Johnny Carson Was ‘Stubborn About His Convictions’ and ‘Couldn’t Care Less What Anybody Said’
Television legend Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years and became increasingly guarded in his private life as his influence grew. In 1967, ROOTS author Alex Haley became one of few individuals to get a genuinely revealing interview from the host. And though Carson was first “evasive,” Haley came to “like and respect him as a man with the guts to be stubborn about his convictions …”
Johnny Carson ‘couldn’t have cared less what anybody said about him’
In 1967, Carson consented to an interview with Haley for Playboy magazine. At that time, it was “by far the most candid” he’d given, and Haley asked Carson directly what he thought of reports from critics complaining of his “dour, antisocial personality in [his] private life.”
Carson explained he didn’t feel he owed it to the public or any of his critics to open up about his private life or give away his personal time. “I couldn’t care less what anybody says about me,” he said. “I live my life, especially my personal life, strictly for myself.”
He added, “I feel that is my right, and anybody who disagrees with that, that’s his business.”
Because he felt he’d be “criticized” no matter what he did, he simply chose happiness. “I feel the one sensible thing you can do is try to live in a way that pleases you,” he declared. “If you don’t hurt anybody else, what you do is your own business.”
Johnny Carson was ‘a man with the guts to be stubborn about his convictions’
Haley reported, “At first, [Carson] was evasive, but by the end of our talks, I had come to like and respect him as a man with the guts to be stubborn about his convictions in a profession where the most common concern is to swing with the ‘in’ crowd, whatever the personal compromise.”
Throughout their chats, Carson told him, though he felt it would be taken wrong, “I don’t like clubs and organizations. I was never a joiner.”
He elaborated, “I think most groups are hypocritical, restrictive, and undemocratic. I don’t run with anybody’s herd.”
Then, Carson also revealed he didn’t like crowds, going to fancy places, the “whole nightclub scene,” or cocktail parties. “So I do my job, and I stay away from the rest of it,” he said. “Isn’t that my right?”
Johnny Carson tried not to let critics get to him because they really didn’t ‘know much about television’
Carson did kind of care about professional criticism, though. He said he didn’t like to be “zinged” by critics, and their words sometimes got to him. But he had a trick for getting through.
“… Whatever they say, I will continue to do what I think our show should do. I see little that I feel is constructive in what most TV critics write — about my show or anybody else’s,” the generous host shared. “One of the main reasons is that few television critics really know much about television.”
“I often feel that I’d like to give all the critics just three hours a day of TV time and say, ‘All right, you’re so bright, now you fill that three hours, every day,’” he added. “You’d hear less from them about what’s wrong with television.”
