BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN (18 page)

To his credit, Biden made fun of his own verbal gaffes on the campaign trail, including this one: “Jobs is a three-letter word.” He told Jay, “Hopefully, you don’t make a gaffe in policy. But look, I’ve made many a gaffe in my life, and I suspect I’ll make a whole lot more.” If Palin had made a similar appearance on Leno, she would have “killed.” A Palin insider told me the McCain campaign’s decision to keep her off Leno was just plain “stupid.”

When Obama-Biden won in 2008, Palin went on to become a folk hero among conservative Republicans, and I continued pursuing her. After a year and a half she said she was interested, but only if we flew her and her family and friends from Anchorage to Burbank on a private jet. We agreed and leased a Learjet for $35,000 to do the job.

Despite the cost, she was a great get, and the timing was perfect for us, as we were launching Jay’s reprised version of
The Tonight Show
after the failed
Jay Leno Show
. A lot was riding on this booking, and I knew we would be heavily promoting it. So just to add a little fun to the segment, I asked Palin to do a brief stand-up routine during her interview with Jay. She had already performed well in comedic sketches on
Saturday Night Live
during the campaign, which got heavy coverage in the media. I was hoping we might also generate a little interest.

I wanted Palin to do a few jokes, just to mix it up. I gave her twelve jokes, courtesy of the writers, and told her to pick three. But when she read them, she insisted on doing all twelve. She really liked the jokes and was excited about doing something different. So we decided to go with it, promoting the idea that she would be doing a “full set” just like a comedian. The only other non-comedian guest who had done anything like this was—ironically—Katie Couric, who did a monologue.

Jay introduced Palin this way: “Tonight we have a young comedian from Wasilla, Alaska . . . making her first appearance on the show . . . please welcome, Sarah Palin.

She walked out to the mark where Jay did his monologue every night, and did a very respectable job with topical jokes about Alaska, Hollywood, the recent winter Olympics and, naturally, politics:

It is so beautiful here. So warm. Back home it was freezing. It was five degrees below Congress’s approval ratings.

The truth is . . . I’m glad I’m not vice president. I’m glad because I would not know what to do with all that free time.

Bert Haas, owner of Zanies Comedy Club in Chicago, was so impressed that he gave her an “open invitation” to perform at his club, though she never took him up on it.

Laura Bush never performed stand up on the show, but she told one of the funniest jokes. In a 2004 interview, the charming First Lady mentioned she had been at a political rally in Las Vegas. Jay asked her if she played the slots or went to a Chippendales show. “Jay, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” she shot back.

The joke drew huge laughs because nobody saw it coming from the normally reserved First Lady, who got the line from her husband, President Bush. But she didn’t stop there. When Jay asked her what the last argument she had with the president was, she deadpanned: “What happens in the White House stays in the White House.” Mrs. Bush was one of Jay’s most loyal guests. She never appeared on
Letterman
.

Mitt Romney, a Republican who made two unsuccessful runs for president in 2008 and 2012, also preferred Leno over Letterman. But getting him to come the first time in 2007 was no easy task. His senior adviser, Kevin Madden, was dead set against it.

After avoiding my calls for a month, he finally picked up only to tell me that Jay Leno ranked at the very bottom of his priority list: “I would much rather get my candidate on the local news in Hartford than on your show. Am I making myself clear to you?” he asked. He was, indeed. I tried not to take insults personally, but I was taken aback by Madden’s rudeness, which served no useful purpose. He could have just politely declined. Besides, his behavior didn’t reflect well on his boss, who was known as a decent person. But I’m grateful to Madden. If he had just said no, I might have dropped the matter. But whenever someone smugly tells me I can’t do something, I like to prove them wrong. I’m sure Madden had no idea he could be so inspirational.

