Request Media Kit

Joanne Carson, Ex-Wife of the Late Johnny Carson, Dies at 84

Joanne Carson, ex-wife of the late Johnny Carson, has died at her Los Angeles home at the age of 84. According to Ed Rada, the executor of her estate, Joanne Carson died on Friday. She had been in dec...
Joanne Carson, Ex-Wife of the Late Johnny Carson, Dies at 84
Written by Kimberly Ripley
  • Joanne Carson, ex-wife of the late Johnny Carson, has died at her Los Angeles home at the age of 84.

    According to Ed Rada, the executor of her estate, Joanne Carson died on Friday. She had been in declining health for some time and was receiving hospice care at the time of her passing.

    ABC News reports that Joanne Copeland married Johnny Carson back in 1963, just a year after he first hosted The Tonight Show. The two were married for nine years, divorcing in 1972.

    “Johnny kind of said to me on our first date, ‘You love comedy so much, would you like to come up and see a show that I did?'” Joanne Carson said on CNN’s Larry King Live in 2007.

    Following her divorce from Johnny Carson, Joanne became quite close to writer Truman Capote. He even had a writing room in Joanne Carson’s home, where he died in 1984.

    Capote urged Carson to write an autobiography and she started on it.

    “I was going to write a lovely story about my friendship with all these people,” she said in an interview just last year. Capote even edited a chapter. The book was never published.

    Joanne Carson married later in life, many years after her divorce from Johnny Carson. That marriage–to Richard Rever–also ended in divorce.

    Ed Rada says Joanne Carson will actually be buried next to Truman Capote.

    Get the WebProNews newsletter delivered to your inbox

    Get the free daily newsletter read by decision makers

    Subscribe
    Advertise with Us

    Ready to get started?

    Get our media kit