Playboy Interview: Jay Leno

The man Time magazine has called "the hottest stand-up comedian in America" once described himself in a high school classmate's yearbook as a "future retired millionaire." Jay Leno was half right about his prospects. At the age of 40, the "Bruce Springsteen of comedy" is earning upwards—and some would suggest far upwards—of $3,000,000 a year. What he was wrong about was the retirement.

Leno may never retire. In a world seemingly obsessed with the pursuit of leisure time, he shies from it as if it were death itself. He literally loves to work. During the next year, he will sit in for Johnny Carson as guest host of "The Tonight Show" on roughly 77 nights. He will perform at Hurrah's in Lake Tahoe, at The Sands in Atlantic City and at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He will hopscotch across the country from state fairs to college concerts to conventions to clubs for more than 240 nightly slands. Somehow, he will squeeze in the filming of a commercial or two on behalf of Doritos corn chips. And, just to insure against the odd empty evening, there are frequent visits to The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California, where Leno lops off his set by testing jokes for his "Tonight Show" monologs.

It's the ideal situation. Leno lives In entertain and audiences can't get enough. Like an Everyman turned cantankerous by the insanity of contemporary life, he raps out an almost poetically humorous report on his generation's life and times. His "Tonight Show" openers are peppered with wisecracks so memorable that he is rapidly becoming the most widely quoted comic since Will Rogers.

"So this is National Condom Week," he observed. "Boy, there's a parade you don't want to miss." Or, "Well, Nancy Reagan just won a humanitarian award. I'm so glad she beat out that scheming little Mother Teresa." "Ever look at the expiration date on a bag of Wonder Bread? It says right there in tiny letters, Hey, Pal, You should live so long."

When MTV bestowed a "lifetime-achievement" trophy on Madonna, he opined, "That should give Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne something to shoot for." He once summed up the basic difference between the sexes as, "All men laugh at the Three Stooges and all women think they're shitheads." And, lest we forget, it was Leno who delivered one of the more memorable quips on Quayle: "He's making his own Vietnam movie, 'Full Dinner Jacket.' "

He cuts closer to his own sensibilities in his discussion of European cuisine. "I hate it. They use all the parts of the animal we throw away. They're saving the lungs and pancreas to make some kind of colon tartare. I'm hopelessly American. If it doesn't come in a Styrofoam box with a lid on it, I don't enjoy it."

The "hopelessly American" comedian, born. James Douglas Muir Leno in New Rochelle, New York, spent most of his formative years in the pleasant town of Andover, Massachusetts, where his father, Angelo, was an insurance executive. Jay, or "Jamie," as his Scots-born mother, Catherine, still calls him, was the second of two sons, an outgoing boy who liked to make people laugh. But his family life, and the town, were entirely too conventional for him to have dreamed he'd grow up to be a stand-up comic.

Still, from classmates to teachers, he always left them laughing. And while earning a degree in communications at Emerson College in Boston, he decided to moonlight as a monologist. A cycle and car buff since childhood, he'd managed to talk himself into an ideal day job, cleaning and prepping luxury cars at a local Rolls-Royce/Mercedes dealership. He filled his nights with his other avocation, comedy.

It wasn't easy. He worked strip joints, jazz clubs, carnival midways and even retirement homes. He was heckled, cursed and punched. Sometimes, he was paid; other times, he lost money on the deal. Oddly enough, he thrived and began to realize that a stand-up life was precisely what he wanted. To that end, he started commuting to New York, where he spent hours auditioning for the chance to appear without pay at comedy clubs.

At 25, after watching a singularly unimpressive young comic guest on the Los Angeles–based "Tonight Show." he decided to go West. He flew to Southern California, carrying a few dollars, a small suitcase and an act forged by hard-earned experience.

Humor enclaves such as The Comedy Store and the L.A. branch of The Improv were starting In expand into the showbiz mainstream, and Leno, a seasoned performer among fresh-out-of-college comedy hopefuls, eased his way into the prime slots on their schedules. But while contemporaries such as Jimmie Walker and Freddie Prinze used stand-up to leap to TV-sitcom fame, Leno didn't seem to fit the weekly series mold, An ABC-TV executive once explained to him, "We feel your face will frighten little children." Another suggested that he treat his hair to a blond tint. Still another gave him the name of a doctor who might straighten his jaw, a process that would have rendered him speechless for "about a year or so."

Instead, Leno continued to tour the country—Council Bluffs, Iowa; Hanover, New Hampshire; Utica, New York; Grand Forks, North Dakota. He was earning the sobriquet "the hardest-working comedian in show business," and flourishing in the process. As the number of one-nighlers increased, so did Leno's talk-show guest spots with Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. He opened in Las Vegas for such disparate performers as Perry Como and Tom Jones, but his act was so universal that it worked with any audience.

In 1977, he appeared with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," the venue that, since 1987, when he became its exclusive guest host, has brought him his widest fame.

These days, Leno and his writer wife. Mavis, share a two-story, 12-room home in Beverly Hills that has been described as half library (her books) and half garage (his classic cars and motorcycles).

Recently, during one of the comedian's protracted periods as "Tonight Show" guest host, we dispatched journalist Dick Lochte to NBC's Burbank Studios to find out what makes Leno tick. Lochte, who had met and interviewed Leno in the mid-Seventies, reports:

"The first day, I arrived to find a glistening black Bentley Turbo R parked in the space nearest the sound-stage door. I would discover, every day thereafter, a different dream car resting there. A jaguar XK-120. Any of several Lamborghinis. Leno isn't sure how many cars he has, but there are probably enough to carry him through a two-week guest-host stint. If not, he can always motor in on one of his cycles—the Harley, maybe, or one of the his Vincent Black Shadows. The last time we'd talked, he'd been driving a 1955 Buick Road-master that he'd also slept in from time to time.

"Inside the hangarlike building, in a dressing room that, even with a TV monitor hooked to the wall, would qualify as Spartan, Leno told me that he still had the Buick. Lounging on a couch, dressed in workaday denim, he didn't seem to have undergone much physical change since we'd last met 15 years earlier. At 180 pounds spread more or less evenly over a six-foot frame, he is slightly stockier, perhaps. His hair is shorter, with more than a touch of gray. But the famous jaw is as firm as always, housing the same infectious crooked grin.

And he seemed to be as calm a performer as ever. Then he could break off a sentence to hop onto the stage, do a quick set and return, picking up the conversation where he'd ended it. Now his relaxation seemed to increase as showtime approached. 'You have to understand,' he said, 'this is the easiest thing I'll do today.

