The War for Late Night (53 page)

Between the tension and the pressure, Conan had been close to throwing up for several days. Now the same sensation overcame him as he tried to speak the words he knew would convulse his career.

He dictated; Liza typed; he rewrote. He tossed out an opening address of “People of Earth,” because he was a comedy writer, after all. He figured he would change it later, until Liza liked it so much she urged him, “Leave it in.”

After midnight he called Ross, who was already in bed with his wife, Missy. Conan told him he would be e-mailing his draft of the statement. Sitting up in bed, Jeff and Missy each read it on Jeff’s BlackBerry and both were impressed. Ross called Conan with a few suggestions. Conan got back to editing and rewriting. Around one a.m., he was exhausted and decided to leave it and go to bed. But sleep was impossible with his brain chugging away like an overstoked engine. At around three he got up again and went back to the screen, playing with the words, looking for perfection.

When Jeff Ross woke around five thirty he found a message on his BlackBerry: ʺIf youʹre up, call me.ʺ He did. Conan said he wanted to e-mail his more or less finished version. Ross read it while he walked his black Lab though his neighborhood. He had no doubt this was a pretty great piece of work, but he also had no idea what the lawyers would think of it.

The entire Conan group, now nine strong, counting Glaser and her several associates, gathered in the
Tonight Show
conference room again early that morning, ready to consider the message Conan wanted to deliver to the people of the planet. The sleepless Conan got in early as well and settled into his chair at the end of the table. Ross had printouts of the statement in hand for Glaser and her group to read as soon as she sat down.

One of her associates started reading and immediately set to lawyering up the language, making suggestions out loud.

“Leave it alone,” Glaser commanded. “It’s perfect. It’s him.”

The meeting quickly took the form of a strategy session. Gavin Polone assumed control of coordinating the press contacts—when they would release the statement, and to whom. Leigh Brecheen, Conan’s contract lawyer, would prepare an e-mail to send to Marc Graboff stating that Conan’s team believed the network was in breach of his contract, based on earlier drafts of his agreement to assume the host job of
The Tonight Show
. Rick Rosen would call Jeff Zucker minutes before the statement went out to inform him of what Conan was going to say and of the e-mail at that moment arriving in Graboff’s mailbox from Brecheen.

Rereading the statement numerous times with utmost precision, Glaser had, in the end, only two minor grammatical corrections she wanted to make. She continued to endorse the statement as ideal for their purposes. It laid out Conan’s point of view unequivocally, but without compromising his legal options. Nothing in there overtly said he was quitting, so he could not be accused of forsaking his contractual obligations.

Polone believed that the statement could only work out in their favor, serving to fuel what was already a growing wildfire of support for Conan—and derision for Jeff Zucker. Gavin had a metaphor for Zucker and his sojourn in Hollywood. He was the Wicked Witch in the land of Oz, and Conan was Dorothy. Even those working for the witch were grateful when Dorothy tossed water on her and made her melt, Polone explained. In the meetings that weekend, Polone and others suggested that this was finally the blunder that would melt Jeff Zucker away at NBC.

Jeff Ross could not help himself; he cringed at that notion. Was this really the reason his friend of eighteen years would lose his job? Throughout the meetings Ross had mostly sat silent as others characterized Zucker in terms that ranged from nasty to ugly. A couple of times, Ross couldn’t hold back. He spoke up, saying how bad he felt that his long relationship with Zucker was sure to be damaged, probably irreparably.

The others had jumped him: “Are you nuts? He’s trying to fucking kill you!” They couldn’t believe Ross could actually be concerned about Zucker’s fate, when it certainly seemed like Zucker didn’t give a damn about his (supposed) friend’s fate. But Ross did not see Zucker as a cold, calculating boss—or a witch. He saw him as his friend, who happened to be the CEO.

Ross had always accepted the fact that Zucker, no matter how good a friend, might someday have to break off the personal connection, only because Ross would possibly become a casualty of some choice Zucker felt he had to make. Ross had spent years trying to counter much of Hollywood in its often over-the-top dislike of Zucker. To the others, this move against Conan was playing like some awfully ungrateful payback for Ross’s good intentions. But Ross could not completely blame Zucker. As painful as this was, it was business. Still, there was no escaping the fact that Zucker had signed off on a decision that seemed to contain nothing but disregard for the creative work Ross and Conan had put into their show. For Jeff Ross that was the worst of it—and it tore him up.

