John William Carson was an American television host, comedian and producer. He is best known as the host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Carson received six Emmy Awards, the Television Academy's 1980 Governor's Award, a 1985 Peabody Award, he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993. During World War II, Carson served in the Navy. After the war, Carson started a career in radio. Although his show was successful by the end of the 1960s, during the 1970s, Carson became an American icon and remained so after his retirement in 1992, he adopted a casual, conversational approach with extensive interaction with guests, an approach pioneered by Arthur Godfrey and previous Tonight Show hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Former late-night host and friend David Letterman has cited Carson's influence. John William Carson was born on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, to Ruth Elizabeth Carson and Homer Lloyd "Kit" Carson, a power company manager.

He grew up in the nearby towns of Avoca and Red Oak in southwest Iowa before moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, at the age of eight. There, Carson began developing his talent for entertaining. At the age of 12, Carson found a book on magic at a friend's house and purchased a mail-order magician's kit. After the purchase of the kit, Carson practiced his entertainment skills on family members with card tricks, he was known for following his family members around saying, "Pick a card, any card." Carson's mother sewed him a cape, his first performance was staged in front of the local Kiwanis Club. He was paid $3 a show. Soon, many other performances at local picnics and county fairs followed. After graduating from high school, Carson had his first encounter with Hollywood, he hitchhiked to Hollywood, where he was arrested and fined $50 for impersonating a midshipman, a story regarded as apocryphal. "Johnny embarked on an adventure, one so laden with implications about his future, that some have wondered if the escapade might not be a legend."

Carson joined the United States Navy on June 8, 1943, received V-12 Navy College Training Program officer training at Columbia University and Millsaps College. Commissioned an ensign late in the war, Carson was assigned to the USS Pennsylvania in the Pacific. While in the Navy, Carson posted a 10–0 amateur boxing record, with most of his bouts fought on board the Pennsylvania, he was en route to the combat zone aboard a troop ship when the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. Carson served as a communications officer in charge of decoding encrypted messages, he said that the high point of his military career was performing a magic trick for United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal. In a conversation with Forrestal, the Secretary asked Carson if he planned to stay in the Navy after the war. In response, Carson told him he wanted to be a magician. Forrestal asked him to perform, Carson responded with a card trick. Carson made the discovery that he could entertain and amuse someone as cranky and sophisticated as Forrestal.

To take advantage of the educational opportunities from the Navy, Carson attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and continued performing magic. He majored in journalism with the intention of becoming a comedy writer. Instead, he switched his major to speech and drama a few months because he wanted to become a radio performer. Carson's college thesis, titled "How to Write Comedian Jokes", was a compilation of taped skits and jokes from popular radio shows with Carson explaining the comedic technique in a voice-over, it allowed him to graduate in three years. Carson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in radio and speech with a minor in physics in 1949. Carson began his broadcasting career in 1950 at WOW television in Omaha. Carson soon hosted. One of his routines involved interviewing pigeons on the roof of the local courthouse that would report on the political corruption they had seen. Carson supplemented his income by serving as master of ceremonies at local church dinners, attended by some of the same politicians and civic leaders whom he had lampooned on the radio.

The wife of one of the Omaha political figures Carson spoofed owned stock in a radio station in Los Angeles, in 1951 referred Carson to her brother, influential in the emerging television market in Southern California. Carson joined CBS-owned Los Angeles television station KNXT. In 1953, comic Red Skelton—a fan of Carson's "cult success" low-budget sketch comedy show, Carson's Cellar on KNXT—asked Carson to join his show as a writer. In 1954, Skelton accidentally knocked himself unconscious during rehearsal an hour before his live show began. Carson successfully filled in for him. In 1955, Jack Benny invited Carson to appear on one of his programs during the opening and closing segments. Carson imitated claimed that Benny had copied his gestures. Benny predicted. Carson hosted several shows besides Carson's Cellar, including the game show Earn Your Vacation and the CBS variety show The Johnny Carson Show, he was a guest panelist on the original To Tell the Truth starting in 1960 becoming a regular panelist from 1961 until 1962.

After the primetime The Johnny Carson Show failed, he moved to New York City to host ABC-TV's Who Do You Trust? known as Do You Trust Your Wife

Penelope Milford is an American stage and screen actress. She is best known for her role as Vi Munson in Coming Home for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she originated the role of Jenny Anderson in the Broadway musical Shenandoah, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 1975. Penelope Dale Milford was born March 23, 1948 in St. Louis and grew up in Illinois, she was the daughter of Ann Marie Milford. She graduated from New Trier High School in an affluent suburb of Chicago, her younger brother, Kim Milford, was an actor and musician until his death from heart failure at age 37. In 1972 Milford joined the Broadway cast of the play Lenny, about the life of actor Lenny Bruce. In 1974 she was cast as Jenny Anderson in the musical Shenandoah, based on the Oscar nominated 1965 film of the same name in which her role was played by Rosemary Forsyth. Shenandoah opened on Broadway on January 7, 1975 and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical.

