Mr. McMahon was born on March 6, 1923. To put himself through college, Ed McMahon sold vegetable slicers on Atlantic City's boardwalk. He entered show business as a clown on TV's Big Top. He's never deviated much from that pattern. When he first played Johnny Carson's straight man, in 1958, on the quiz show Who Do You Trust?, it was the start of a thirty-five-year union. During Carson's reign as the king of late night, McMahon was always there--a jowly chuckle just off-camera. He laughed at Johnny, he laughed at all the jokes, he laughed at himself.

McMahon cashed in on his fame as Carson's tippling sidekick by hosting daytime game shows in the sixties and seventies and by serving as pitchman for Budweiser and a shelf-full of other products. In the eighties, Johnny's increasingly frequent nights off allowed McMahon time to team up with Dick Clark on Bloopers and Practical Jokes, and to host his own long-running talent show, Star Search. He also played Vegas and, along the way, got married to a woman twenty-three years his junior. Then he got divorced. His work for American Family Publishers earned him less than its giant, $10-million prize, but more than enough to maintain a comfortable post-Johnny lifestyle. Mr. McMahon has five wonderful children to his credit, Claudia, Michael,  Linda, Jeffrey and Katherine.