Actually, going around Madden wasn’t too hard, although luck played a big role. Quite by chance, my wife, Mary, and I were good friends with a family (Dennis and Patti King) who knew the Romneys through the Mormon Church. Dennis and Mitt
had taken their two-year Mormon mission trip together in France. They were also big fans of Jay and offered to contact the Romneys directly. Two days later, Mitt
’s son Matt called me to apologize for Madden’s behavior and to assure me that his dad would come on the show soon. A few weeks later Mitt
made the first of many appearances over a six-year period. His wife, Ann, also came on the show several times.

After Mitt lost the 2012 presidential election, he came on Leno, as well as a few other shows, a few months later to announce his retirement from politics. This was the first time a presidential candidate had chosen a late-night show to make such a momentous statement. After the show, Jay drove the Romneys to his warehouse in Burbank for a personal tour of his huge car and motorcycle collection, a privilege Jay offered to only a select number of guests.

Most of our biggest political gets took a lot of effort, but one just happened out of dumb luck. In January 2010, I booked Scott Brown within days of his stunning victory over his Democratic opponent for the Senate seat previously held by the late Democratic icon, Senator Ted Kennedy.

I thought I had landed the first Republican Senator elected in Massachusetts since 1979 because of my deft skills as a producer, but the booking had nothing to do with me. Minutes before Brown’s satellite interview, he told Jay he was doing the interview for personal reasons. His dad, Bruce, had been a frequent guest in Jay’s boyhood home after Jay’s dad had hired him as a young insurance agent. The two men went on to form a close working relationship. Jay had not realized Brown was Bruce’s son until that moment. He confirmed that his family was so close to Brown’s dad that they named their dog Bruce. It was a great appearance, but Senator Brown never returned to the show. He lost his Senate seat in 2012 to Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic rising star.

A guest appearance by former senator John Glenn in 1999 also evoked strong childhood memories in Jay, who was in fifth grade in 1962 when Glenn became the first person to orbit the earth. Glenn was a national hero after carrying out his historic, dangerous mission in the midst of a heated space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, our enemy during the Cold War.

Jay’s teacher, Mr. Simon, had assigned the class to write a paper about Glenn’s historic feat. But Jay’s paper came back with a grade of C-minus for substandard and incomplete work. When I booked Glenn, Jay got very excited and called his former teacher to tell him about his upcoming interview. After watching the show, Mr. Simon, who was still teaching in the same classroom, upped Jay’s grade to an A, the only one he ever got.

Some of the most unforgettable appearances by political guests happened backstage. Senator Joe Biden came to the studio for an appearance in October 2008 as Barack Obama’s running mate in his first presidential bid. I greeted him when he arrived. As I began escorting Biden to his dressing room, the late comedian Steve Bridges, who often parodied President Bush, came into view. He was there to appear in a comedy sketch as the president.

Fully made up, Steve looked strikingly similar to Mr. Bush. Trouble is, I hadn’t yet told Biden about the bit, and he mistook the comedian for the president himself: “g—d—, is that you, George?” he yelled out. Steve reacted in character: “Well, why wouldn’t it be me, Senator Biden?” he asked. Still in character, he did an exaggerated laugh, pumping his shoulders up and down, just the way President Bush does. Biden loved the performance and talked about it during his visit to the show.

One presidential candidate almost missed his interview with Jay even though he and his wife arrived at the studio on time. Like all guests, they went straight to the dressing room to prepare for his appearance, and everything seemed to be in order. But the door to his dressing room was closed and locked, and one of his aides told us not to bother him.

That was a little unusual, but it was nothing to be alarmed about. Politicians often needed privacy to make phone calls. Besides, we had fifteen minutes before the interview. But soon we were down to ten minutes, and the door was still closed and locked. With five minutes to go, the aide assured us the candidate would be out soon. Somehow, that didn’t make us feel better. This was the kind of behavior we expected from a rock singer smoking pot or an actress primping, not a presidential candidate.

With two minutes to go, the director’s booth was calling the stage manager demanding to know where the guest was. We had already been reminded several times of how late it was, and now we were being told in a no-nonsense voice: “
We have to go, and he needs to be out here now!
”

All of a sudden, the door opened and the candidate emerged, looking a little sheepish as he straightened his tie and said nothing. His wife, whose hair was mussed and whose lipstick was noticeably smeared, was smiling as she wished her husband good luck. We rushed to the backstage area, arriving just in the nick of time.

