Peter Lassally, who became known as the “host whisperer” for guiding some of late-night’s biggest stars, has died at 93. Lassally, a Holocaust survivor, worked with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, David Letterman on Late Show, and Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show. He died Sunday of natural causes at a memory care facility in Los Angeles, his son, Tom Lassally, told The Hollywood Reporter. Lassally joined Carson on NBC’s The Tonight Show in 1969 and produced the talk show until Carson’s final broadcast in 1992, after which he became executive producer for Letterman. He also became executive producer of The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder until 1999 and mentored Jon Stewart. He came out of retirement in 2004 to oversee The Late Late Show with Ferguson. Lassally was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1932 to a Jewish family. After fleeing to Amsterdam, Lassally, his mother, and his sister were imprisoned in two concentration camps from 1943 to 1945. His family moved to New York City after the war, and Lassally graduated from high school in Queens. “When Johnny Carson and David Letterman needed counsel and an honest opinion, they immediately went to Peter Lassally, the professor of late night,” NBC said in a statement. “His relationship to each of these giants was immeasurable, and both of them would undoubtedly say his contribution to their success was so impactful that it would be difficult to put in words. [He was] a quiet man whose influence and stature spoke volumes; his brilliance was in shaping what we watch, how we watch and why late night was, and remains, vitally significant.”
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