The noon hour approached. Each member of the group around the conference table had an assignment. They all gave the statement one last read, checking for potential land mines. ʺOK,ʺ Glaser said. “Let’s send it out.”

Conan and Jeff Ross had similar thoughts race through their minds at that moment: Conan was about to step off the roof of a building, not at all sure where he’d find a net to land in. Fox was all noise at this point; nothing like a serious approach had come from their direction, no matter what hints that network was floating in the press. Did any other realistic options even exist? Ones that wouldn’t look like Conan was going from late-night star to hired clown making balloon animals at birthday parties? They were about to stand up, tell the world their employers had their heads up their asses, threaten to sue the network that contained all their friends and associates, the place that had been their home for seventeen years . . . and then what? Hope for the career-rescue squad to show up? How many stars had disappeared without a trace after grandstanding, breast-beating moves like this?

Conan had an urge to run. ʺOK,ʺ he finally said. “You guys do what you need to do. I just need to go into my office.” He stood up and made for the door, intending to say not one more word about it—just let it happen.

For Ross, the room all but spun. He was light-headed; he couldn’t remember the last time he felt this nauseated. “OK, everybody, hang on,” he said at the last minute, before a set of fingers pressed the buttons to send out the first press leak of the statement. Ross had to speak out; he wanted one last moment of consideration of just what it was they were about to do. Conan stopped at the door.

“Let’s all be aware of this—we’re about to blow this fucker up,” Ross said, full of portent. “This is going to blow this fucking thing up.”

There was only one reaction that mattered, only one pair of eyes for Ross to check out. Conan stood outlined by the doorway of the conference room, his swoop of copper hair almost touching the frame. He looked directly at Ross, unblinking.

“Blow it up,” he said.

J
ust before noon on Tuesday, January 12, Rick Ludwin and Nick Bernstein were headed over to the
Tonight
offices, hoping for a last-ditch conversation that might convince Conan O’Brien to accept the reconfigured NBC lineup. They didn’t hold out much hope, but they both valued Conan so highly they felt they had to try.

Marc Graboff was in his office, waiting to hear something more from the Conan camp. The last word he’d had from Rick Rosen was that Team Conan was arming up with a litigator in the wake of Jeff Zucker’s threat to remove Conan and bench him for two years. To Graboff it sounded a bit like Mafia families going to the mattresses. He hoped he would have an opportunity to head off a war that surely would not be good for business.

In his own office at 30 Rock, Jeff Zucker remained near the edge of his patience with the Conan camp, concerned about how they were using the press to assail the network and Jay Leno.

David Letterman and all the other players in late night were meeting with their writers, continuing to follow the events at NBC with the kind of glee usually reserved for political sex scandals. Dave prepared a couple of pointed jokes for that night—“I got a call just before I came out here from NBC. And they said, ‘Look, look, we still don’t want you back’ ”—and the show was also putting together an elaborate promo parody for a series called “Law & Order: Leno Victims Unit.” It opened with a stentorian announcer intoning, “In the television industry there are two kinds of talk-show hosts: Jay Leno, and those who’ve been victimized by Jay Leno.”

Having just ignited the fire that morning, Conan OʹBrien walked down the hall from the
Tonight Show
conference room, stepped into his office, and shut the door behind him. In the center of the sunny office was the same old battered wooden desk he had had back in his
Late Night
days, shipped all the way out to California—the desk that seemed to Conan to have been tossed out by some crappy insurance company in the 1930s. It had been in his office in New York when he arrived in 1993.

Feeling not too different than he had at his low point during his first year on the air, when Tom Shales in
The Washington Post
had so wittily dismissed his chances for survival, Conan approached the desk. This time, however, he didn’t drop to his knees and crawl beneath it; he simply lay down and stretched out on the floor next to it, staring at the ceiling in silence, waiting for the statement to go out—and his fate to be sealed.

 

The television world began to read it just after noon:

Rick Ludwin and Nick Bernstein saw the statement just before they arrived at the
Tonight
offices for their desperation pitch to Conan. After reading it they turned around and returned to Burbank.

Right at noon, as the statement hit the official release time, Rick Rosen called Jeff Zucker. “I just want to let you know Conan’s releasing a statement now, and we believe you are in breach of your contract. We’re sending an e-mail to Marc requesting a meeting and—”