For her performance, Milford was nominated for the first Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress, losing to her co-star Donna Theodore. Off-Broadway in 1971, Milford starred as Judith opposite Richard Gere in Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, a musical about artist Richard Fariña. Milford has appeared in Felix, Fishing by Michael Weller, Territorial Rites, she has performed in a revue show called The Second Hottest Show in Town. In 2013, Milford played the role of Deborah in the Harold Pinter play A Kind of Alaska at the Cocoon Theatre in Rhinebeck, New York, her first television appearance was on a 1976 episode of The Blue Knight. In 1980, Milford starred as Kathy Morris. In 1980 she co-starred in the Emmy Award winning television movie The Oldest Living Graduate starring Henry Fonda and Cloris Leachman. In 1982 she starred opposite Sondra Locke in the Jackie Cooper directed Emmy Award winning television film Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story. In this film she played the sister of Rosemary Clooney.

In 1984, Penelope appeared in the Golden Globe award-winning television movie The Burning Bed starring Farrah Fawcett. In 1985 she guest starred on an episode of The Hitchhiker. Penelope's first film appearance was as an extra on the Norman Mailer film Maidstone. In 1974 she appeared in the film Man on a Swing starring Cliff Robertson, Joel Grey and Elizabeth Wilson, she next played a fictional actress named Lorna Sinclair in Ken Russell's BAFTA-nominated 1977 film Valentino, about the life of actor Rudolph Valentino. In 1978 she was cast as Vi Munson in Coming Home. In the film she plays a young woman dealing with the effects of war on those around her alongside her friend Sally; the film was nominated for many Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for Milford. In 1980 she appeared in the film The Last Word starring Karen Black, she plays a supporting role in the 1981 film Take This Job and Shove It, starring Barbara Hershey and in 1981 appears in Franco Zeffirelli's Oscar-nominated Endless Love, starring Brooke Shields and Shirley Knight.

In 1982 she starred alongside Michael Moriarty and Geraldine Fitzgerald in the horror film Blood Link and starred in the 1983 adventure film The Golden Seal. After this time her film appearances became less frequent, not showing up again until the 1989 cult film Heathers starring Winona Ryder, her last few films include Cold Justice, Miss Missouri, Normal Life starring Ashley Judd, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part II and Night of the Lawyers. Maidstone Man on a Swing as Evelyn Moore The Blue Knight Valentino as Lorna Sinclair Coming Home as Vi Munson The Last Word as Denise Travis Seizure: The Story of Kathy Morris as Kathy Morris The Oldest Living Graduate as Martha Ann Take This Job and Shove It as Lenore Meade Endless Love as Ingrid Orchester Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story as Betty Clooney Blood Link as Julie Warren The Golden Seal as Tania Lee The Burning Bed as Gaby The Hitchhiker as Diane Hampton Heathers as Pauline Fleming Cold Justice as Eileen Miss Missouri as Ann Normal Life as Adele Anderson Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part II as Woman in Woods Night of the Lawyers as Anna Carroll Milford lives in Saugerties, New York where she is active in community outreach.

Penelope Milford on IMDb Penelope Milford at the Internet Broadway Database Penelope Milford at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

Robert Feder is a Chicago, US, media blogger, the television and radio columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1980 until 2008, a blogger for Vocalo.org from 2009 until 2010, a blogger for Time Out Chicago from 2011 until 2013. He now writes a daily media blog on his official website. Born on Chicago's South Side and raised in Skokie, Feder earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1978. Growing up, Feder considered his idol to be CBS legend Walter Cronkite, he created the first and only fan club of Cronkite at age 14. Feder got his start in journalism at Lerner Newspapers' Skokie Life newspaper, he joined the Chicago Sun-Times in 1980, starting out as a legman for TV/radio columnist Gary Deeb. Feder became the paper's TV and radio columnist after Deeb left to join a Chicago TV station, Feder remained at the Sun-Times as its TV/radio columnist until the fall of 2008. In 2008, Feder took a buyout from the Sun-Times. After a one-year hiatus, he joined Chicago's Vocalo.org as a blogger, where he worked until December 2010.

Feder joined Time Out Chicago as media critic on January 3, 2011. On April 8, 2013, Feder announced in an email and on his Facebook page that with the closure of Time Out as a printed magazine and its shift to a digital-only platform, he would accept a buyout of his contract and leave Time Out Chicago. On August 15, 2013, Feder launched "RobertFeder.com", under a licensing and marketing agreement with Chicago Tribune Media Group. That agreement included some of his blog posts appearing as articles in the Chicago Tribune newspaper. While he continues to blog at his website, his licensing and marketing agreement ended at the end of August 2016 and was not renewed. Since April 26, 2017, he operates his blog under an agreement with the Daily Herald, a newspaper serving the northern and western suburbs of Chicago. RobertFeder.com blog Robert Feder's Time Out Chicago blog