"Throughout our several meetings, every hour or so, the executive producer of "The Tonight Show,' Fred de Cordova, would enter with notes far Leno to study—information about the show's guests, questions suggested by the staff and ideas for various comedy bits. Although the two men seemed to have a mutual respect, they would engage in a continuing game of playful banter, much of it based on Leno's rather relaxed approach to his guest-hosting chores. These should be interesting even to a jaded character such as you,' De Cordova would say, handing the notes to Leno, who would reply, with mock earnestness, 'I'll give them my immediate attention,'

"De Cordova seemed amused that Jay was going to be the subject of a 'Playboy Interview.' 'Do you know that I once directed Hugh Hefner in an episode of "Burke's Law"? he mentioned. But as the days wore on, he seemed perplexed. 'Still here, eh? What are we covering today?'

"Leno replied quickly, I was discussing the finest producer in the history of television.'

"De Cordova chuckled. 'This might he interesting after till.

"On the last day, he asked, 'My God! Are you still here? This interview should be long enough to fill an entire issue of Playboy.

"'We may eventually get a book out at it,' I told him.

"The producer, who not long ago published his autobiography. 'Johnny Came Lately, raised an eyebrow and asked, A book?'

" 'Yeah, we're calling it "Johnny. We Hardly Knew Ye," ' Leno said. 'What was the name of yours?'

"De Cordova smiled. 'Fuck you!' he said good-naturedly.

"Jay's riposte was immediate. I didn't I ask what it should have been called.'

"The producer paused. Then, in spite of himself, he laughed. He'd been in show business long enough to realize that you can't expect to outheckle a comic who spends upwards of 240 nights a year on the road."

[Q] Playboy: You're rich, you're successful. Win do you keep working so hard?

[A] Leno: Well, you take one day off and you're thinking. Boy this is great. Then you take two days off. and then three. To me, comedy is like lifting weights: Once you start, if you don't do it every day, everything begins to atrophy and you wind up a big fat pig. And it's not exactly unrewarding work. You say to yourself, "I can stay home and watch Jake and the Fatman, or I can make twenty-five thousand dollars."

[Q] Playboy: How many days are you on the road each month?

[A] Leno: Twenty, twenty-two. I'm in every Tuesday, when I do The Tonight Show. A lot of times, I'll go out and come back the same day.

[Q] Playboy: How can you stay happily married when you're constantly away?

[A] Leno: It's no different than if you're a salesman or in the Service. A comedian friend of mine, who's not married anymore, used to complain that his wife didn't understand his getting drunk and gelling laid when he was on the road. I told him. "Gee, she's so demanding. Besides the fact that she could die from whatever disease you pick up." I go on the road and I come home. I call my wife from the airport before I leave and we talk that night before we go to bed. And if I'm heading anyplace the least bit interesting, she goes with me.

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't you rather have a more normal schedule?

[A] Leno: First. I love the work. I just show up and tell my jokes. It's very relaxing. Second, when I'm traveling. I get the chance to read. A week on the road and I'm up to date on every world event. I'm home for a week and suddenly it's. "What happened in Lithuania? When did the tanks go in there?" Third, what's normal, anyway? The guy next to me on the plane is bent over a computer typing and mumbling, "Geez, if the boss doesn't like this report...." I don't have any of those problems. There's a great peace of mind in being your own boss.

I he traveling is just part of the job. Sometimes it gets kind of strange being on the road, but people don't want to hear some comedian whining about how bad life is. "Hey, you're at the Marriott! You're getting paid a lot of dough! Shut up, please!"

[Q] Playboy: Was being your own boss one of the reasons you became a comedian?

[A] Leno: Not consciously. I was never a corporate kind of person. But I wasn't a counterculture type, either. I find it odd that my friends who once were blowing up the Bank of America are working there now. And I have all the freedom that they thought they were gonna get. I come and go as I please. I don't take jobs that I don't want. I have friends who work for a chemical company and it's, "I didn't poison those kids in Africa. I'm just in sales." They wake up with chills. I don't have any of that. The worst that happens in my line of work is you don't get a laugh. You don't get cancer of the pancreas in ten years.

[Q] Playboy: What made you think you could earn a living this way?

[A] Leno: I didn't think I could. I just liked to do it. The fact that I got paid for it was great. When I was starting out. I worked at a Rolls-Royce dealership in Boston and I used to bank the money I made there and spend my comedy money, which was, like, free. Eventually, one started to overtake the other and I figured I would more or less ride this gravy train until it crashed. Today, I live on the money I make at comedy clubs and everything else goes in the bank.

[Q] Playboy: Literally in the bank? No stocks, no bonds, no income property?

[A] Leno: In the bank. I don't want to invest in junk bonds or be a landlord. My nightmare is that I buy rental property and suddenly, the morning paper arrives with the headline "Elderly woman evicted from Building." There's a picture of a sweet little grandmother type being thrown into the street and right next to it is my smiling face.

[Q] Playboy: How is life different now that you're rich?

[A] Leno: My wife and I live in a nice house in Beverly Hills. There's almost enough room for us and my cars and motorcycles. I can afford to buy my dad a Lincoln Continental for Father's Day. But it's still a relatively simple life.

[Q] Playboy: Simple? In Beverly Hills?

[A] Leno: You make it simple. Shortly after we moved in, we went next door to drop off a bottle of champagne and introduce ourselves to our neighbors. Bing-bong. The maid tells us, "Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So aren't in right now." So I hand her the champagne and she asks, "Are you keeping a full staff or a half staff?" I didn't know what she meant. My wife whispers, "Maids, butlers." [Deep, macho voice] "Oh, I don't know. Probably a half." Like we're gonna have a staff.

[Q] Playboy: Do you always have such good luck with neighbors?

[A] Leno: Always. I was so stupid when we mined into our first house. Back East, people would show up at your house. So I went out and bought a cake. And we walked over to the house next door. "Hi, we're your new neighbors." The guy's got a robe and sunglasses on. "We've got a cake for you." I must have looked like Goober or something. The guy's closing his robe and it seems like he doesn't have any underwear on. I'm thinking I got him out of the shower. I take two steps inside. The whole living room is white and there are thousand-watt klieg lights and two women on the floor rolled up in some kind of carpet. I say, "Oh, I guess you're just moving in, too?" And the two girls go, "Who is this guy?" Then I see another man in bikini briefs with a camera. The guy in the robe says, "Oh, nice to meet you. Uh, great." Outside, after he shut the door, you could hear, "Who was that?" "Some jerk who bought a house." "Think he knew what was going on?" "Naw, he looked too stupid."

[Q] Playboy: OK, so you have weird neighbors and no maids or butlers. What about life on the road? Do you travel with an entourage, like Eddie Murphy?

[A] Leno: No entourage. I carry my own bags. I don't like having handmaidens. [Affected voice] "Would you get me a lime, please, like a good assistant?" Forget it.

[Q] Playboy: No little luxuries—expensive meals at fancy restaurants, for instance?

