Jack Paar Add to My Celebs Age 85 (passed away Jan. 27th, 2004) Birthday May. 1st, 1918 Born in Canton, Ohio, USA Height

Jack Paar's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) The Jack Paar Tonight Show Jack Paar To Tell The Truth (1956) Guest Panel… Bank on the Stars Jack Paar

Main Movie Roles 1951 - Love Nest

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB


BIOGRAPHY:

Became host of the Tonight Show in 1957 and quickly view very popular with viewers. So popular, in fact, that the show was renamed "The Jack Paar Show" after only one year of hosting. Paar's trademark was his great ability to engage in conversation with guests that went above and beyond the generic "chat" that other hosts never rose above. He was very emotional and was known to weep on camera at times. Once he walked off the show in a huff when the network censored a joke he made referring to a "water closet". On his program he developed a regular roster of favorite guests including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cliff Arquette, Genevieve, Hans Conreid, Hermoine Gingold, Genevieve, and Dody Goodman. After five years of hosting, he tired of the routine and switched to a weekly NBC variety series in 1962 that flopped. He next purchased a television station in Poland Springs, Maine, and sold it several years later. In 1973 he signed with ABC to compete with his NBC successor, Johnny Carson, on a limited schedule of one week a month, but failed to garner the acclaim he was once famous for.


TRIVIA:

• In 1960, he abruptly quit the show 4 minutes into programming after discovering that a joke of his that included the words "WC", meaning water closet (a polite term for a flush toilet) had been censored. As he left his desk, he said, "I am leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way of making a living than this." Several weeks later, after a formal apology from the NBC network executives, he triumphantly returned to a standing ovation from the audience. The first words he spoke were, "As I was saying before I was interrupted..."
• He suffered from tuberculosis as a child and later worked on a railroad gang to build himself up.
• Cured himself of a stutter by putting buttons in his mouth and reading aloud.
• Popularized the phrase "I kid you not . . ." with which he regularly certified his flow of self-revealing stories as host of The Tonight Show.
• At the beginning of a live commercial for a sponsor's cigarette, Paar took a drag off the cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke, faced the camera and said "Man, that's great coffee."
• He and his wife, Miriam, had a daughter named Randy.
• An intelligent, prodding host during his heyday, he sparked international incidents after interviewing Fidel Castro in Cuba and doing his show from Berlin as the wall went up. On the positive side, he scored very well with his audiences and the behind-the-scenes executives discussing religion with Billy Graham, visiting Albert Schweitzer in Africa, and for his political bantering with Richard Nixon.
• Host of NBC Radio's "The Jack Paar Show" (1947).

Jack Paar Photos

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