Johnny Carson Does Some Card Magic!
Yup, Johnny Carson really was a magician. He started out at 11 and was a magic fan all his life. He worked his way through college doing a comedy magic act. This is some recently released footage of Carson doing the classic Cards to Pocket on the Jerry Lewis telethon. It is really fun!
About 33 years ago I had an interesting experience once when I was performing at the big NBC Affiliates meeting in LA. I was part of the big production event in the meeting and then all the NBC stars (from Johnny to Steven Spielberg) were trotted out to say hi to the various NBC station owners from around the country. None of the stars looked too happy about it but they all knew where their paychecks came from.
I was performing a series of illusions, including a rather unusual flaw production of my female assistant, from a very unusual prop that I had just purchased in Germany. While all the celebrities were waiting backstage to make their appearance, Johnny noticed the illusion and made a beeline over to check it out. We spent a delightful ten minutes as I showed him the prop and how it worked. He was very charming and TOTALLY interested in all the magician stuff involved. He was a true blue magic hobbyist for those ten minutes. It was the only time I ever spent with Mr. Carson. I relish the memory.
REMARKABLE MAGIC 
How fun that you got to meet and spend time with such an icon as, Johnny Carson!
I also got to spend 15 minutes chatting with Steven Spielberg. I had just been technical advisor and appeared in his Amazing Stories series. We we both clutching our beepers because we we waiting for our first born kids to arrive!
I recently saw an interview with Ben Stiller on video who said he loved magic, went to Tannen’s but didn’t practice enough. he had lessons with . . . Slydini would you believe, when he was ten. He probably made a good decision going down the acting route!
No I didn’t know that! It is always interesting how many celebrities were magic buffs at one time or another.