[A] Leno: I usually pick restaurants not for the food but because I can keep an eye on my car and make sure the valet stays away from it. But not long ago, in Atlantic City, my wife says, "Why don't we ever go out?" So we wind up at this place in one of the hotels. It's a fancy French place, but it's staffed by guys from Jersey, you know, "Bone-joor, Meester Leenos." So I'm silting there and about six feet away is a guy doing a thing with a flambé. He looks at me and he yells, "Hey! You're da fuckin' guy, right?" Now everybody turns. That's what I like. I'm in an expensive French restaurant with my wife. It's two hundred bucks for this meal, and the waiter goes, "Hey! You're da fuckin' guy!" They've got the hair slicked clown, all the moves, but suddenly, I'm in the middle of My Fair Lady.

[Q] Playboy: Maybe you're "da fuckin' guy" in New Jersey, but Vanity Fair calls you "the Mr. Glean of contemporary comedy." What's wrong with blue humor?

[A] Leno: I've never been offended when [George] Carlin or [Richard] Pryor uses a "dirty" word. It's not that. But I was watching some comic on one of the cable shows and he said something like, "If you're out with this girl and the date's not going well, just reach over and rip her left tit off." That was the punch line. Where's the joke? Let's beat up a woman? These days, you can make jokes about our role in Central America, foreign policy, how we treat blacks and Indians and the CIA, and you're considered a plain old mainstream comedian. But if you go out and say "Women are bitches" and "Let's kill gay people," you're considered controversial, on the edge. I don't hear those comics really being on the edge about anything. All they're doing is saying something to a group of people who agree with them. It's just baiting a crowd.

[Q] Playboy: You're talking about Andrew Dice Clay, right?

[A] Leno: I've met Andrew a few times. I don't know whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, but I don't buy his defense that he's just playing a character. What about [former Ku Klux Klan leader turned state legislator] David Duke? Was he just playing a character? "When I had that sheet on my head. I was another person. I didn't realize black people were getting so upset." I don't buy it. This is the way America lives now, isn't it? Mayor [Marion] Barry didn't do coke, his sickness did coke. Everybody has an excuse. But either you're responsible for your actions or you're not.

[Q] Playboy: Clay seems to be softening his image these days.

[A] Leno: This is the way you become legitimate, isn't it? You're selling drugs and then, when you get enough money, you buy an honest business and eventually people say, "He's OK; he did that other stuff years ago." Or you get famous by making fun of women or blacks or Asians. You just pound on them. Then you say, "I've made my money. I'm comfortable. I'm not doing that anymore."

[Q] Playboy: Sam Kinison seems to pound on the same targets as Clay. Do you find him offensive, too?

[A] Leno: Whether you like Sam Kinison or not, he puts his material together the way a comedian does. There's a joke there. I think most really straight people watch Sam and go, "Oh, geez, that's awful. But, you know, it is funny." That's the difference. With Andrew Dice Clay, I can't find the joke. I can't find the joke!

I only get annoyed at it because I'm a comedian. It's like you're a doctor and you see another doctor who's screwing off and killing patients. "Do something else, will ya? Become an actor."

[Q] Playboy: What about good old-fashioned sex jokes?

[A] Leno: There's nothing wrong with a sex joke, as long as it's about sex—and it's tunny. I'm not starting Comedians for Decency or anything like that.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever use blue material?

[A] Leno: I used to work a little looser than I do now. But I believe in my thirty-nine-and-a-half rule. When you're a twenty-five-year-old guy and you're wearing leather pants and a silk shirt and you're up there doing comedy and you're talking about having sex, girls in the audience giggle. They go, "I can't believe he said that." Then, you hit about thirty-nine and a half, and you're balding and you've got a paunch. The silk shirt with the big collar from ten years ago is kind of silly-looking and the pants have a little too much flare. If you're doing the same act with the sex jokes, those same girls are going, "Ooh, that old guy, he's so gross. Talking about sex. He's probably never had sex...."

I like an act you can grow into. The older I get, the more appropriate my material seems to be. I find it more interesting and more challenging to try to write something that's clean and funny and appeals to everybody.

[Q] Playboy: Do celebrities complain about being picked on?

[A] Leno: I ran into Roseanne Barr one day at The Improv and she said, "Why ya always makin' fun o' me for? You're always callin' me fat on the show." And I told her that on her HBO special, she said things like, "We fat people have to stick together." She said, "Well, I'm married now." So I told her I wouldn't do any more of those jokes. And I haven't. I like Roseanne.

A similar thing happened when I was on The Barbara Walters Special. They showed a Tonight Show clip, a bit called "Pin the Tail on the Oprah." There are a bunch of pictures of Oprah's ass. As she loses weight, the game gets harder to play because her ass gets smaller. The original sketch included the "Geraldo Home Game," with a six-foot cutout of Geraldo that you try to hit in the face with a chair, and a "Phil Donahue Transvestite Game" that had to do with wearing dresses. All the Walters show picked up was the Oprah section. I was told she saw it and was very upset. I tried to call her and apologize, but I couldn't get through. It wasn't meant to single her out. I was trying to insult all the talk-show hosts equally. I thought it was fairly good-natured.

[Q] Playboy: What rules do you play by when you're kidding with the audience?

[A] Leno: If a guy is a doctor or a lawyer, I knock him clown a few pegs. If he's a janitor, I tell him, "Here's somebody who works for a living. We can see the fruits of your labor, whereas with this lawyer...." If the guy is fat, you pick on his tie. If he's bald, you make fun of his shoes. If the girl's got big boobs, you make fun of her husband.

[Q] Playboy: You do a lot of gags about drunken pilots, Yugos, off spills. Any other pet topics?

[A] Leno: I usually just go with what's in the paper. But you don't want to get ahead of the audience. A while ago, I did a joke-about John Poindexter. I said, "Recording star James Brown served only six months of his six-year sentence, and now I understand John Poindexter is taking singing and dancing lessons." And I looked in their eyes and it was like staring into the eyes of a chicken. They didn't know who Poindexter was or what I was talking about. Maybe they didn't know who James Brown was. You have to find subjects that people know and also subjects where the good guys and the bad guys are evident. Drunken pilots are ideal. You won't hear from Mothers for Misunderstood Drunken Pilots. Or the Friends of the Off Spill. You can talk about the Yugo being cheap. That's its whole claim to fame. McDonald's is a good subject. It's something that everyone knows. They always get mad, but I never denigrate the food. The jokes are usually about inexperienced kids at work there or the fact that the company is trying to buy the world or something. And finally, if all else fails, you do a condom joke.

[Q] Playboy: Do you write the monolog?

[A] Leno: I usually start fooling with the jokes and putting them together. I try to have fifty by midnight. Then a bunch of guys get together at my house. Jimmy Brogan. Ron Richards. Jim Edwards. Sometimes Jerry Seinfeld. Any comics around might stop by. We eat hamburgers or chicken or something, sit till five or five-fifteen and just keep narrowing the jokes down to about twenty-six.

