LOS ANGELES — Ed McMahon, a television pioneer who warmed the “Tonight Show” couch for nearly 30 years as Johnny Carson’s jovial sidekick and announcer, died Tuesday. He was 86.
McMahon died at Ronald Reagan- UCLA Medical Center Tuesday morning, according to his publicist, Howard Bragman. The cause of death was not announced, but McMahon had been in failing health with a number of issues that required his hospitalization.
McMahon’s career spanned more than half a century. During that time, he was rarely absent from the screen.
He hosted the syndicated “Star Search” for 12 years and co-hosted “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes” with Dick Clark on NBC for nine years.
He also played a clown on the “Big Top” live circus show on CBS in the 1950s and co-starred with Tom Arnold in a sitcom, “The Tom Show,” on the WB network in the late ’90s.
Also, McMahon did commercials for Budweiser beer, Alpo dog food, and hundreds of other products and services.
In the early 1980s, he reportedly was the spokesman for 37 banks around the country. And for years he served as the spokesman for the American Family Publishers national sweepstakes, famously informing Americans, “You may already have won $10 million!”
But McMahon will be best remembered as the prototypical late-night talk-show announcer and second banana, who enthusiastically boomed out in his rolling baritone the familiar words “And now, heeeeere’s Johnny!”
As Carson’s loyal, quick-to-laugh sidekick and comic foil, Big Ed had so many catchphrases he could have done a medley of them in his nightclub act.
McMahon liked to say that he was “one of the very fortunate people who grew up to do exactly what I spent my whole childhood dreaming of doing — even if no one is quite sure exactly what it is that I do.”
Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr. was born in Detroit on March 6, 1923.
His father’s various enterprises, which included running fundraising bingo and carnival games for churches and charities, kept the family on the road most of the time.
By age 10, having made up his mind that he wanted to be a radio announcer, McMahon would practice doing commercials and creating his own radio shows using a flashlight for a mike.
At 15, he landed his first announcing job of sorts: manning the microphone in a sound truck to promote a small circus that had come to town.
From the start, McMahon displayed a natural talent for creating his own sales patter, which would pay off handsomely after World War II.
By then he had married his first wife, Alyce, and served four years as a stateside fighter-pilot instructor in the Marine Corps. After the war, he majored in drama at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. After graduating in 1949, McMahon was offered a $75-a-week job at WCAU, a new TV station in Philadelphia. Within two years, McMahon was Philadelphia’s “Mr. Television,” hosting 13 programs.
In 1958, McMahon met the man who would forever alter his career and fortunes: Johnny Carson, a rising young comedian, who hired him to be his announcer on a half-hour afternoon comedy quiz show on ABC.
When Carson moved to NBC to host “The Tonight Show” in October 1962, he took McMahon with him.
Paid obituaries and funeral notices
