Ed McMahon was not the biggest star I’ve ever covered. But he was certainly one of the nicest. McMahon, who died shortly after midnight at the age of 86, was one of the most accessible, and disarming guys I’ve interviewed over the years. You sometimes got the impression that Ed was kind of  joke amongst some in the industry (Jeffrey Tambor’s buffoonish character on “The Larry Sanders Show” is clearly a rough “homage” to Ed). But to those of us in the press, he couldn’t have been kinder or more open-hearted.

I found a copy of my first encounter with him, back in 1994, and thought I would reprint it here. If you enjoy it even a tenth as much as I did spending time with him, then it’ll be worth your time. Peace, Ed.

 7/19/94, Star Tribune

  “Win a trip! Win a trip to Disney World! All right, friends.
Someone is going to win a trip for five days to Disney World! What
do you think about that, folks?”

     Stand back. Ed McMahon is in the bullpen.

      After three decades of warming up the most famous couch in
history for King Carson and then turning “Star Search” into the
world’s best-known TV karaoke machine, McMahon should be doing two
nights a week in Vegas. A little song, a little dinner, then back to
the suite to count the money.

    Instead, the 71-year-old star is on the road this summer,
kicking off a 35-city tour in the Twin Cities on Monday to push
“Star Search,” now in its 12th year. And hey, since we’re here, why
not pitch about a half-dozen sponsors, plug the muscular dystrophy
telethon and raise some money for charity. Heck, give Ed half a
chance and he’ll probably move some Ginzu knives in the lobby.
“Hurry up! Two minutes!”

     McMahon, dressed in a Blockbuster T-shirt, black slacks and
black loafers without socks, was working Blockbuster Video in
Richfield, swarmed by about 60 people who had to be recruited
quickly from nearby stores because the video center was empty when
he arrived. To pick the winning entry form from a spinning basket,
McMahon handpicked 2-year-old Conrad Nichols from the crowd.

     “I lost the other guy I work with,” he said in his rich
baritone voice as his wife, Pam, lifted the boy onto a table. “I’m
working with Conrad. Let’s hear it for Conrad!”

     Conrad picked a winner, who wasn’t in the store, so McMahon
called him and left a message on the answering machine.

      “He’ll probably think he won the 10 million dollars,” he
said.

     He then told Conrad he would buy him any video in the store and
slipped a clerk a $100 bill (the store returned the money).

     “You’ll like that one,” he said, handing “101 Dalmatians” to
the boy, who barely said a word. “When you start dancing, come on
`Star Search.’ ”

      As McMahon walked out the door and into the bus, the boy
suddenly seemed overcome with joy about his new buddy and screamed
through the glass door.

     “Bye, Ehhhhhhdd!”

    Not much has changed since the teenage McMahon set up shop on
Atlantic City’s boardwalk, hawking vegetable slicers and pulling in
$500 a week, a fortune for anyone in those days, let alone a kid.

     But he gave up the lucrative life to break into the great
unknown called television. “There were only 2 million sets in the
whole country. Only the very, very well-off owned a television,” he
said, as he washed down a turkey sandwich with a glass of milk on
his luxury bus, equipped with queen-size bed, couch, black-leather
office chairs, microwave, three phones and a hot tub. “Across the
street from me there lived a band leader who would take his wife out
to dinner on Sunday nights. I volunteered to be a baby sitter so I
could watch `Break the Bank’ with Bert Parks, Dave Garroway and then
Ed Sullivan’s `Toast of the Town.’ And I had a TV show then. I
hosted a three-hour variety show for $75 a week in Philadelphia and
couldn’t even afford my own set.”

     He met Johnny Carson, did a game show and then they started
their run on a little project called “The Tonight Show” that ran,
oh, 30 years, and sort of changed the way that television worked.

     “We really liked each other, had fun together, and you get a
second sense of what the person wants,” he said. “One night, Johnny
was telling a joke and said, `It was so cold . . . ‘ He had a look
in his eyes. He wanted more amplification. I ad-libbed, `How . . .
cold . . . was . . . it?’ You can’t just say, `How cold was it?’ You
have to make something out of it.”  Along the way he coined other
household phrases: “You may have already won 10 million dollars.”
“Heeeeeere’s Johnny.” “Hey-ohhhhhhhh.”

     With the end of he and Carson’s run on “The Tonight Show” two
years ago, McMahon has changed some of his ways. Shortly after the
final program, he checked into a longevity center, completely
changing his diet and health regimen. On Monday, he was up at 3 a.m.
in the hotel room, hitting the treadmill.

     “I stopped drinking coffee. I used to drink 14 cups a day,” he
said, sipping on a wine glass filled with Evian water at Planet
Hollywood in the morning, watching part of the “Star Search”
auditions. “Toughest thing I ever did in my life. I was always
looking for that perfect cup.”
After several quick auditions, McMahon stepped up on the stage to
donate his “Tonight Show” coffee mug to Planet Hollywood. “Took a
lot of ribbing for what was in this cup,” he said, “but for 30
years, it was only filled with iced tea.”

     Then he left the mall and continued a whirlwind trip of
plugging products as the next contestant took the microphone.

       “I think it’s only appropriate that I dedicate this to Ed,”
said the woman, as she launched into a glass-shattering version of
“I Will Always Love You.”

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