The monolog generally runs seven or eight minutes. I like to compare it to the way you go through a newspaper. You open with the big joke of the day, the big story, and then you work your way-through, ending with jokes about entertainment or commercials or sports or something that's fairly general.

[Q] Playboy: Why don't you use the Tonight Show writers?

[A] Leno: They're Johnny's. If I were a writer on the show, I wouldn't want to be in the position of writing for Jay on Tuesday and for Johnny on Wednesday. Who would get which joke? Plus, I like bringing my own thing into it.

[Q] Playboy: Does it bother you that the monolog material is so dated you can't use it again?

[A] Leno: Just the opposite. The great thing about The Tonight Show is that it has to do with right now. I'm covering the same subjects as Nightline, only I'm doing it for laughs. It's frightening to think that some people probably get their news from the Tonight Show monolog.

[Q] Playboy: You seem to enjoy being the show's temporary host. Would you want the job every night?

[A] Leno: I'd love it. But nobody's said anything to me about that. I'm signed to be the substitute host for the next two years, with an option. That's about it.

[Q] Playboy: Your pal David Letterman keeps telling interviewers that he'd like the show when Carson steps down. Has this put a strain on your friendship?

[A] Leno: I don't think so. I hope not. I was watching the Tyson-Tillman fight the other night, and Tyson said, "I love Henry Tillman; he's a good friend of mine. We went out, we had dinner, we do this. I'm sorry I knocked him out, but that's the fights." I don't consider myself the Tyson in this situation, but the attitude is the same. Whatever happens happens. If Dave were to get the job, I wouldn't stop talking to him.

[Q] Playboy: Still, you haven't been on Letterman lately.

[A] Leno: No. Only because I'm here every week. I just don't get to New York. And Letterman takes a different sort of preparation than The Tonight Show. When I do the monolog, I have to make the audience laugh. When I sit down. I've got to make Dave laugh. Instead of joke, joke, joke, I tell Dave stories. It's fun, because he will not carry you. I'll say, "Dave, did you see this thing last night?" and he'll say, "No, I didn't." He'll deny everything. "Dave, have you ever eaten at this place?" "No, I've never been to McDonald's and I've never heard of it." Which makes everything funnier. Still, you have to prepare for it, put the stories together, get them to work. I don't want to be the kind of comic who sits down and talks about his trip to Russia and how the people there are just like us, and if we all learn to live together, the world will be a better place. You want to have something really funny to say.

[Q] Playboy: So you wouldn't be disappointed if Letterman got The Tonight Show?

[A] Leno: People probably aren't going to believe me if I say that it wouldn't be a problem. But I approach this as a business. I go on the road and I make my money; that's the principal. The Tonight Show is all interest. I've got enough money in the bank so that I don't have to worry about this sort of thing. I do TV because I like it, but sometimes it gets too complicated. Once a network that wanted to put me under contract told me, "Of course, you can't ride motorcycles." I explained, "I always ride my motorcycles. I work on them. This is what I do." So I didn't sign the contract. I lost some money, I guess, but that was all right. I figured I could always go to Des Moines and try to make it up there.

[Q] Playboy: What if another network offered you your own talk show?

[A] Leno: They have! But I wouldn't do that. "Whatever you want," they say. "Ten times the dough." Not interested.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Leno: I've been very Fortunate. I stepped into this job with no hype. I felt sorry for Pat Sajak. He's a nice guy and generally funny, but I remember that first week of publicity last January. "It's the funniest hour and a half...." "It's ninety minutes of rollicking fun...." And then you're thrown against Johnny Carson, who's been doing it for twenty-eight years, and you get slaughtered.

You don't see any ads in the paper when I host. I just come in and I do it. Audiences make their own decision. They still treat me like the underdog. "Hey, you're doing a good job and you're gonna make it." I like that.

[Q] Playboy: Arsenio Hall seems to have lived up to his hype. Any thoughts on the competition?

[A] Leno: I genuinely like Arsenio. He and I started together. I taught him to ride a motorcycle. We used to hang out every night. We were both sort of misfits at that point. There were only certain opportunities available to a black comedian back then. And I was not bad-looking enough to be bad-looking, nor good-looking enough to be good-looking. I was sort of—what am I, Italian? Something there in the middle? Anyway, we'd write bits together and come up with things. And he is a funny guy. I'm very happy he's done so well. People think of us as being in competition. I suppose, to a certain extent, we are, but the shows are so different. He doesn't do a lot of political things, and I don't get in there and mix it up with the band.

[Q] Playboy: Would you consider guesting on his show?

[A] Leno: My NBC contract wouldn't let me, but it would be too weird, anyway. People would wonder, "What's this all about?" I don't think it would work. I wouldn't go on Nightline, either.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think your comedy has changed much over the years?

[A] Leno: The big change took place about 1976 or 1977. A bunch of us used to hang out at a deli. There'd be me and occasionally Letterman, Johnny Dark, Tom Dreeson, Elayne Boosler, Richard Lewis. Everybody would tell stories—about working a road gig, hotel problems, whatever. We all had these stories. Funny stories. I'd leave there and go on stage and do my act, which consisted of a lot of unrelated jokes. Then, one night at The Improv, I suddenly decided to tell a story that I'd just told at the deli about staying at an old old-men's hotel in Cincinnati. "I woke up in the middle of the night and somebody was peeing on my door. I said, 'Hey, what are you doing? Don't pee on my door.' The guy said, 'But I always pee on this door.' I looked down and the door was all rotted. So he was right: It was his door." People laughed and I thought, Gee, this is much better than telling jokes.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of jokes had you been telling?

[A] Leno: Like: "I went to the 7-Eleven. I bought a Celeste pizza. I don't know how long it had been sitting there, but in the picture on the box, Mama Celeste was eighteen." Rat-a-tat-tat jokety-jokes. But no stories. Nothing that anybody might think of as "a Jay Leno story." So I got pretty excited about this and I started thinking of stories that I could tell. And that's where all my material about my parents and growing up came from.

[Q] Playboy: You talk about your parents a lot in your act. What kind of family life did you have?

[A] Leno: Fairly typical, I guess. I had a real nice childhood. I never saw my parents fight or argue. A lot of comics talk about drunken parents, the father hitting the mother. Mine were nothing like that. They were older than my friends' parents; my mom was forty when I was born. That's probably why my point of view sometimes tends to be that of someone a little older.

[Q] Playboy: How big was the generation gap in the Leno household?

[A] Leno: Other people would use terms such as hippies or long-hairs. My dad would say, "You know these bomb throwers you sec on TV...." Bomb throwers! My cheap stereo was a new Victrola. The food was kept refrigerated in the icebox. Everything was from the previous generation. I was so different at my friends' houses. Their parents would try to integrate themselves into the conversation and say, "Hey, I saw that Mick Jagger last night. He was something." It made me very uncomfortable. Or I'd be at a friend's house and his mom would be in the pool and—whoa!—you're looking al somebody's mom in a bikini! "What is that? Let's get out of here!"

