Jack Paar presented The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962, between Steve Allen and Johnny Carson.
Paar became host after Allen’s departure and brought a more conversational, personality-driven approach to the program. His tenure helped establish the host as the central attraction of a late-night talk show rather than merely the presenter of a sequence of acts.
Paar was known for emotional candor, thoughtful interviews, and occasional clashes with NBC censorship. One famous incident occurred in 1960, when he walked off the set after a joke was removed from the broadcast; he returned several days later. The episode became a landmark in television’s discussion of editorial control.
Johnny Carson succeeded Paar in 1962 and eventually became the best-known host in the franchise’s history. This succession order is sometimes misremembered because Carson’s long run dominates popular memory, but Paar was the crucial intermediary between Allen’s pioneering format and Carson’s later institution-building era.