# Challenge! Who is the man sitting with all the stars on Johnny Carson? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 30, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321 "2014-04-30T00:42:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/121 "2014-05-01T01:43:48Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I don’t think it’s Kerr, but you need to realize, what you’re saying, that the man is less than six foot tall, isn’t a fact. It’s something you _guessed_, based on a seated photograph. Robert Young is seated next to the man. He was in _ **Marcus Welby M.D.** _ with actor James Brolin (also in the picture) who towered over him on the series, at 6’4”. WHile biographies claim that Young was 6’ tall, it’s more likely that he was, at best, 5’10” or 5’11”. Clearly the man seated next to Young is slightly smaller than him, both in width as well as height. You can tell that by looking at the two. QED ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/122 "2014-05-01T01:47:55Z")
Hans Conried ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/123 "2014-05-01T01:49:36Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > No idea why he would be in the pic, but to me he looks like [Ed Flanders](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22ed+flanders%22&lr=&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=C3FhU6a_OpCcyASCxIKABw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1600&bih=775), maybe best known as Dr. Westphal on _St. Elsewhere._ Not Flanders. Ed Flanders was one of my favorite character actors and I have seen pretty much everything that he ever did. I was sadden when he committed suicide (he suffered from depression his entire life) but I also know that he was balding from a very young age and was given a number of “older roles” simply because he looked older than he was. I’m leaning towards the Photoshopping theory as well. I went through all of the guest’s Tonight Show appearances and I couldn’t find a single one where ALL of the assembled group was together. Karen Valentine’s page actually showed the highest number of Tonight SHow appearances in the early to mid 1970s with eleven. However, the only consistent guest with her was Redd Foxx. Hmmm…😉 It seems likely that this person was added into this photo later by a skillful photographer and that he is likely a minor European actor from that era or a “nobody” added to throw off people looking at the photo. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/124 "2014-05-01T02:00:56Z")
I don’t think it’s Joe Hamilton. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/125 "2014-05-01T02:12:48Z")
Ok. It could be Joe Hamilton. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/126 "2014-05-01T03:00:45Z")
> [@choie](#): > > … (BTW, Danny Thomas didn’t win an Emmy in either 1970 or 1971. I guess he could’ve been hanging out with his daughter, of course.) … > > [snip] > > … And why would he get the best seat in the house? Danny Thomas hosted the Emmy Awards that year (with David Frost). The seat isn’t the “best seat”; it is the most recent guest to sit down seat. Other people would have already been there OR have been “surprise” visitors coming over from the studio down the hall to unexpectedly drop in while another guest was officially being hosted. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/127 "2014-05-01T03:30:04Z")
I’ll play. How about Merv Griffin (although probably not after looking more closely)? Looks like his show won an Emmy in 1970 and he has ties to The Tonight Show as a guest host (and had his own show on opposite it, according to Wikipedia–before my time). ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/128 "2014-05-01T03:36:55Z")
Ok, if not Ed Flanders, how about Ned Flanders? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/129 "2014-05-01T03:51:58Z")
retracted for a sec ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/130 "2014-05-01T03:54:15Z")
Oh, come on, now, where is the moustache? ---
**Author:** ![randompattern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@randompattern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randompattern)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/131 "2014-05-01T03:55:28Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > Haven’t read all the thread, but I searched for the name that I came up with from less than 10 seconds on Google, and it wasn’t in this thread yet. Am I that good a Googler or are you all + Facebook that bad? Or am I just wrong? > > [You decide.](https://www.google.com/search?q=ted+bessell) > > \<10 second Google methodology: > > - Copy the URL of the image posted in the OP > > - Go to Google Image search and click on the little camera icon to search by image, plug in the URL, hit Enter > > -[The _first_ result](http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/classic-television-revisited/images/21373838/title/marlo-thomas), without even clicking on it, has a Google search result description of _“marlo thomas, carol burnett, ted bessell, clippings, magazine submitted by willow2us 21373838.”_ Should have read the thread, we’ve been through this. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/132 "2014-05-01T04:06:47Z")
Good point about Danny Thomas hosting the Emmys, **DSeid**. I missed that. Still, I’m sticking to the newspaper theory that it’s from 1970, because it’s the best contemporaneous info anyone’s come up with. But all this makes me wonder: **Stoid** (who I realize hasn’t been back to the thread since she plunked it down and made us all leap into action), _where did this picture come from?