[Q] Playboy: Did you learn about the fads of life from your dad?

[A] Leno: When I was eleven, my father sent my mother out of the house. He said, "Sit down, son. Do you know about the birds and the bees?" I said, "I guess I know a little bit about it, Dad." "flood, good. Now, how do the Yankees look this year? Think they're gonna go for that pennant?" That was the extent of it. I even used to do a joke about it. I had the classic dirty-book-in-the-schoolyard, I find-out-from-your-friends, learn-the-wrong-thing sex education.

[Q] Playboy: Has communication improved now that you're an adult?

[A] Leno: Not really. I was watching TV the other day with my dad. Some game or something. I went, "Oh, Jesus Christ, look al this." Suddenly, I hear him in the background: "Watch your mouth while you're in the house." I thought he was going to hit me on the head with a pan or something. Or I'll say, "Mom, did you and Dad ever do anything before you were married?" "Oh, stop. Where did you hear that kind of nonsense?" Like, if they told me the truth, I'd run off and leave my wile because of it.

[Q] Playboy: How well did the Scottish and Italian sides of your family gel along?

[A] Leno: They got along, bin they were as different as you could possibly imagine. When we'd go to a wedding, for example, the Italian side would always be singing and dancing and eating. And the Scottish side would say [Scottish accent], "Oh, look at them, Jamie, the way they carry on." And when I'd visit the Scottish side [Scottish accent]: "Would ya like a warm Coca-Cola, Jamie?" It always amazed me that they would keep Coke and soft drinks in the cupboard.

The Scottish side was so stoic, the Italian so outgoing. It was always funny around the house.

[Q] Playboy: Were your parents demonstrative? Would you hug one another?

[A] Leno: No, we were never one of those kinds of families. But we were close. I remember when I was sixteen. I had a '34 Ford truck. I had just had the upholstery all done and I slammed the door one day and broke the window. Didn't have any money to gel the window fixed. I drove the truck to school one day and it was sitting out in the parking lot when it started to rain. I figured my new upholstery was going to get ruined. But I'm looking out the window and I see my mom and dad pull up, and my dad's got a big sheet of plastic and my mom's putting it over the truck. I started to cry. My dad left the office because he knew how much the truck meant to me. We were always close that way.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know early on that you wanted to be a comic?

[A] Leno: No. Where I grew up in New England was as far geographically and in ever other possible way as you could be from show business. I always assumed I would be a salesman, like my dad.

[Q] Playboy: When did that change?

[A] Leno: At Emerson College, when I started writing sketches with my roommate, Gene Braunstein—he's now an executive script consultant on Who's the Boss? We'd perform them al coffeehouses in Boston where the entertainment was usually nineteen-year-old kids from Long Island singing "I hate my parents." We thought we were hilarious, but in retrospect, we were just horrible. One day, we auditioned for an improv group called Fresh Fruit Cocktail. I got picked and Gene didn't. With his blessing, I joined the group. We worked a bunch of Playboy Clubs. One guy wanted to rehearse. One guy didn't. One guy thought fail jokes were funny. I liked the Bob and Ray kind of thing, which they thought was too subtle. We disbanded after six months.

[Q] Playboy: And you decided to go solo?

[A] Leno: Yeah. I'd drive to New York and try to get on stage. One day, the guy at The Bitter End said I could come back on Tuesday and work for free. Naturally, I told my parents. Now, The Bitter End said that time was like herbal tea, guys with long hair, people smoking joints. There wouldn't be any more than twelve customers in the audience. So right before I go on, I hear this loud voice: "Hey! Jay Leno here tonight, hey?" My uncle Lou is there with the big hat, my grandma with the aluminum walker. She's about ninety, clapping and shouting, "Jamie ona da stage. Jamie ona da stage." Then all m)' uncles and aunts arrive and Uncle Lou is yelling for beer in a place that serves only herbal tea. The acts are singing songs like, "Nixon's a jerk," and my family is shouting, "That's a terrible thing to say about our President" and I'm thinking. Gee, this is unbelievable. Finally, it's my turn and it's, "Yea, Jamie, yea!" My supportive family. I suddenly realize the jokes I have are all kind of sophomoric, dirty jokes. With the family there, I can't do any of them: So I hem and haw for a few minutes. And I'm off. "Hey, you're the best." "Hey, he was the best one ...!" And they all leave, maybe seven minutes after gelling there, emptying the place for the next act.

[Q] Playboy: Who were the comics you admired back than?

[A] Leno: George Carlin was a big influence,of course, and Robert Ken, because he-was the guy most like me, I thought: white, middle-class, college student, sort of the same interests in terms of the things we liked to talk about. At that time, most comedians were men over forty, very Jewish, very East Side of New York—"We were poor, but we didn't know we were poor," that sort of thing. I don't come from any of that, so I never related to any of those guys. Klein never did that kind of comedy. He'd be talking about some obscure cut on a Beatles album, suddenly making fun of rock groups from within rather than from above. And he wasn't a clown. I always hated that kind of dopey, clown-falling-down type of humor.

[Q] Playboy: What about Lenny Bruce?

[A] Leno: I admired him, certainly, but I never had his kind of anger; I never felt the need to confront an audience that way. On the other hand, Mort Sahl, another big influence, would guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and talk about Joe McCarthy or Eisenhower or Kennedy and suddenly, here's a guy making fun of the status quo to the status quo, not preaching to the converted. That seemed much braver than being in a dimly lit room in a jazz joint, filled with people who already agreed with what you were saying. That's not to put down Lenny. I liked him, I thought he was funny; but he was never as close to me as. say, Bob and Ray.

[Q] Playboy: You played a few of those dimly lit jazz joints yourself, didn't you?

[A] Leno: One day in 1970. I went to a place called Lennie's on the Turnpike. Lennie Sogoloff—we're still good friends—used to bring in all the big names. I said I was a comedian and he sat down and listened to my stuff and made me house comic. It was the first place I ever went on stage where the audience quieted down to listen to you. If I said something funny, it would get a great laugh. And I got to know all these jazz people and tour with them—Stan Getz, Mose Allison, Ahmad Jamal, Buddy Rich.

I did a bunch of dates with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, a blind musician, a very funny, nice man. He would play through his nose and all that kind of stuff. And he used to do this black-nationalist rap all the time. Once, at the Main Point in Philadelphia, he started in on, "The white devils and the while oppressor...." And there were these Muslim-looking guys in shades saying, "Right on. right on! Yes, yesss...." Then Rahsaan says. "Right now, I'm going to bring out a brother who's gonna tell you all about it! Come on out ... brother Jay Leno!" And I'd walk out to—silence!

[Q] Playboy: How do you win a crowd over after that?

[A] Leno: I'd say, "Maybe you haven't noticed, but Rabsaan's blind." It was so disarming that even the angriest black man wound up laughing.

