Johnny Carson, who died of emphysema yesterday in Malibu, Calif., at age 79, set the gold standard for late-night talk and high jinks with his 30-year run at the “Tonight Show.”

Although he was not the first host of “Tonight” – Alan King and Jack Paar preceded him – it was Carson who made it into the most profitable show at NBC. During his tenure, a rigid format developed that has become the touchstone for virtually all other late night talk shows: festive beginning, banter with the band leader and the announcer/sidekick, monologue, skits, and interviews.

It was perhaps this predictability, plus Carson’s cool personality, that made the show the ultimate on-air sleepy-time companion for much of America. It was possible to curl up into Carson’s comfortable, star-studded glow and drift off.

“What made you a star?” Carson was once asked. The amateur astronomer answered, “I started out in a gaseous state, then cooled.”

Among the highlights of the show over the years: the wedding of ukulele strumming flower child Tiny Tim to Miss Vicky, supposedly before an audience of 50 million; actor Jimmy Stewart choking up while reading a poem about his dog; actress Charo’s frequent appearances to dance the “hootchie cootchie”; astronomer Carl Sagan’s regular appearances to speak of “billions and billions” of various celestial phenomena.

Then there were the unscripted moments that somehow became classics, such as a tomahawk thrower who nailed a wooden target right between the legs and the appearance by a little old lady with a collection of potato chips shaped like celebrities’ heads. Carson absent-mindedly munched on a chip, inducing apoplexy in his guest before it was revealed that he had another bag of chips behind his desk.

John William Carson came by his Midwestern bonhomie honestly, having been born October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, and raised in Norfolk, Neb., where his father was a utility company lineman. While still young, Carson became interested in magic. At around age 12, he began playing at church benefits and Elk and Moose lodges using a mail-order magic kit. His mother embroidered his cape with “The Great Carsoni.” The parallels to his oracular on-air character “Carnac the Magnificent” are unmistakable.

In high school, Carson wrote a humor column for the school paper and performed in school productions. After graduation, Carson was inducted in the Navy and attended officer training school at Columbia. He served aboard the USS Pennsylvania in the South Pacific.

Carson subsequently attended the University of Nebraska, where he completed a senior thesis on comedy writing. He then went to work for Nebraska radio stations. According to a profile of Carson that ran in the New Yorker in 1978, while working at a station in Omaha, Carson was required to conduct pseudo-interviews involving taped celebrity responses. He liked to cut-up by asking inappropriate questions, as in the following example with responses provided by Patti Page: “I under stand you’re hitting the bottle pretty good, Patti – when did you start?” “When I was 6, I used to get up at church socials and do it.”

Carson next found work as an announcer in Los Angeles at KNXT-TV, where he was eventually given his first show, a half-hour weekly satirical take on the news. Carson would introduce it with the line, “KNXT cautiously presents Carson’s Cellar.” Despite convincing celebrities like Groucho Marx, Fred Allen, and Red Skelton to appear for free, the show soon failed.

Carson had impressed Skelton, who hired the young man as a writer for his CBS television show. When Skelton injured himself in an on-set accident in 1954, Carson took over the live broadcast and presented his own material. His debut was impressive enough that he was offered his own prime time show. When “The Johnny Carson Show” flopped after less than a season, a discouraged Carson dropped out of show business temporarily and moved to New York.

Appearances at the Friars Club and guest television slots rebuilt his confidence, and in 1956 Carson became host of the ABC game show “Who Do You Trust?” (original title: “Do You Trust Your Wife?”).The show had a casual format that allowed Carson to display his quick wit, and it soon became ABC’s top-rated daytime program. Meanwhile, Carson made guest appearances on other game shows and did occasional acting turns. In 1958, he substituted for Jack Paar on NBC’s “Tonight Show.” After Paar quit the show for good, in 1962, Carson was hired as his replacement. Paar was known for his edgy emotionalism, but Carson’s more laid-back, quasi-Rat-Pack personality was a better fit for television in the early 1960s. He got off to a strong start, matching Paar’s annual $15 million in advertising revenues within his first year.

Carson brought sideman Ed McMahon along with him from “Who Do You Trust?” and retained Skitch Henderson as bandleader. Henderson’s lead trumpeter, Doc Severinsen, later succeeded to the bandleader’s seat. A 1967 Time magazine cover story dubbed the program “an institution.” Later that year Carson negotiated a raise to $20,000 after publicly threatening to quit.

For a man who jealously guarded his privacy, a lot of Carson’s life was on display in public. The contract negotiations always seemed to take place in public. In 1972, Carson again threatened to quit, and his on-air time was reduced again and again, to four days a week, and three days many weeks, and the show was cut back to 60 minutes from 90. By the 1980s, Carson was earning well in excess of $5 million a year, by far the highest salary in television. His audience numbers had kept pace with his remuneration.

Then there were the divorces, three in all. They became fodder for gossip columns as well as on-show banter. With his trademark loud suits (spun off into a profitable signature line of clothing) and pencils tapping along with the band (Carson was an amateur drummer, too), he seemed the epitome of a late-1960s swinger. He was the center of a big, wild party, and guests openly drank and smoked on the show.

The show’s monologues nevertheless remained topical, and Carson’s jokes at President Nixon’s expense were later seen by some as helping to cement his departure. In 1988, then-Governor Clinton engineered a political comeback on the “Tonight Show” following his poorly received address to the Democratic National Convention.

“I’ve always felt that a show that’s on from 11:30 to 1 at night should be entertaining,” Carson told Time. “I’ve never seen it chiseled in stone tablets that TV must be uplifting.”

Carson’s popularity readily translated to Las Vegas, where he frequently headlined. He hosted the Academy Awards five times in the 1970s and 1980s.

Carson seemed to have a fear of growing old in public, and in 1992 announced that he was retiring. This time he meant it, and a messy succession struggle ensued in which the network vacillated between Jay Leno and David Letterman, the longtime NBC host whom many assumed to be the logical successor. Mr. Leno won out in the end, and Mr. Letterman started a competing show on CBS. Carson stayed neutral in the fracas, although his sentiments seemed to be with Mr. Letterman.

In retirement, Mr. Carson was often described as a recluse, although in fact he merely spurned the press. He remained active, playing tennis, sailing, and going on several safaris. In recent years he was rumored to be writing occasional jokes for Mr. Letterman, and he had two humor pieces in the New Yorker, including a list of children’s letters to Santa from such notables as William Buckley and Don Rickles.

In 1992, Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with the first President Bush saying, “With decency and style, he’s made America laugh and think.”

Carson had undergone health setbacks in recent years, including a quadruple bypass in 1998. In 2002, Carson’s production company announced that he had emphysema.

In explaining his almost complete absence from the screens that made him a star, Carson told a reporter, “I’m not gregarious. I’m a loner. I’ve always been that way.” He’d never really been comfortable at the center of the party, but as a methodical and slightly unwilling host, he represented the epitome of a festive sensibility in national socializing that disappeared with him.