark introduction with which McMahon began each "Tonight" show, followed by the small, respectful bow toward the star.
The highlight for McMahon came just after the monologue, when he and Carson would chat one-on-one before the guests came out.
"I loved that. We would just have a free-for-all. Now to sit there, with one of the brightest, most well-read men I've ever met, the funniest, and just to hold your own in that conversation. . . . I loved that."
McMahon says he was always conscious that he was playing a supporting role.
"It's like a pitcher who has a favorite catcher," he says. "The pitcher gets a little help from the catcher, but the pitcher's got to throw the ball. Well, Johnny Carson had to throw the ball, but I could give him a little help."
Unlike those now battling for turf in the talk show arena, he and Carson had the advantage of polishing their style in relative obscurity on the game show, he says.
McMahon made sure to stay busy after Jay Leno took over "Tonight" in May 1992. He traveled with his grandchildren and family and then immediately headed into "Star Search" tapings.
"It didn't hit me until I came back and I was back here, sitting at this desk, and all of a sudden I wasn't going to do `The Tonight Show.' It was like a car coming to a sudden stop, and that was quite a jolt.
"Then I got over that, I got wrapped up in what I do, the `godfather of talent,' whatever it is I do."
He also ran into a bit of controversy when he appeared on Arsenio Hall's talk show. McMahon insists it was not a slap at Leno, but a thank you to Hall for his help in arranging "Star Search" talent appearances.
McMahon is more involved than ever in production of "Star Search" and proudly reels off names of those who got a boost from the show: Sinbad, Dennis Miller, Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Lawrence and others.
"It's been the greatest thing for me," he says, comparing it to the role Carson and "Tonight" played in giving national exposure to such young talents as Bill Cosby and Barbra Streisand.
"He gets a big kick out of me," McMahon said of Carson. "I never stopped, and he's stopped everything. But he'll be back, because he's a performer and he wants to perform.
"But he's only going to come back in the right thing. He's not going to come back just to come back."
The two men chat by telephone and dine together occasionally, McMahon says. He recalled their first meeting after they left "Tonight."
"The first thing he said was, `I really miss you. You know, it was fun, wasn't it?' " McMahon recalls.
"I said, `It was great.' And it was. It was just great."
by CNB