AMERICAN MASTERS is an ongoing series of award-winning primetime specials examining the lives, works, and creative processes of our most outstanding cultural artists. Created in 1984 by Susan Lacy and produced by Thirteen/WNET for national public television, the series is both a celebration and an exploration of creativity in America. Consisting of more than 250 hours of programming to date, AMERICAN MASTERS is a growing film library documenting the role important individuals, groups, and movements have played in the formation of our cultural identity.
Since its premiere in 1986, AMERICAN MASTERS has been the only PBS primetime series committed to developing and producing comprehensive film biographies about the broad cast of characters who comprise our cultural history.
The illuminating film portraits chronicle the process of discovery and evolution in the working methods and lives of our most significant and influential writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, and filmmakers. (Source: PBS)
Episode Info
He was seen by more people than anyone else in American history – a fixture of national life,
a piece of the cultural furniture, a part of the Zeitgeist. In exploring the career, the complexities and contradictions of the biggest star television has ever produced, AMERICAN MASTERS had the estate’s first-time-ever cooperation and permission – unrestricted entrée into his personal archives and, perhaps, Carson’s greatest legacy – all episodes of The Tonight Show from 1970 – 1992. Clues about his life, stories about his childhood and early days in the business can be found there – as well as in the expansive family albums and memorabilia. Original interviews with friends, colleagues, his wives and the many performers who appeared, or began, on The Tonight Show, offer additional texture and context – Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, Jay Leno and David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin