Fred de Cordova: Man Behind the Legends : Television: The former ‘Tonight Show’ producer draws on years of mingling with stars to create NBC’s ‘Legend to Legend Night.’

Fred de Cordova knows from legends.

He worked with one of TV’s greatest--Johnny Carson--for more than 20 years, producing NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” and frequently entertaining audiences and the star with his behind-the-camera kibitzing.

So Carson, naturally, was the first person De Cordova called when he started to put together “Legend to Legend Night,” a two-hour special to be broadcast tonight on NBC.

“I wouldn’t think of doing a show about legends unless you were on it,” De Cordova told Carson.

*

But Carson, who walked away from his late-night talk show in 1992 after an incredible 30-year stint, turned De Cordova down, saying he was planning to stay in retirement for at least another year.

“He said, ‘Freddy, if I did your show--any form of performance show--I would be unable to tell all the others I’m not doing anything,’ ” De Cordova recalled.

Fortunately, with 50 years in show business, De Cordova, 83, had some other friends--who just happened to be legends--to fall back on.

“One of the nice things if you’ve been around as long as I have,” said De Cordova, a seven-time Emmy winner, “is that you could call people you knew and reach them rather than going through business managers or agents or press people and . . . in practically no time we had at least eight people who said they would do it.”

Besides his work as executive producer of “The Tonight Show” between 1984 and 1992 (where he remains an executive consultant for Jay Leno), De Cordova has produced and/or directed such TV classics as “The Burns and Allen Show,” “The Jack Benny Program” and “My Three Sons.” That’s not to mention his movie directing career--most notably his 1951 film “Bedtime for Bonzo” starring future President Ronald Reagan and 1952’s “Bonzo Goes to College.”

It is no surprise, then, that De Cordova came up with a pretty impressive guest list for the two-hour “Legend to Legend Night,” including Muhammad Ali, Tony Bennett, George Burns, Angie Dickinson, Gene Kelly, Bob Newhart, Johnny Mathis, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, Eva Marie Saint, Sugar Ray Leonard, Barbara Mandrell and Wynonna Judd.

Katie Couric, NBC “Today” show co-anchor, will host, a choice De Cordova said made sense because “I didn’t want a pompous master of ceremonies. So we came up with Katie Couric, who is cute in the nicest sense of the word, understanding of who she was talking about but didn’t make these introductions sound like they were eulogies.”

*

The idea for the “Legend to Legend Night” came at a party at super-agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar’s home.

As usual, it was a star-studded affair, though for people like De Cordova, it was just another “evening at Irving’s.”

But with Peck, Newhart, Burns, Jimmy Stewart and, as De Cordova noted, “a whole bunch of people there who have had a major impact on show business, somebody said, ‘My God, this is a gathering of legends,’ and wouldn’t it make a hell of a television show? It really springboarded from that evening.”

Some viewers may wonder, based on the featured players, what defines a legend in De Cordova’s eyes.

“I think that a legend has to have two things,” he said. “A fine career and a public recognition of the person--not only the talent.”

As for De Cordova’s own career, he has become famous enough himself. He has not only played a late-night talk-show producer in the movies--in 1983’s “The King of Comedy,” with Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis--but he’s the inspiration for Rip Torn’s Artie in Garry Shandling’s HBO talk-show sendup “The Larry Sanders Show.”

“I’m delighted with that show,” said De Cordova, who added that Torn sometimes gets concerned he might be offending the producer.

Evidently, that’s not the case.

“It’s a comedic comment on what goes on,” said De Cordova, whose association with NBC continues.

“I have an open door,” he said, mentioning that he has a program in development and hopes there will be a “Legend to Legend Night II.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been as proud of anything as I am of this,” he said.