Jay Leno, performing in Wichita next week, tries to keep normalcy by doing stand-up
Just like he’s done for the 11 years since he stepped away from “The Tonight Show,” Jay Leno is still on the road doing comedy 175 to 200 days a year, including a date at the Orpheum Theatre in Wichita next week.
Leno has tried to keep that routine, even after the diagnosis of his wife, Mavis, with Alzheimer’s disease a few years ago.
“I just try to get home every night; that’s the only difference. The plane waits and I come right back,” he explained in a phone interview. “(When I used to) stay out three or four days, I just stay out one day now, two days most.”
Leno was interviewed Monday, his 75th birthday. “I’m not a big celebration guy,” he said.
He said he tries to keep things as normal as he can for his wife of 45 years.
“I enjoy it. I like taking care of my wife, I don’t mind it. It’s not the greatest thing in the world, but it’s OK,” he said. “It’s not like she’s in any pain, writhing in pain screaming or anything. She smiles, and I can see when she’s pleased with something. You know, it is what it is.
“I’m glad it didn’t happen when we were 40. You have 40 good years, and you have five kind-of tricky ones, but that’s OK,” Leno added. “Do I wish it’d never happened? Of course. But you’ve got to find the humor in it.”
Leno related two anecdotes from recent years, one about his wife not recognizing President Barack Obama on TV and agape at the fact that she and her husband had dinner with the former president; the other about taking his wife shoe shopping at Nordstrom and buying what he thought were two similar pairs of sneakers – one for $20, the other for $800-plus.
“I’m glad I can afford to laugh like that,” he said.
These days he enjoys “Little things, just trying to make her laugh, remind her of things we use to do.”
“It’s fine, it’s OK,” Leno said. “It’s like a test I’m glad I passed. I’m very comfortable with it.”
Leno keeps up a nightly tradition with his wife of making her dinner and sitting down to watch TV together, although he says Mavis is “almost totally bedridden,” and can’t remember what happened from one episode to the next.
“It’s really the same thing, you just can’t have a discussion or talk about things,” he said with an audible shrug.
Famous for not spending the money he made as host of “The Tonight Show” for 21 years, Leno said he feels the need to go out and make money because “Somehow, I’ve become the patriarch” of the family, including paying $11,000 a month each for a brother-in-law and an uncle in nursing facilities.
“There’s a lot of people affected by this,” he said. “Technically, I don’t have to (go on the road), but to keep a sense of normalcy.”
As for his wife, Leno says a nurse comes in twice a week to check her vitals, and a dentist has regular house calls to clean her teeth.
“I don’t know how people who are schoolteachers or policemen or nurses who have regular jobs (do it),” he said. “I’m glad I have the position I’m in, so my lifestyle doesn’t change dramatically. I don’t have to get a reverse mortgage or anything like that.”
Besides being his wife’s caretaker, Leno has faced his own physical setbacks in recent years, including severe burns to his face while fixing a car in 2022; falling off a motorcycle and breaking bones in 2023; and breaking his wrist last November while tripping on the sidewalk.
He said that hasn’t changed his non-stage routine as a collector of vintage autos and motorcycles.
“That’s a great thing about being over 40. Once a man goes over 40, you can’t teach him anything,” he said with a laugh. “You never learn by your mistakes.”
Leno said he doesn’t miss having his own late-night talk show, succeeding Johnny Carson from 1992-2009.
“It’s just a different time now,” Leno said. “In my era and with Johnny, the idea was you’d make fun of both sides and you try not to give your political opinion. Now if you don’t give your political opinion, people get mad. They want to know how you feel on every issue, and you’re always losing half your audience.”
Most late-night television material these days is viewed the next day, either via streaming, online or DVR.
“You had appointment television, you tuned in to watch monologues or whatever,” he said. “Now, you get the highlights of show. You don’t have to watch at 11:30 (Eastern time) anymore, you just tape it and watch the highlights.”
Changing regulations have also meant more commercials during a 60-minute network talk show than he had in his day.
“If I hear Jake from State Farm one more time, I’m gonna shoot myself in the head,” he said with a laugh.
Leno, whose last Wichita area appearance was at the former Hartman Arena in Park City in 2018, made a public announcement -- about the same time as headlines were made about assuming conservatorship for his wife in early 2024 -- that he was dropping political material from his stand-up act.
“Since I took politics out of the act, ticket sales went up like, 20, 30%,” he said. “I think people are just sick of it. Everybody gives their opinion on every single issue, y’know? If I go hear a singer, I really don’t know how he feels about the Middle East situation. I want to hear him sing a song.”
JAY LENO
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 8
Where: Orpheum Theatre,
Tickets: $79-$295, from selectaseat.com or 316-755-7328