July 29, 1957- March 30,1962.
Jack Paar describes guest Mickey Rooney who was drunk, and who Paar asked to leave the show two nights ago (Dec. 1, 1959).
Jack Benny urges Jack to "make up."
NOTE:
So, why did Mickey show up drunk on Jack Paar’s The Tonight Show? Rooney was still lit from staying up to celebrate his wedding anniversary the night before when he arrived for the broadcast. When asked what Ava Gardner was really like, a belligerent Rooney replied, “Well, Mr. Paar, may I say this, she is more woman than you will ever know.” After a few thick-tongued utterances from his guest, Paar observed, “I think you’re loaded.”
Rooney then proceeded to express disdain over the previous night’s show. “Do you enjoy it tonight?” Paar asked. “Not necessarily,” Rooney grumbled. Before Paar could finish asking “Would you care to leave?” Mickey had up and walked out. The next day Rooney responded to the headlines with, “A man would have to be drunk to appear on that show. Paar is the dregs of television.”
Earlier in the afternoon, Jack Paar accepted Mickey Rooney's invitation to meet with him in his hotel room. Paar relates the details of this meeting in his monologue.
Guest Sterling Hayden (first time on a television interview broadcast) comments on sailing away in June 1959 with his four children (Christian, Dana, Gretchen and Matthew), 7, 9, 10 & 11 years of age, and thirteen adults, from San Francisco Bay to Tahiti, in the South Pacific, defying a court order, leaving "materialism," and Hollywood behind. This seven minute segment contains almost half of this surviving "lost" TV broadcast.
Haunted by the friends he’d betrayed, fed up with the subpar movies he was making (cast in westerns, he “couldn’t ride worth a goddamn” and was “the slowest draw west of the Rhine”), flat broke and waging a custody battle with his ex-wife, Hayden escaped into the arms of his first love. In defiance of a court order, he loaded up his four children on a schooner called WANDERER and set sail for the South Seas. Hayden describes his adventure with Paar.
At the top of the show, a brief interview by Paar with child actress Evelyn Rudie who describes the following moment in her life.
In 1959, at age 9, I disappeared from my Los Angeles home and was feared kidnapped. But it turned out I had booked a flight to Washington, D.C., on my own, and boarded the airplane unaccompanied. When I was taken off the plane at Baltimore, I told the authorities that I wanted to visit First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, whom I had met previously, at the White House. I wanted to ask her if she could help me get a part in a TV series.
NOTE: THE COMPLETE STORY WAS SHARED BY EVELYN RUDIE TO PHIL GRIES AND CAN BE READ IN THE ATA TESTIMONIAL LINK.
ALSO, IN 2022, Christian Hayden contacted Phil Gries who duplicated this air check for him.
For four years and eight months, Jack Paar reigned supreme as host of the Tonight Show with a crew of regulars, but only two stayed with him for the entire run; announcer Hugh Downs and band leader Jose Melies, a former army buddy. Familiar faces who appeared many times with Jack included Dody Goodman, Betty Johnson, Elsa Maxwell, Alexander King, Genevieve, Jack Douglas; and wife Reiko, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hans Conried, Peggy Cass, Cliff (Charley Weaver) Arquette, and Johnathan Winters. Hugh Downs substituted for Jack Paar 79 times, more than any other substitute host there were 20 different performers over the period of the series run. Joey Bishop substituted for Paar 31 times. Arlene Francis, 30 times, Jonathan Winters, 26 times, Orson Bean, 21 times, and Johnny Carson 15 times. Altogether there were 243 broadcasts that had substitute hosts filling in for Paar during Jack Paar's TONIGHT SHOW tenure. The title of the late-night broadcast changed to THE JACK PAAR SHOW which took effect on February 3, 1958. The first videotaped broadcast aired on January 5, 1959. "Best of Paar " Re-runs began on July 10, 1959. The first color broadcast aired on September 19, news bulletin on the "Explorer I" satellite, launched today.