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Michael Schneider
Variety Editor at Large
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Liz O.Baylen/Los Angeles Times/Contour by Getty Images Peter Lassally, the dean of late night producers who worked with Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show,” David Letterman on “Late Show” and Craig Ferguson on “The Late Late Show,” has died. He was 93.
Lassally was long dubbed the “host whisperer” for helping steer some of the biggest franchises of all time in late night. He worked with Carson until that host retired in 1992; after that, he joined forces with Letterman, who had hoped to take the “Tonight” mantle but was famously passed over for the gig. That’s when Lassally, joining Letterman’s Worldwide Pants shingle, was instrumental in helping Letterman decide to leave NBC and create an entirely new “Late Show” franchise at CBS.
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