With all the hoopla over Jimmy Fallon taking over the Tonight Show, it’s nice to take a reality check and remember THE BEST host the Tonight Show ever had, or will have — Johnny Carson. Our Southern Living would like to report that Southerners appeared as guests on the first two shows which aired on October 1 and 2, 1962 — Joan Crawford and Tallulah Bankhead.
Joan Crawford
Legendary film actress Joan Crawford (1904-1977) was born Lucille Faye LeSeuer in San Antonio, Texas. Later, she had another tie to the South. When she married Pepsi CEO Alfred Steele, one of their houses was in Yemassee, South Carolina on property that is now Cherokee Plantation. Cherokee may be the most exclusive club in the world. Limited to a maximum of 50 initial shareholders, or “owners,” who pony up $1 million each to join and another $85,000 per year in dues, Cherokee Plantation currently has a membership roster of eight. Yet those eight are waited on by a staff of 75, many of whom have been at the plantation most of their lives — Brad King.
Crawford made her first appearance on the Tonight Show, just days before her major comeback film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? She made four more appearances between 1963 and 1965.
Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968) came from a prominent and politically powerful Southern family. She embarked on a show business career at 16, achieving early, great success on London’s West End stages. Her popularity lasted well into the 1940s. Interestingly, during her long string of hits on Broadway (most notably in The Little Foxes), her father was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (1936-1940).
Tallulah Bankhead
At the time of her Tonight Show visit, the once-popular star of stage, radio, and the movies was 60 years old and going through an extended career slump. A Broadway play, Midgie Purvis, had closed after 21 performances the year before. A starring role in an episode of the anthology series, The United State Steel Hour, in May of ’62 was the first part on television or the movies she had been cast in three years.
Tallulah made one more appearance on the Tonight Show in May of 1968, a year after her last and one of her most famous, campy roles — The Black Widow on two episodes of the Batman television show. She passed away in December of 1968.
Below is audio of the first Johnny Carson Tonight show, introduced by Groucho Marx.
