Johnny Carson was a miserable soul and unloving dad according to a new biography by Henry Bushkin.  Bushkin was Carson’s attorney and manager for dozens of years.  The book is very uncomplimentary to Carson and shows a side of him that many of us never knew existed.

* Was so miserable at the top of his game that he constantly “questioned his own ability to have happiness in his life.”

* Enjoyed the use of a 10,000-square-foot penthouse with a private pool at Caesars Palace when he played Vegas and routinely entertained the “18 beautiful girls in the chorus line that opened his act . . . and he was certainly involved with some of them.”

* Refused to visit his son, Rick, when he was committed to Bellevue with severe emotional problems. “The kid was there for 4½ months and he never went. I had to take care of everything and was there almost every day. Rick [who died in a car crash in 1991] was a lovely human being.”

* Abandoned many of his closest friends, including Bushkin, who says, “At one time we did everything together. At the end, he treated me like everybody else – like I didn’t exist. At the end, it was like I was an irritant. In many respects, he was the saddest guy I ever knew.”

Bushkin mentions it, as well as my wife to me many times, that comedians are often dark and troubled souls with many personal issues they battle.  It should be no real surprise that this was true with Carson as well. Comedians usually use comedy to help deal with and exhaust many of their own demons.