Johnny Carson had a troubling relationship with alcohol during all three of his marriages that ended in divorce.
The new biography “Carson the Magnificent” written by Bill Zehme (who finished the book before he died in 2023) with Mike Thomas examines how the famous late-night host behaved around his spouses, including his first wife, Jody Wolcott, while he was under the influence.
“There would be boozy rows aplenty — some in front of other couples — or long silent stews of resentment or recrimination or shame,” Zehme wrote about the couple, per Page Six.
“Alcohol (while hardly a constant in their early years) was a friend to neither man nor wife; whenever lit, they would both act out, very badly,” he added.
Carson and Wolcott tied the knot in 1949 and they had three sons together. The pair each had affairs and their marriage ended in divorce in 1963.
According to Zehme, Wolcott would “reportedly dance on tabletops at parties, taunt and ooze caustic sarcasm,” and flirt with men to get a reaction out of Carson.
The author added that Carson, when he was sufficiently “lubricated,” would go on a “rampage, and whomever he had been only moments prior would be instantly displaced by an unrecognizable hellion.”
Carson’s second marriage was to Joanne Copeland.
Copeland, according to Zehme’s book, said Carson became “two different people” when he would drink.
“He became a tiger. He went over to beer for a while, thinking it wouldn’t happen and it was just as bad. It didn’t make a difference. He had a low tolerance. He had blackouts,” she said.
Copeland recalled that Carson would come home and rip off the sheets while she was sleeping.
“He’d say, ‘I’m working my ass off and you’re sleeping in bed.’ This is three in the morning. I was dealing with two people. He had a tremendous anger about women that would come out,” she said, adding that Carson would be remorseful the next day but never changed his behavior.
Carson and Copeland got divorced in 1972.
Later that year, Carson married his third wife, model Joanna Holland.
They struggled during their marriage due to Carson’s drinking, as well.
“During that black drunk phase, I was scared,” she once shared in an interview, per Zehme’s book. “Sometimes anything could set him off. Those were the scary times.”
While married to Holland, Carson pled no contest to a misdemeanor count of driving over the legal limit in 1982. He was fined $600 and placed on three years of probation.
The Emmy Award winner got divorced from Holland in 1985.
He married his fourth and final wife, Alexis Maas, in 1987. They stayed together until Carson died from emphysema in 2005 at age 79.
Carson’s struggles with alcohol were never a secret. In 1979, he told Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes, “I really don’t handle alcohol well at all, no. Really don’t.”
“When I did drink — rather than a lot of people who become fun-loving, gregarious, and love everybody — I would go just the opposite,” he added. “And it would happen just like that!”
