Ed Mcmahon Dies

Ed Mcmahon has died today at the age of 86. His publicist Howard Bragman told the Associated Press that Mr. McMahon died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center surrounded by his family. Mr Bragman didn't give a cause of death, saying only that the entertainer had a "multitude of health problems the last few months."
Ed McMahon, whose nearly three decades as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show” and innumerable appearances as television pitchman and master of ceremonies made him one of the medium’s most ubiquitous figure. His trademark response of “Hi-yo!” to a particularly racy Carson line was a boys-will-be-boys battle cry, and his nightly introduction of Carson, “Heeeere’s Johnny!,” became one of the best-known catchphrases in popular culture. When Jack Nicholson’s homicidal maniac in the 1980 film “The Shining” used it to announce an ax-wielding assault, everyone in the audience got the joke.

(AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac/file 1992)
Carson and Mr. McMahon were a match made in late-night heaven. Where Carson was slight, coiled, preternaturally quick, Mr. McMahon was oversized (6 feet 4 inches tall, and usually well over 200 pounds) and the soul of unhurried amiability.
“My talent is making it seem I have no talent,” Mr. McMahon once wrote. “It took me years of hard work to convince an audience that I wasn’t working.”