Monday, Jan. 24, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.
Johnny Carson, the definitive late-night talk show host, had a long presence in Las Vegas, and is being remembered today by local entertainers for giving them their big breaks in show business and for being an intensely private man.
Carson, who died Sunday, was a longtime headliner at the Sahara and owned a local TV station for years. He also was in a high-profile feud with entertainer Wayne Newton over the sale of a casino.
"Nobody had a personal relationship with him (Carson) -- he was real private," said longtime Las Vegas entertainer and friend Pete Barbutti, who made more than 65 appearances on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson."
"Even people who did his show for 25 of 30 years were never invited to his house. I was as close to Carson as anybody, in terms of talking to him before and after the show. We would joke about things, talk about Vegas, the business, certain performers. But I always got the impression he was conversing while he was on the way to the car to go home."
Longtime Las Vegas businessman Herb Kaufman, who co-owned KVVU Channel 5 with Carson from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s when it was the No. 1-rated independent station in the United States, echoed that sentiment.
"Johnny was a very quiet guy," Kaufman said. "He did not go out running around to parties. When we did go to a party, if no one was talking to Johnny, he'd just lean against a wall with his arms folded. He never felt the need to be on constantly like many comedians."
Magician Lance Burton, who today headlines at the Monte Carlo, said, "Like countless other entertainers, I owe Johnny Carson a huge debt of gratitude.
"My first appearance on national television was on the 'Tonight Show' on Oct. 28, 1982. He (Carson) was personally responsible for my big break in show business. He was always very kind and generous to me."
One of the local memories, though, is of Carson's feud with Newton, stemming from both men's efforts to buy the Aladdin in 1980.
When he was the front-runner to buy the Aladdin, Carson jabbed at Newton's bid for the Strip resort, calling it "a cutesy publicity stunt," in a Jan. 19, 1980, Sun story.
Newton long had suspicions that Carson was at least partly behind the 1980 NBC report that Newton had mob ties, especially since it came at a time when he and Carson were heading separate investment teams, each bidding in excess of $100 million for the gaming property.
In an Aug. 18, 2000, Sun story, Newton recalled the bidding war for the resort, painting Carson as a difficult man with which to bargain:
"Mr. Carson and (gaming veteran) Mr. (Ed) Nigro all but had the Aladdin. The previous stockholders had gotten into trouble and had to sell the place, and they were being squeezed. Every time a deal was made, they (the buyers) would change the terms.
"I met (then-Aladdin legal counsel) Sorkis Webbe ... and he said, 'Kid, we want you to have the Aladdin.' But it was not so much that they wanted me to own the Aladdin. It was that they were frustrated and wanted anyone but them (Carson and Nigro) to own it."
In January 1980, Nigro and Carson obtained a court-sanctioned takeover of the Aladdin, but the deal to purchase it later fell through and the resort closed in July.
In September 1980, Newton and Ed Torres bought the Aladdin for $85 million -- $20 million below their original offer -- and reopened it in October.
That same year, NBC alleged Newton had ties to organized crime, which resulted in Newton filing a defamation suit against the network. Newton claimed the network's story was influenced in part by its desire to appease Carson.
A federal court deposition from Newton's lawsuit quoted Carson as saying shortly after he lost the bid to Newton's group that he had "come to the conclusion that it was impossible to run a casino honestly in Las Vegas." A local newspaper editorial called the comment "sour grapes."
Kaufman recalled that Carson was upset "he could not swing the Aladdin deal" and that "he was really angry at Wayne Newton. He never had him on his show again."
Newton won a $19.3 million judgment from NBC in federal court in Las Vegas, but the monetary judgment was thrown out on appeal. The court found that the report was inaccurate but there was no malice in airing it.
The failure to obtain the Aladdin, coupled with a dispute over then-Sahara owners, the Del Webb Corp., firing Carson's longtime friend Jack Eglash as vice president of entertainment for the resort, resulted in Carson's decision to never again perform in Las Vegas.
Carson, who made his first Las Vegas performance in 1964 and his last in 1980, made his departure official in 1982 via a telegram to the Sahara where he protested Eglash's firing. It did not appease Carson that the resort opted to keep Eglash on as conductor of the Sahara orchestra after firing him from his executive post.
Carson had never had a contract with the Sahara, but instead agreed to perform there as when the Sahara had open dates that suited his schedule.
Carson later lamented that he may have made a mistake by burning that bridge.
"I really kind of miss it when I come out here," Carson said in a July 26, 1983, Sun story. "You have the best showrooms in the world here."
That year, Carson delivered his patented monologue before a crowd of KVVU employees during the Carson Broadcasting Corp. annual meeting at the Frontier Hotel. Carson was the firm's chairman of the board.
"Johnny said owning Channel 5 was one of the best investments he ever made," said Kaufman, who first met Carson many years ago when he invited Carson to appear at Kaufman's Las Vegas charity fundraisers.
"When I was asked to be Johnny's partner in Channel 5, I thought who better to have as a partner in the ownership of a TV station than Johnny Carson?"
archive
