Joanna Carson, Johnny Carson’s third wife, has passed away. Her demise was reportedly announced privately in July and the funeral was last week.
Joanna, born Johanna Ulrich, was raised in New York and before meeting Carson, was married to world famous backgammon player Tim Holland, with whom she had a son – Joe.
They were together for six years, after which she turned to modelling as a way to sustain herself.
How Johnny Carson met Joanna
Modelling might have been the means to an end for Joanna at the start, but by the time she met Carson in 1971, she was already one of the top-paid models in Manhattan.
The two met at the 21 Club New York, and the Tonight Show host would later tell People magazine that he was ‘flirting like a sophomore’ the first time they met. Johnny and Joanna ended up having their first date celebrating Carson’s 46th birthday. Reportedly, after that he would call her each day at 4:30 pm for a year.
The two ended up marrying in 1972 – a year after they met – and also the same year Carson divorced his second wife, Joanne. Carson reportedly surprised everyone by announcing his marriage while celebrating his 10th anniversary at the Tonight Show on September 30, 1972.
Ruta Lee, actor-turned-socialite, who knew the two, told People “Joanna’s very accomplished at being a woman. I admire her femininity—her accommodation to men. It’s as if she made a study of how Josephine handled Napoleon. I don’t mean she’s manipulative. She just has a wonderfully sensitive approach to men.”
However, Carson and Joanna would divorce in 1985.
Why Johnny Carson and Joanna divorced
While the exact reason for Carson and Joanna’s split is not known, the talk show host has, in the past, shared his struggles with marriage.
“If I had given as much to marriage as I gave to The Tonight Show, I’d probably have a hell of a marriage,” he had once told People. Carson also often made self-deprecating jokes over his divorce settlement.
Joanna had demanded $220,000 a month in the divorce settlement, and ultimately got $35,000, as per the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, Extra reported that the 1985 settlement gave her a whopping $20 million.
A biography, titled Carson the Magnificent written by Bill Zehme, claims that his struggles with alcohol cast a shadow on all marriages, including that with Joanna.
“During that black drunk phase, I was scared,” she reportedly said in an interview, as per the book, adding, “Sometimes anything could set him off. Those were the scary times.”
