Steve Allen Invents Late-Night TV

On September 27, 1954, Steve Allen walked onto the stage of the Hudson Theatre on West 44th Street and opened Tonight! for NBC's full network, turning a local WNBT show he had hosted since 1953 into the first true late-night talk show. The broadcast ran 105 minutes with announcer Gene Rayburn, bandleader Skitch Henderson, and the young singing duo Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, who met on that set and later married. Allen built the show live and mostly unscripted, opening with a monologue, wandering into the audience, sending cameras out onto the street for comedy bits, and interviewing guests with no fixed script. Some affiliates barely carried the first quarter hour, but the format stuck and outlasted every host who followed him into the chair.