Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon Shared Tears Over Jimmy Stewart’s Dog Named Beau

Through 30 years on The Tonight Show, to see Johnny Carson and co-host Ed McMahon in tears was rare. But It’s a Wonderful Life actor, Jimmy Stewart, managed to make them both cry when he came for a 1981 interview prepared with a poem about his much loved but unfortunately deceased dog, Beau.

Jimmy Stewart and his dog named Beau had a mutually beneficial companionship

At the heart of this story is Stewart’s love for dogs, though he died in 1997. His companionship with his golden retriever, Beau, inspired him to write poetry that still moves pet lovers today.

“The truth is that it’s just really hard for me to get to sleep without a dog in my bedroom,” Stewart said per Psychology Today. “It’s funny about that.”

He also shared a few touching notes in that interview about his relationship with that special dog, Beau. “He used to sleep in a corner of the bedroom,” he explained. “Some nights, though, he would sneak onto the bed and lie right in between [my wife] Gloria and me.”

The Rear Window actor said he knew he should’ve made Beau get down. But he let him stay because they comforted each other. “He was up there because he wanted me to pat his head, so that’s what I would do,” he shared. “Somehow, my touching his hair made him happier, and just the feeling of him laying against me helped me sleep better.”

According to Stewart, the companionship lasted, in some sad ways, even after Beau’s death. “After he died there were a lot of nights when I was certain that I could feel him get into bed beside me and I would reach out and pat his head,” he recalled.

He said that feeling was “so real,” he wrote a poem all about it and “about how much it hurt to realize that [Beau] wasn’t going to be there anymore.”

Jimmy Stewart made Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon cry with his poem about Beau

In 1981, Stewart recited his poem aloud to Carson and McMahon on The Tonight Show.

As Stewart began reading the work, he first touched on Beau’s stubbornness, eliciting laughs from Carson, McMahon, and the audience. “He never came to me when I would call,” he read, “unless I had a tennis ball — or he felt like it. But mostly, he didn’t come at all.”

But he soon spoke more about their nighttime bond. “Sometimes I’d hear him sigh, and I think I know the reason why,” he went on. “He’d wake up at night, and he would have this fear — of the dark, of life, of lots of things. And he’d be glad to have me near.”

“There are nights when I think I feel that stare and I reach out my hand to stroke his hair and he’s not there,” he concluded the poem. “Oh, how I wish that wasn’t so. I’ll always love a dog named Beau.”

The classic film icon choked up as he read the last words and Carson wiped his glistening face. In McMahon’s memoir, Here’s Johnny, he recalled both he and the host were tearfully touched by Stewart’s poem about Beau.

“Both Johnny and I were in tears,” McMahon wrote. “Just a couple of maudlin mutt mourners.”

Jimmy Stewart’s poem illustrates the ‘depth of the bond that can be formed with a well-loved dog’

According to Psychology Today, Stewart’s poem is evidence of “the depth of the bond that a person can have with a well-loved dog.”

The American Psychological Association also says having a pet “may be associated with improved mental and physical health.” And though the loss of a pet can be harder on some owners than others, as Stewart noted in his poem, they often bring years of joy.