The candidate proceeded to do the best interview he had ever done with Jay, and after the show he and his wife left the studio acting as if nothing unusual had happened. And maybe nothing did. After all, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Two guests used Jay’s show to announce their political candi
dacies: Fred Thompson
and Arnold Schwarzenegger
. Both
were actors and both were Republicans who began their cam
paigns late in the game. Thompson
’s announcement was highly
antici
pated, as he had dropped hints about it for months.

Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, was best known for his role as Arthur Branch, the tough district attorney on
Law & Order.
He came on Leno in September 2007 to launch his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, which resulted in extensive press coverage. But a few months later, he dropped out of the race, giving his support to Senator John McCain, who would eventually become the Republican standard bearer in the 2008 election.

Schwarzenegger’s candidacy had a different result. After hinting that he might run for the office of California governor, Schwarzenegger said he would announce his decision during an appearance on Leno in August 2003. This attracted worldwide attention, despite wide speculation he wouldn’t run. Political experts and his closest aides believed the Hollywood action star wouldn’t jump into the recall election. Arnold himself said he was having second thoughts.

Jay also assumed Arnold wouldn’t enter the race and promoted the actor’s upcoming appearance by saying he was curious which candidate Arnold would support. Fortunately, the mistake was caught, and Jay re-did the promo by telling viewers to tune in and see what Arnold’s decision would be.

When the big moment arrived, Arnold pulled a fast one and announced he was running: “The politicians are fiddling, fumbling, and failing. The man that is failing the people more than anyone else is [California Governor] Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly, and this is why he needs to be recalled, and this is why I am going to run for governor.”

Arnold’s words caused panic in the studio, as Jay had prepared few questions about the election. He had assumed Arnold was primarily there to promote his new film,
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,
and was only using the gubernatorial race to draw attention to the film. During the commercial break, we quickly gave Jay some suggestions. He was up to speed about the election anyway, so the segment was seamless.

Two months later, Arnold
won, and Jay introduced the governor-elect’s victory speech, saying: “The critics said, ‘Well, Arnold
can’t be an administrator. He is an actor. Oh, Arnold
can’t be an environmentalist, he is an actor. Oh, Arnold
can’t be governor, he’s an actor.’ And of course, Arnold
was thrilled—for the first time in his career, the critics are calling him an actor, ladies and gentlemen! This is a historic night.”

Jay’s introduction drew heavy criticism from liberal pundits. One blogger labeled him a “Republican pawn.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Jay participated in Arnold’s victory celebration to support his long-time friend, who just happened to be a Republican. If he had run as a Democrat, Jay would have been just as supportive. Besides, Arnold was married to Maria Shriver, a Kennedy, America’s most prominent Democratic family.

One question has always intrigued me about Arnold: when did he actually decide to run? He told
Vanity Fair
in 2011 that the idea came to him as he was en route to the show. “I just thought this will freak everyone out. . . .” he said. “It’ll be so funny. I’ll announce that I’m running.”

He said he told Maria
and everyone else that he wasn’t going to do it. In fact, his announcement did shock his close aides in the
studio that day. Their mouths collectively dropped. Maria
had a different reaction. A year after the election, she said on Leno that she knew about Arnold
’s decision and that the two of them had many long and spirited discussions about it for a week.

Arnold’s surprise announcement is certainly one of the show’s most memorable moments. But I believe the finest moment was inspired by the atrocities of September 11, 2001, when almost three thousand people died in the horrific terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda.

NBC pre-empted Jay’s show that day, which was the right decision. It was not a time for jokes. But when was the right time? A day later? A week? A month? We didn’t know. How could we—a comedy and variety show—be relevant when people were in a state of shock and when the nation was essentially at war with an enemy we didn’t understand?