Remembering Jack Paar

Tom Shales

On March 29, 1962, the last night Jack Paar hosted "The Tonight Show" on NBC, he looked out at a studio filled with friends and associates who'd come to pay their respects. There probably wouldn't be another turnout like this, Paar said, until his funeral. Some in the audience gasped.

As things worked out, Jack Paar outlived many of those who were there that night for his "electronic wake." But Tuesday, in the Greenwich, Conn., home he shared with his adored and adoring wife, Miriam, Jack Paar died at the age of 85.

His last self-deprecating anecdote had long since been told, his last public feud had been fought, his last fiery controversy had been resolved. Death was his last guest, in a way, and it insisted that the host leave with it. Jack Paar's life had been rich with experience and adventure, and during its high point, he shared those experiences with a nightly audience of 11 million people.

He was the most talked-about entertainer in the nation during those years, from 1957 to 1962, when he hosted and produced "Tonight." Everyone knew the truth-in-labeling mantra "I kid you not," with which he prefaced true stories, and during daylight hours Americans were forever asking one another, "What is Jack Paar really like?"

Paar was much like the fellow with the dimpled chin they saw on TV -- a star who served "as a nightlight to the bathroom," he joked, and a man who loved to laugh and induce laughter in others. His curiosity about the world was insatiable, and it would take him -- and his show's cameras -- to the Berlin Wall, Africa, London, Castro's Cuba, and Hawaii soon after it became a state.

His early retirement from television in the 1960s -- after a weekly one-hour series and a collection of specials -- would remain a mystery to his fans for the rest of his life, but Paar explained at the time that he was becoming bored and didn't want to spread that virus to viewers. And yet the Jack Paar show continued in a way, at parties he threw in his own home. He would entertain guests for hours, as happy with an audience of 30 as he had been with an audience of millions.

For all the sights he showed on his program -- including America's first look at the Beatles as filmed in a London club before their appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" -- Paar's true art was the art of conversation. He created the whole idea of talk as entertainment. To be on Paar's show, your talk had to be witty, amusing, wry, insightful, even educational; guests weren't booked just because they had movies opening or a TV series premiering, as is done now on late-night talk shows.

The key element of Paar's "Tonight Show" was surprise. If Paar felt like it, he would stop a singer in the middle of a song and, fearing that the audience was growing weary, insist that the show move on. Paar was not a respecter of stuffy old traditions, and he loved to break unbreakable rules to keep the audience -- and himself -- engaged. Jack Paar, in effect, liberated television from creaky old customs that had been hanging around since radio.

Paar had the brightest stars in the country as guests on "The Tonight Show," but he also developed his own repertory company of zany conversationalists -- among them acidic journalist and iconoclast Alexander King; Cliff Arquette as "Charley Weaver," a lovable codger who read "letters from Mount Idy," supposedly his home town; comedian Dody Goodman, who specialized in daffy non sequiturs; heavily accented French singer and actress Genevieve; British actor and wit Robert Morley, and many more. But Paar remained the most fascinating character of them all.

Regular viewers found themselves not just part of Paar's extended family but embroiled in his frequent controversies and feuds, like those he had with columnist Dorothy Kilgallen and competitor Sullivan. Paar dared to take on high-powered print journalists in an era when they still had clout; he has been credited with helping to end the tyrannical reign of demagogue Walter Winchell.

Mostly, the show was dedicated to laughter, and some of the quips and flubs became legendary in their time -- like the night Paar told guest Elsa Maxwell that her stockings were crooked and she replied, "I'm not wearing any."

Paar loved music as well as speech, and sentimental songs were his favorites (he had a reputation for shedding tears easily). Many people are familiar with his opening theme, "Ev'rything's Coming Up Roses," appropriated from "Gypsy." There was, however, a closing theme as well, "So Until I See You," by Al Lerner and Vic Corpora. The lyrics were rarely sung, but the verse now seems eerily appropriate:

"But it's not over, don't say it's over, we will live this all again ..."

If only we could.