NAMES IN THE NEWS : ‘Holdup,’ Carson’s Lawyers Say

Attorneys for “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson on Tuesday called the demand for more alimony by his first wife Joan a “baldfaced holdup.”

“It is a vehicle to generate unfavorable and misleading publicity in an attempt to extort money from (Carson),” attorney Stanley Arkin said in court papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The papers were filed in response to Joan Carson’s motions, filed last month, for a nine-fold increase in her alimony, from $13,500 a year to $120,000 a year.

Arkin said in court papers that Joan and Johnny, who met in college at the University of Nebraska, have had virtually no contact for years. They were married in 1949, separated in 1959 and divorced in 1963. Carson, who is in his 28th year of hosting the highly successful late-night talk show, is reportedly paid more than $6 million a year by NBC. Divorced three times, Carson currently is married.

According to court papers, Joan Carson, 61, lives at the Surrey Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and can’t afford to buy a home, although she puts her cash net worth at $388,000. “I don’t have a home. I can’t afford to buy a home. I can’t live on this, and I’ve put this off much too long,” she said.