Monday, January 24, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Carson performed for 16 years in LV

NBC talk show gave local showroom stars a place to shine

Johnny Carson gave Las Vegas showroom stars a place to be themselves on TV, and Las Vegas gave Carson a lucrative side gig in return. Carson's relationship with Las Vegas lasted 16 years before it was soured by a failed attempt to buy the Aladdin.

Carson first performed at the Sahara in July 1964, only a year and nine months after he became host of "The Tonight Show."

"Johnny Carson and Frank Sinatra have the most powerful marquee names on the Las Vegas Strip," columnist Forrest Duke noted in 1967.

Carson continued to work at the Sahara until 1980 and planned to continue his Las Vegas career at the Aladdin before his bid to buy the hotel with investor partners was thwarted that May.

Having his offer for the Aladdin trumped by Wayne Newton's sparked a famous feud between the two entertainers. Newton sued NBC for defamation after the network ran a 1980 news report probing Newton's alleged ties to organized crime. Newton's legal team claimed the network was motivated in part by an effort to stay in Carson's good graces.

Newton won a $19.3 million verdict from a federal jury, but the judgment was first reduced and then overturned altogether by an appeals court in 1990.

The late-night host's Carson Broadcasting Corp. also owned local TV station KVVU-TV, Channel 5, for several years, selling it in 1985.

"The Tonight Show" offered Las Vegas comedians such as Pete Barbutti and the late Buddy Hackett the closest thing to a nightclub setting that TV could offer.

"He was one of the few guys who wasn't afraid to have Hackett on," said Barbutti, the jazz pianist and comedian who says he tied with Burt Reynolds for the most frequent number of appearances -- 68 -- by a guest who wasn't a guest host.

The show taped from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Pacific time, Barbutti noted Sunday, which didn't allow time for editing other than to bleep profanity before it aired on the East Coast.

Barbutti said he would swap dirty jokes with Carson when the host was in the makeup chair and that Carson often would sneak the joke's punch line into the broadcast. But for the most part, Barbutti agreed with most opinions about Carson: "He was incredibly private and isolated."

Magician Lance Burton credits an October 1982 Carson appearance as his major break in show business. Carson was a longtime magic enthusiast and happened to see an afternoon run-through in which Burton performed his entire 12-minute act so the show's directors could figure how to trim it down. But Carson was so impressed, he said not to cut the act at all.

Impressionist Rich Little, who moved to Las Vegas later in his career, also credits Carson for his big show business break in 1970. Comedians David Brenner and Monti Rock III also moved to Las Vegas years after their heyday on "The Tonight Show."

Carson started performing at the Sahara when he was represented by Stan Irwin, the entertainment impresario who booked acts for the hotel when it was owned by the Del Webb Corp.

"Unlike the other guys who hosted TV shows, Carson had an act," Barbutti notes. His stand-up would launch with one-liners drawn from the headlines, then veer into performance pieces such as "Deputy John," a hung-over TV cartoon show host.

In 1980, Carson was upbeat about his near-deal to buy the financially troubled Aladdin for $105 million with Ed Nigro and the National Kinney Corp. "I stole a ring from Woolworth once when I was 10 years old. If they uncover that, it may blow the whole deal," he joked with a local reporter.

Barbutti says Carson even talked of moving "The Tonight Show" from Burbank, Calif., to the Aladdin, though published reports only mentioned him planning to move his stand-up act there.

When the deal fell through and Newton's investor group prevailed, Carson's comment that "it was impossible to run a casino honestly in Las Vegas" became a point of contention in Newton's lawsuit.

In early 1982, Carson informed the Sahara, where he had not performed in more than a year, that he would not return after the Del Webb Corp. terminated orchestra leader Jack Eglash as corporate vice president of entertainment.

In 1986, Carson addressed on-air a request from Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan to apologize for a joke he had made: "What's the difference between a parrot and a Nevada woman? You can teach a parrot to say no."

Carson's response: "Tonight we say to Governor Richard H. Bryan of Nevada: Lighten up, governor."