Jay Leno

Sunday November 20, 2016 8:00 PM Jay Leno was the host of NBC’s late-night program The Tonight Show from 1992 to 2009 and from 2010 until 2014, when he was replaced by Jimmy Fallon. Jay Leno first gained fame as a standup comedian with intense work habits: he reportedly toured 300 nights a year during the late 1980s. He eventually became a regular vacation stand-in for the legendary Johnny Carson, who hosted The Tonight Show for nearly 30 years. When Carson retired in 1992, Jay Leno got the job full-time. Jay Leno is known as a gentle and unthreatening comic with mass-market appeal, and he is often kidded about his sizable chin. (His book Leading With My Chin was published in 1998.)