[Q] Playboy: Are most audiences that easy to win over?

[A] Leno: No. I remember a night at the Cellar Door in Washington. I was ready to go on with Muddy Waters. I'm not on stage a minute when, from the corner of my eye, I see a guy behind me with a catsup bottle. Bop! He hits me on the head and knocks me out cold. I needed nine stitches. And I was docked a day's pay, because as a professional, I should have seen this thing coming.

There are some awful stories. I got punched once working with Buddy Rich. At another place, this guy said to me [tough-guy voice], "Look, if you're gonna work here, don't wear nice clothes." I asked him why and he said, 'Just don't." So you'd be on stage and you'd see these wise guys who smoke their cigarettes down to their fingers and they'd flick them at you. Just awful stuff like that.

[Q] Playboy: How about younger audiences? Were they nicer?

[A] Leno: Not much. I opened for Rare Earth, remember them? I drove all the way down to George Washington University from Boston, about eight hours, and I get there and there're no chairs. The stage is in the gym. The audience is mostly teenage boys, standing. The musicians tell me, "We've got lots of expensive equipment, buddy. You can't use our stage. You're gonna have to stand on the floor." So I wind up facing the audience eye to eye. I'm handed a mike and I see that the wire on it is going along the floor into the crowd. I say, "Anybody here from Boston?" And someone jerks the wire and the mike flies away. Now I'm bent over, chasing the mike through their legs, and I hear stuff coming over the speakers like, "Hey, Billy, you suck." Somebody's got the mike and he's screaming obscenities. Finally, I find the wire and I follow it to the end and, of course, the mike is gone. Now there's no show. I'm informed, "The mike is your responsibility." Not only was I not paid, I had to pay them seventy-five bucks.

[Q] Playboy: You may be the only comic who has opened for Muddy Waters, Rare Earth and Perry Como. Is a Como audience a bit square by comparison?

[A] Leno: Well, I tried not to be a snob. I remember when I went out with Como for the first year, people said, "It's going to be awful. Don't take that gig. It's going to be old people." But Como's audience was fine. He was always a good singer and a stylist, so his fans were people who enjoyed good music who just happened to be older. They got all the political stuff. They were fine.

[Q] Playboy: When did you begin to try out at the comedy clubs?

[A] Leno: That was back when I was still living in Boston. I'd "borrow" a Rolls from the dealership where I worked and drive to New York after school, four and a half hours each way. I was at The Improv so often that Budd Friedman, the owner, assumed I lived in New York.

[Q] Playboy: Did you hang out with other young comics?

[A] Leno: Since I was the only comic who lived in Boston, everybody who came through would stay at my place. Billy Crystal, Freddie Prinze, Richard Lewis, Jimmie Walker—everybody. One day, Freddie bought a gun and shot about three hundred rounds of ammunition in my living room. Sat there and fired shots to blow a hole between the living room and the bedroom.

[Q] Playboy: So you gave up the apartment?

[A] Leno: Yeah, but not because of that. One night, I was watching The Tonight Show, which had moved to L.A. by then. I saw this comic who was not very good and he'd made the show, so I decided on the spot to go out there. I did it right away. I walked out of the apartment and went to the airport. I left everything behind, the furniture, belongings. I didn't take anything except cash and a small suitcase.

[Q] Playboy: Why so drastic a break?

[A] Leno: I have always painted myself into a corner so I could never, ever make a living doing anything else. I never let myself take a regular job. I wanted to be in a position where I would have to do anything to get on stage. Beg, if that was what it took. Comedy was the only option. Strip joints. Places where you worked for a sandwich. I'd go to auditions where you'd line up at two in the afternoon and stay in line until nine o'clock at night. People in front of me would grumble and leave. And I would move up and feel great. It never occurred to me to quit or be depressed. This was the only job I ever really liked.

[Q] Playboy: What was it about being a comedian that was so important?

[A] Leno: The work—coming up with jokes and telling them. I've always liked that more than I liked any of the trappings. I liked it more than I liked the girls who came around. I liked it more than I liked meeting celebrities. I still do.

[Q] Playboy: What about the girls who come around? What sort of groupies do comedians attract?

[A] Leno: We don't usually get the rock-and-roll Daryl Hannah type. More often, it's lhe sort of fatherless, emotionally impaired type. It's strange. Comics are odd with women. Very rarely are they the pursuers. You stand on stage and women can look at you and decide whether they like your face, whether you have nice eyes or a nice ass—whatever it is that they want. If they like what I hey see, when you go offstage, they'll approach you. And you play the sort of hurt-lawn-lost-in-the-forest act.

[Q] Playboy: Most male comics range from being chauvinistic to being flagrantly antifeminist. You're not. Why?

[A] Leno: Well, first off, I like women. My mom, my aunts were all nice people, responsible people. My wife, and I get along fine. She's very sensible and smart. I've never had a big'problem with personal relationships. Is till see almost every woman I ever went out with. We're, friends. Some are married, some are not. I don't think there are any who hate me. I don't hate any of them.

[Q] Playboy: Where did you and your wife. Mavis, meet?

[A] Leno: Al The Comedy Store. She was in the audience. I thought she was attractive. I didn't wait for her to come to me. We met halfway. We got along right from the start.

[Q] Playboy: Do you remember the moment when you decided to get married?

[A] Leno: We'd been living together for a while. She didn't particularly want to get married. Then, one day, I realized I hat I had a bunch of insurance policies that covered me for everything, but unless Mavis were my wife—if she got sick or was in an automobile accident—she wouldn't be covered. So I told her Thought we should get married. And she agreed. When my mother heard about the insurance, she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She still talks about it. "Oh, they got married because he had some policy. Mr. Skinflint. Mr. Cheap Skate." She goes on and on.

[Q] Playboy: What were some of the compromises you had to make when you and Mavis moved in together?

[A] Leno: I didn't make any. None. When I was dating, a lot of women got annoyed with the fact that coined)' came first. So many comics get married and their wives ask them to work less. My wife knows not to ask that. I'm not talking about emergencies. When her father was ill and in the hospital, I didn't work. We spent every day taking care of him—and that went on for a year. But it's like—Mavis reads voraciously, sometimes fifteen books a week. I wouldn't think of asking her, "Honey, could you just stop reading so much?" I don't understand people who try to change their spouse once they're married.

[Q] Playboy: Are your tastes similar?

[A] Leno: Opposite. But I like opposite. I learn things. Mavis collects Dickens and all sorts of literature and my world is limited to cars, motorcycles and humans. Being with her forces me to see things and talk about things and go places I would not normally go. I've got about twelve cars, classics. She has this Japanese thing, a Honda Prelude. She can be a little grouchier than I am. I'm pretty even-tempered. She gets more bothered by people who ask me for an autograph. II she were the one who was famous, I think she would avoid it much more than I do.

[Q] Playboy: Everyone in show business has a strange story about someone seeking an autograph. What's yours?

