Jay talking; 'Nice guy' Leno keeps finishing first in the late-night ratings

Quick - which late-night host is America's favorite, Jay Leno or David Letterman? It's Leno, by a country mile. Surprised? You can't be blamed for thinking Dave, not Jay, would be numero uno. Since undergoing emergency heart bypass surgery last year, Letterman has gotten a windfall of good publicity that just won't quit. The latest was a wet kiss of a cover story by TV Guide. Leno? Nuthin'. In a city where the celebrity Richter scale is always bouncing, the King of Late Night almost never makes waves. Leno - marking his ninth anniversary as host of the "Tonight" show this week - professes not to care. "I know this is going to sound stupid and you're not going to believe me," Leno said in a phone interview last week, "but if our show is more popular with the general public, and Dave gets the publicity, that evens out." Maybe for him it does, but it's clear that Letterman would love to rekindle the late-night wars with Leno that raged from 1993 to 1996. Tune in to Letterman's "Late Show" these days and you may hear his mocking impersonation of Leno. Usually it's the diplomatic Leno he makes fun of. Leno's seen it. "When Dave does me, that's funny," he said. There he goes again! It has to drive Dave nuts. (Letterman hasn't given an interview in four years, or we'd ask.) Not for nothing did Dennis Miller once say of Leno, "He's a nice guy - but he's also in the nice-guy business." And since 1995, business has been great. In that time he has been No. 1 late night, usually by a wide margin. This season he averaged 6 million viewers to Letterman's 4.3 million, according to NBC. Leno has finished first among the key viewing group of 18-to 49-year-olds for 61 straight weeks. And despite what you hear about Dave's loyal fans, NBC research has found that Leno's audience watches the show longer each night than Letterman's does. Though Hugh Grant's 1995 "Tonight" appearance has become show-biz legend, things actually started turning around a year earlier, in 1994, when Leno went to New York to do his show from the "Saturday Night Live" stage. He coveted the intimate feel of that studio so much that he went back to Burbank, Calif., and asked NBC to build him a new set. With the help of his new executive producer, Wichita native Debbie Vickers, Leno reinvented himself and "Tonight." Johnny Carson might have had four guests on in an hour; these days two celebrities is more the norm. According to Leno, "We basically do a half-hour comedy show every night." That means more comedy material is needed - a lot more. Fortunately, Leno has a lifestyle ideally suited to the task. All he does is work. Five days a week, 230 times a year, he arrives at NBC at 8:30 a.m. and toils straight through until 5:30 p.m., when "Tonight" tapes. After the show he goes out with a camera crew to mix with the public and shoot comedy bits. From 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. he and his writers are at his Beverly Hills home, working on the next night's show. The routine has not changed in years. As if that weren't enough, Leno performs more than 100 outside dates a year - from corporate functions to a Boys and Girls Clubs benefit in March in Kansas City. Most Sunday nights you can find him on stage at the Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic Club, trying out jokes for "Tonight." The 51-year-old Leno says his late parents gave him the work ethic and humility that have served him well in Hollywood. His father, Angelo, made a living selling insurance to the hardscrabble parts of Andover, Mass. As for his mother, Cathryn, her horrified response to seeing her son's name in the "Tonight" marquee was, "People will think you're trying to be a show-off!" Hardly. In fact, Leno has spent most of the last nine years playing Salieri to Letterman's Mozart. From the start, Leno's "Tonight" was ridiculed by TV critics, who charged Leno with betraying his roots as a hip stand-up comedian to do homogenized humor in late night. Letterman, who jumped to CBS when "Tonight" went to Leno, is considered a TV genius. Nobody says that about Leno. To which America's favorite chin says: Yeah? So? "I've got a wonderful life, a wonderful marriage," said Leno, who recently signed a new contract with NBC that will keep him on the job through 2005. He is "so proud" that Mavis, his wife of 20 years, is leading a campaign to call attention to the plight of women under the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. Leno is also proud of having one of the country's premier car and motorcycle collections. He has 80 of each, including a 1930 Duesenberg, a black 1993 Dodge Viper ("the first one that wasn't red") and a 1913 Steamer. He takes them for Sunday-morning drives up Mulholland Drive and waxes prosaic about them in a column for Popular Mechanics. The magazine endows a scholarship in Leno's name at McPherson (Kan.) College, which offers a two-year degree in car restoration. "I seem to get so much grief for being contented," he said. "The real trick to show business is to make show business money and lead a normal life." You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. LENO SPEAKS OUT On Johnny Carson: "I can go back to a show from the 1960s or '70s. I saw it in college. Johnny had somebody on, a big star, talking about a pair of shoes he had made. And Johnny said, 'Are those the shoes?' and (the star) said 'Yes, and they cost $300.' Which was a lot of money back then. "And Johnny whistled and said, 'Three hundred dollars!' After the show I thought, 'Johnny could buy $300 shoes all day long!' But his reaction was honestly that of a guy from Lincoln, Neb., and that was his great gift." On Robert Blake jokes: "I don't know if people like to laugh (at murder), but they're frustrated. We're in this spin doctor mode, and Robert Blake's attorney is trashing the woman. Now, whether she's a horrible person or not, she is the victim. "Here (as with the O.J. Simpson case) you have another case of justice delayed, and a good joke can cut to the heart of the matter. I said the other night that Robert Blake's attorney has a bigger career ahead of him than Robert Blake." On calling New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a fascist: "I don't think I was wrong in what I said. "I was talking to Judge Judy (Sheindlin) and I said, 'Now what do you think about the fascist thing in New York?' And she said, 'Did you say it was fascist?' Any time you censor art, it's fascist." @ART:Graphic (color illustration) @ART CREDIT:RON CODDINGTON/Knight Ridder Tribune >>>