The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers
Took me long enough, but I'm back for our seventh season with Fox's first show, and first flop, "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers."
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Also: I read in a biography about Joan Rivers that there was no list to replace Johnny: https://buffalonews.com/entertainment/books/probing-the-reasons-for-rivers-need-to-work-anger-later-in-her-life/article_d6c4a566-3406-5963-a12e-0846ac1af51c.html
Which is why I said that Michelis said that what he gave her was an internal memo. It could have been a forgery. There was a list leaked to the press at the same time it was given to Joan, but it might not have been genuine. It could have been worked up to further alienate her from NBC. But we will never know the truth since so many of the principals are dead.
One of Joan's last guests on TLS was Chris Rock. You always have the most amazing timing.
Joan says the final argument was Diller wanting Joan's husband Edgar gone from the show and Joan not budging so they fired her on the spot.
Joan's story is that she DID call Carson the day before the announcement, but Johnny hung up on her. She called back and he hung up again. She also said that her late husband told her not to tell Carson for fear of 1) possibly jinxing the deal and 2) because when David Brenner made HIS deal for a new show, NBC stopped using him for 10 months prior as a guest host so he'd go into his new gig ice cold. And you're covered what happened to Stevenson already. Barry Diller might have been her "friend" but he's also a notoriously hard line executive, as proven by what happen later, and Joan could very well have found herself out of work completely if NBC found out and fired her before the deal was done and FOX decides she was no longer a commodity but "damaged goods".
In further defense of Joan, Carson's "handlers" had told her not to bother him with her problems, so he had no idea that she was getting along so poorly with the network. It also made her reluctant (plus Edgar's warnings) to talk to him until the last minute by which point Fox had leaked that she had signed. I would not be surprised that if Carson had any idea what was going on, he would have come to her defense and would probably, when he felt he had had enough, announced her as his replacement without even checking with the network. He DID own his own show by that point, after all, and Letterman's.
Still better than the Chevy Chase show....