_ Who started this mystery and why do they have this picture? (Frankly this totally _should_ be a thread started by **Earl Snake-Hips Tucker**!) If this is another one of those _14 k of g in a wtf_-type questions I \*will \*cut someone. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/133 "2014-05-01T04:09:05Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Another vote for Bessell. There are other pix on the Interwebz of him and he’s a match all the way. Ditto. There are pics of him that look nothing like in the Carson pic, but there are others where he’s a dead-ringer. Like Elvis, he looked quite different when he was younger and more slender than he did older and beefier. (Re: above retracted post)… I didn’t read the whole thread, but instead searched the thread to see if his name was mentioned but didn’t realize I had misspelled it, which obviously turned up nothing. Then I made the above post before seeing that he \*had \*been mentioned a bunch. Doh!) ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/134 "2014-05-01T04:10:55Z")
> [@randompattern](#): > > Should have read the thread, we’ve been through this. Curse you! You’re too quick, thought I’d retracted in time! (see above explanation) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/135 "2014-05-01T04:24:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Danny Thomas hosted the Emmy Awards that year (with David Frost). > > The seat isn’t the “best seat”; it is the most recent guest to sit down seat. Other people would have already been there OR have been “surprise” visitors coming over from the studio down the hall to unexpectedly drop in while another guest was officially being hosted. IIRC, the usual Tonight Show procedure with a large group of guests like that is to have them come out en masse (or one at a time followed closely by the next) and then sit as a group on the couch, with the main spokesperson for the group taking his or her seat in the chair next to Carson. Also it doesn’t really add up to me that Carson would bring out such heavy hitters as Carol Burnett and Danny Thomas and the rest of that cast of popular actors and then bring out somebody relatively unknown and unimportant to sit and chat while the rest of them cool their heels. I also think the guy’s body language and posture is indicative of somebody pretty important. For someone that none of us knows, he seems pretty comfortable with and perhaps more important than the actors he’s talking to…most of whom seem to be regarding him with respect and good cheer. At any rate it just gets curiouser and curiouser. I’m beginning to think this thread is going to end up like the one trying to identify the cute girl in a Dodgers baseball shirt posing with Annette Funicello, Nancy Sinatra and Phyllis Diller. No one ever figured it out and the answer only came months later when somebody found it through Nancy Sinatra, who got it herself from someone named “Andrew”. Maybe someone will be successful at getting in touch with one of the remaining cast members and we’ll find out that way as it’s really beginning to look like no one here is going to know. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/136 "2014-05-01T04:30:57Z")
'Tain’t Ted Bessell. Mystery Man has a mouth that recedes behind the plane of his eyebrows and chin; Bessell’s mouth does not recede nearly that much. Also he has fuller lips. Bessell doesn’t have a dimple in his chin, Mystery Man does. Bessell’s hairline is not receding the way that Mystery Man’s is. Bessell’s nose goes out straight above the lip, Mystery Man’s nose appears to angle down a little. I could go on. 'Tain’t Bessell. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/137 "2014-05-01T04:34:52Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > 'Tain’t Ted Bessell. Mystery Man has a mouth that recedes behind the plane of his eyebrows and chin; Bessell’s mouth does not recede nearly that much. Also he has fuller lips. Bessell doesn’t have a dimple in his chin, Mystery Man does. Bessell’s hairline is not receding the way that Mystery Man’s is. Bessell’s nose goes out straight above the lip, Mystery Man’s nose appears to angle down a little. I could go on. 'Tain’t Bessell. Speaking as someone who watched “That Girl” every day in syndication, and nursed a crush on Marlo Thomas as well as an irrational hatred of Ted Bessell, I can say with 100% certainty that you are correct. ---
**Author:** ![randompattern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@randompattern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randompattern)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/138 "2014-05-01T04:35:53Z")
I tried hunting down Carol Burnett but no dice. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/139 "2014-05-01T04:46:15Z")
Crazy as it may sound, I’m still thinking Sid Caesar. [![](https://www.latimes.com/includes/projects/hollywood/portraits/sid_caesar.jpg) ](https://www.latimes.com/includes/projects/hollywood/portraits/sid_caesar.jpg) Look at the shape of the chin and nose and the way the brows overhang the eyes. Plus he’s listed at 6’0 which seems right to me based on the pic. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321/140 "2014-05-01T04:50:39Z")
I have to say I’m flabbergasted by some of the guesses… _really?_ So far the only one that I wouldn’t stake my life and the lives of everyone I love being wrong is Richman. I think his daughter would know, but still it’s the only one that even makes me hesitate and think…could be. But all the others are just… _really_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/challenge-who-is-the-man-sitting-with-all-the-stars-on-johnny-carson/687321.md?page=8)