[A] Leno: I have a great one. A while ago, I was riding my motorcycle with a friend high up in the Hollywood Hills. We stopped to look down across the city and I'm thinking, This is beautiful. And all of a sudden: "click-click." This guy puts a thirty-eight against the side of my head and cocks it. "Where's my stuff?" he shouts. "You're the bikers who broke into my house and stole all of my stuff." His wife, waiting in the car, says, "Honey, maybe these aren't the guys." "No, I know they're the guys!" I show him my wallet: "I'm no robber. My name's Jay Leno; I'm a comedian. I've been on TV." He asks, "What are you doing here?" "Riding our bikes." He gives me back the wallet, uncocks the gun and says, "Get out of here and don't come back."So a few years later, I'm in a convenience store near the same area. I go around the corner and this guy says, Jay?" I look at him. "Remember me? I was the guy who pulled the gun on you that time. Geez, we're so proud of you." The wife comes up and says, "Oh, we tell everyone that story. Would you give us an autograph for our daughter?" That was one of the stupidest and strangest things that has happened to me.

[Q] Playboy: Back before anybody wanted your autograph, did it discourage you when contemporaries such as Jimmie Walker and Freddie Prinze clicked on TV quickly, while you didn't?

[A] Leno: A lot of people passed me like a shot. Jimmie, Freddie, Robin Williams, Letterman, Elayne Boosler. I was the last one to do The Tonight Show. But it never bothered me. I was never, ever jealous of anybody I thought was good. I was making a living and that was fine with me.

[Q] Playboy: Did any established comics help you?

[A] Leno: A lot of them. You tend to get more work from other comics than you will ever get from any agent. I had already auditioned for Johnny, and he hadn't liked it. He thought I had too much attitude and not enough material. And he was right. But Steve Martin saw me a few times at The Improv and he kept telling the Tonight Show people they should bring me on. I'm very grateful to him. I appeared on the show thanks to him, and he didn't know me from a hole in the wall.

[Q] Playboy: Do you help the new comics?

[A] Leno: I do whatever I can. When I first saw Dennis Miller on Saturday Night Live, I thought he was great. And I spread his name around wherever I could. There's Kevin Money, a very funny comedian, who coproduced a special I did a few years back. Another comedian, Jimmy Brogan. Very funny guy. Carol Leifer. You take care of one another.

[Q] Playboy: Do they ask for career advice?

[A] Leno: It's not some sort of council of elders. It's more like, "You've been there, what do I have to do?" I probably give more advice than is necessary [laughs]. But I like talking with new comics.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever worry that your style of humor might go out of vogue?

[A] Leno: It's like being an athlete. For five or ten years, you hit home runs, and then you spend the rest of your life shagging balls. When I first gained a little popularity, I'd play one-hundred-fifty-seat night clubs, and they would be filled. Then I moved to a thirty-five-hundred-seat place—and that's full. Now I don't care what size the room is, as long as it's full. Every weekend, I go to The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. It seats only two hundred twenty, but I walk in and it's full, and it's the same feeling that I would get at Carnegie Hall—probably belter, because it's more intimate.

[Q] Playboy: What's the story on your going into a trance while you perform?

[A] Leno: I probably should never have mentioned it, because it sounds like psycho comic or something. But when I do two two-hour shows, which is fairly often, I get into the rhythm of the thing and I will asleep on stage. I just plain go out for about forty minutes and then come back in again and drift in and out. My wife knows when I'm asleep. But I don't think anybody else does.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had any rude awakenings?

[A] Leno: Occasionally, there's a heckler or a fight breaks out and I wake up. Only once or twice have I come back and not known where I was. I stumbled a little and got it back. Once, I repealed a joke, God, I was out like a light that time. It sounds really stupid, but other comics know what I'm talking about. You get on a roll with an audience. A friend of mine put one of those pulse things on me and, boy, my pulse drops waaaay down when I'm on stage. It's the easiest part of the clay for me.

[Q] Playboy: What were your early forays into TV like."

[A] Leno: Well, the first ones were around New York, Boston, all the A.M. shows. Just after my Tonight Show debut, I was back in New York, in Buffalo. A.M. Buffalo. I'm in the greenroom, and I'm silting there with seven authentic Pygmy dancers. Just me and the Pygmy dancers. They've got the bones in the nose and the spears and the grass skirts. They don't speak English. They're all grunling and they're about three feel tall. And the talent coordinator walks in. looks around and calls out, "Mr. Lenoooo? Which one is Mr.Lenoooo? And I'm thinking. Oh, aren't I famous now!

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about that first Tonight show appearance.

[A] Leno: March the second, 1977. It's something you remember. It's like your first girl. It's not very good. It's over real quick. But you remember it the rest of your life. Actually, it went pretty well. Not long alter dial, I was listening to my mom talking to my aunt Nettie. "Yes, Jay was on the Johnny Carson program. He has a little skit that he does. lie goes to a town and they have a show and he does his skit." "Ma, it's not a skit." "Well, ii's like a skit and your aunt Nettie doesn't know what it is." Back to the phone: "And he tells little stories." "They're jokes. Ma. They're not little stories."

[Q] Playboy: And you continued to do your little skit on The Tonight Show?

[A] Leno: I did the show probably seven or eight times and each time was less good than the first time. Until they decided they'd had enough. And I didn't do it again for eight years.

[Q] Playboy: Might years? Wasn't that a killer blow to your career?

[A] Leno: I do sort of have my own little world here. I went back on the road. I never really got in anyplace through the front door, anyway. Freddie Prinze would walk out on stage and say, "It's not my job." And the minute he said I hat—boom!—he was on his way. He had instant communication with the audience. I was different. After people saw me seven or eight times, they said, "He's not bad. I kind of like him." I built slowly.

[Q] Playboy: How did you go from being out as a Tonight guest to being in as a guest host?

[A] Leno: It was that same sort of build. They saw me a bunch of times on Letterman, where I was getting good reaction, a n d asked if I'd be interested in guest hosting the show. That worked out surprisingly well, so I continued to do it. Finally, there was a point when they decided that Garry Shandling, who had also been hosting fairly often, and I should split the job. Carry quit, to do his series and here I am.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you do so much better on Letterman than in your early appearances with Carson?

[A] Leno: It was kids talking with kids. When you're on with Johnny, he's Johnny Carson and you're a new kid. I had never even been able to bring myself to call him Johnny. I would say, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Carson," like some little weenie guy, bin I didn't want to say "Johnny." I just fell awkward. But Dave and I knew each other, and I could walk out eating a pizza and make a mess of his desk. Dave would get all flustered.

[Q] Playboy: How did you meet Letterman?

