With his sanitized comedy appealing to middle-class sensibility and ordinary, nice-guy demeanor, Jay Leno rose from comedy hall fame to win the coveted host seat of NBC's Tonight Show in 1992. In so doing, Leno followed in the footsteps of the great past hosts, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen.

     Leno began his stand-up career in Boston and New York comedy clubs and strip bars. During the 1970s, he became a popular warm-up act for such divergent performers as crooner Johnny Mathis and country singer John Denver, and he wrote scripts for the sitcom Good Times, starring Jimmy Walker. He obtained sim­ilar work for David Letterman, who, after he began hosting Late Night with David Letterman, granted Leno more than 40 appearances on that Program. Leno became a popular guest on the Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas shows and on The Tonight Show, and by 1986 he was named one of several guest hosts for the latter program. An untiring success-seeker, Leno still spent 300 days a year on the road.

     As a popular stage and television stand-up comic, Leno strives not to offend, offering nonracist, nonsexist, anti-drug humor. Like forerunners George Carlin  and Robert Klein and contemporary Jerry Seinfeld, Leno is not capricious. His focus is on ridiculing the mundane, the idiocies of social life. His feel-good approach avoids cynicism and promotes patriotism. In 1991, for example, he performed for U.S. military per­sonnel stationed in the Middle East. Despite his penchant for politically liberal jokes, Leno insisted that his humor is non ideological and thus apolitical. Hence, he appeals to a conventional and politically diverse-that is, broad-American public.

     Although he was the exclusive guest host for The Tonight Show since 1987, Leno's selection as Carson's successor caused surprise and controversy in the industry. Letterman-whose popular late, late show had followed Tonight for years and created expensive advertising slots-had been slated for the job. However, NBC was attracted to the more cooperative Leno, matching his wit to the older Tonight Show audience. Moreover, an aggressive Leno promoted himself, working the affiliate-station personnel, who in turn boosted his popularity ratings. Ultimately, Leno was simply more affordable than Letterman, allowing The Tonight Show to maintain its $75 million to $100 million profit base.

     Seeking Letterman's fans, Leno's Tonight Show featured a renovated stage; young, popular guests; and the music of popular jazz musician Branford Marsalis. Controversy came to the set early on, when NBC fired Leno's long-time, tumultuous manager Helen Kushnick, and later when Marsalis, in a wrangle over artistic control, quit and was replaced by Kevin Eubanh. Thereafter, Leno fared decently in the ratings, but h, failed to impress reviewers as had Carson and Paar. Accustomed to practicing his routines many times before a show, Leno suffered agitation with his new, full­ week schedule. Moreover, a year into the show, Len,J was faced with a rating war against CBS's new Lat'! Show, hosted by highly paid competitor Letterman.

     During the Late Show's first three years, it regularly bested the Tonight Show in the ratings, particularly with the younger audiences. This was particularly damaging as Tonight had the advantage of airing a full hour earlier than Late Show across 30 percent of the nation. Leno, in comparison to Letterman, was an unseasoned monologist, and a sometimes distracted interviewer, lacking ad-libbing skills. To boost ratings, Leno agreed to hire new Tonight writers and hawk ad­ vertiser's goods-Hondas and Doritos-on air. In early 1995, Tonight revamped the show from a talk to a variety format, creating a comfortable, comedy club­ type studio for Leno. A more responsive and fluid Leno raised Tonight's ratings to competitive levels, and by 1996 the program had intermittently regained its status, held since 1954, as the most popular late night show in the United States. By 2002 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno was consistently winning over its competitors, The Late Show with David Letterman and ABC's news program Nightline.

     Leno was frustrated by his make-or-break Tonight Show role, but he was not broken by it. Rather, he responded predictably to this mid-career trauma with more strenuous effort on the set and increased appearances at Las Vegas clubs and college campuses. A popular comic, Leno has been named Best Political Humorist by Washingtonian Magazine and one of the Best-Loved Stars in Hollywood by TV Guide.