[A] Leno: At an audition night at The Comedy Store. Auditions are usually guys doing material like: "Habib at the 7-Eleven ..." or "My marriage is ..." or "My girlfriend is...." Over and over. And suddenly, here's this guy doing—and I'm not sure this is the exact line, but it was an editorial that went something like this—"We are diametrically opposed to the use of orphans as yardage markers on driving ranges." Dave's skill was so much cleverer than the usual. And he had great phrasing. I went up and introduced myself and we became friends.

[Q] Playboy: Considering the fun you've had on the Letterman show, would you prefer it if The Tonight Show were wilder?

[A] Leno: The difference doesn't have that much to do with the show itself It has to do with what my position is on the show. When I'm on with Dave for ten minutes, he is more or less the calming factor. He's on for an hour. I come out with ten minutes of "Nice tie, Dave," bing, bing, bing, hit hard, eat sandwiches, stud your face, make a mess, knock something over, tell a joke, screw around—boom!—and leave. You come out like a tornado, wreck everything and leave. You can't wreck everything five days a week for an hour; it just gets frantic. This is the mistake networks make when they hire deejays as hosts. "It's gonna be the wackiest hour!" Alter about twenty minutes of this frantic energy, you've had it. So when you host The. Tonight Show, you do your monolog—boom!—slow the whole thing right down, let the guests be funny, let them be entertaining, back off.

[Q] Playboy: Are you and Carson friendly?

[A] Leno: It's not a case of, "Hey, Johnny, what are we doing today?" I mean, there's a social and economic barrier and, I guess, an age difference. But we've had dinner together, my wife and I and Johnny and his wife. Unlike a lot of famous comedians who've been around awhile, he really seems like a contemporary. I hate to sound like a kiss-ass sort of guy, but I enjoy his company. What I think we have is a professional friendship. I don't hang out with him. He's not a car guy; he's a tennis player. Our interests are not all that similar. If he were into cars, I'd be over there every day.

[Q] Playboy: What started you collecting cars and motorcycles?

[A] Leno: I've always loved them, I'm not really a collector. I drive what I like. Most of the stuff I bought when it was real cheap and nobody else wanted it. Now, within the past ten years, it's gotten really expensive. But I'm not a collector. I don't register them as antiques, just as cars. I drive them and when they blow up, I fix them. I don't baby them, but I don't beat them, either.

[Q] Playboy: What do you get out of working on engines and tinkering with cars?

[A] Leno: To me, it's the only real work, making things with your hands, fixing things. My dad was always good with his hands. He was going to be a mechanic, but instead, he went to work for the insurance company. I grew up in a neighborhood where you did things and fixed things. It's so different in Hollywood. A while ago, I told a neighbor that I was going to go mow the lawn. And he said, "You know how to mow the lawn?" As if it were some sort of great skill.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of your contemporaries have gone on to be major film stars. What happened to your movie career?

[A] Leno: I never had one. I made a few movies that didn't do very well. The last one was for Dino de Laurentiis and he went bankrupt.

[Q] Playboy: Your films American Hot Wax and Silver Bears got good reviews.

[A] Leno: Good reviews aren't enough. Either a movie makes money or it doesn't. It's like a joke. Either it's funny or it's not. If people like it, it's a good movie. If they don't like it, then you get into that gray area. They didn't understand it. Yeah, fine. Comedy clubs are filled with comics who are misunderstood.

[Q] Playboy: So movies are not an option?

[A] Leno: I don't know. If Sidney Linnet or one of those terrific directors said, "Gee, I think you'd be good for this," I guess I would do it. It's not like people are offering me Godfather III. What they come to me with is more like Hamburger the Movie, Part II.

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to Tonight, you're looking considerably more dapper than in years gone by. What happened?

[A] Leno: So many people wrote in, "Gel rid of that tie." "You look stupid in that suit." Never mind the jokes. Never mind the monolog. It's the clothes that count. So now it's Perry Ellis stuff. When you're hosting every clay, I think people like to see a certain middle-of-the-road quality.

[Q] Playboy: Would you rather be wearing blue jeans?

[A] Leno: It doesn't matter. To me, clothes are a basic necessity. You really shouldn't show your genitals in public. Arsenio knows all about the dollies tiling. I look at a suit on the dummy and I say, "Well, if that's what it looks like on the dummy, it will look exactly the same on me." And, of course, it never does.

[Q] Playboy: What about, physical fitness? Do you do anything to keep in shape?

[A] Leno: No. I come from the school that says if you have time to exercise at the end of the day, you're not working hard enough.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about your vices. Do you smoke or drink?

[A] Leno: I smoke a pipe once in a while, but I never drink. In high school, I remember taking a couple of sips. I never liked the taste of it. Plus, I was always designated driver. And being into cars and motorcycles, I never wanted to lose my license, certainly not for something as idiotic as drinking. I never quite understood the premise that if I grabbed a girl's ass when I was drunk, I could be forgiven. If I want to grab her ass, I'll just grab her ass. 'Jay was a little over the top, Betty, sorry." Oh, please!

[Q] Playboy: What about religion?

[A] Leno: Never discuss it. No mailer what you say, someone will want to kill you for it. so I don't even discuss it or get into it.

[Q] Playboy: Politics?

[A] Leno: No affiliations. I used to enjoy Dick Cavett's talk show until he began to make his political bent pretty obvious. If you do that, half the audience loves you and half hates you. My job is not to promote one cause or the other but to humiliate and denigrate all politicians. I try to keep it fairly light. Like the joke about Bush going to a baseball game, then going to Bermuda to fly a kite, then saying he won't eat broccoli. Hey, maybe Quayle can handle the job alter all.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you suppose the Frito-Lay people thought you could handle the job of selling Doritos?

[A] Leno: I don't know. I started out as sort of a bit player in those commercials and it grew from there.

[Q] Playboy: Any other products in the works?

[A] Leno: Not at present. I have no interest in selling products that aren't American-made. I don't perform in other countries, why should I sell their products? I tend to be very nationalistic when it comes to industrial America. Actually, Doritos are about the only thing we manufacture in this country any more. And it's a harmless product. I mean, obviously, it's not an apple. But, like I always say. you don't see dead teenagers on the highway with bags of Doritos all around them.

[Q] Playboy: Much of your popularity comes from your being a man of the people. Is this likely to change when your audience stalls thinking of you as a multimillionaire?

[A] Leno: I don't think so. I was driving my Lamborghini a couple of months ago. This guy in a truck shouts, "Hey. go gel 'em, Jay, hey, glad to see you're doing good ..." and he's giving me a high sign and waving to me.

I work hard for my money. I don't take money from anything other than my telling the jokes. I make it known that I'm not out there doing commercials for every product that comes along. I'm not chasing the buck. I try to keep my ticket price on the low side. I don't try to pretend I'm anything but what I am. Yeah, I make good dough. Its a great life. It's a lot like winning the lottery. I don't think people resent it. But if they do, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not going to give it back.

"People don't want to hear some comedian whining about how bad life is. 'Hey, you're getting paid a lot of dough! Shut up, please!'"