Look up tata in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Tata or TATA may refer to:

Companies[link]

• Tata Group, India's largest business group and multinational company
  • List of entities associated with Tata Group

People[link]

• Tata family, an influential family of India owning the Tata Group
  • Jamsetji Tata, known as the father of Indian industry
  • Dorabji Tata, Indian industrialist and philanthropist
  • J. R. D. Tata, Indian pioneer aviator and founder of Tata Airlines
  • Ratan Naval Tata, present chairman of the Tata Group
  • Simone Naval Tata, chairperson of Trent
• Nelson Mandela, commonly known in South Africa as Tata
• Tata Young, Thai singer, model and actress
• Carlos Manuel Baldomir, Argentine boxer nicknamed "Tata"

Places[link]

• Tata, Hungary, a city in Hungary
• Tata, Morocco, a city in Morocco
• Jamshedpur, a city in Jharkhand, India

Other[link]

• Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trusts, a trust founded by Dorabji Tata
• TATA box, a DNA sequence
• Tata Manavadu, a 1972 Telugu film.
• TTFN or "ta ta for now", an alternative way to say goodbye
• Tata (Middle-earth), one of the first Elves in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium
• Station code for Tatanagar Railway Station
• Tata Jagriti Yatra, an initiative by Tata Group and Jagriti Sewa Sansthan in India

See also[link]

• Tatar (disambiguation)
• Tatra (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Ratan Tata
Born	(1937-12-28) 28 December 1937 (age 74) Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Residence	Colaba, Mumbai, India[1]
Nationality	Indian
Ethnicity	Parsi
Alma mater	Cornell University Harvard University
Occupation	Chairman of Tata Group
Years active	1962-present
Religion	Zoroastrian
Spouse	unmarried
Awards	Padma Bhushan (2000) Padma Vibhushan (2008) KBE (2009)
Signature	150px

Sir Ratan Naval Tata KBE (Gujarati: રતન નવલ ટાટા; born 28 December 1937) is an Indian businessman who became chairman (1991– ) of the Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate.^[2] He is a member of a prominent family of Indian industrialists and philanthropists (see Tata family).

Among many other honours accorded him during his career, Tata received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s most distinguished civilian awards, in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008.^[3] He has also been ranked as India's most powerful CEO.^[4]

Early life[link]

Ratan Tata was adopted to famous Tata , a prominent family belonging to the Parsi community. Ratan is the grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji Tata. His childhood was troubled, with his parents separating in the mid-1940s when he was merely seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five years old. Their mother moved out and both Ratan and his brother were raised by their grandmother Lady Navajbai.^[5]

Tata started his schooling at Campion School and finished at Cathedral and John Connon School both in Bombay.^[6] Ratan Tata completed his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.^[7] He is a part of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.^[8]

Career at Tata Sons[link]

When he returned to India in 1962 after turning down a job with IBM on the advice of JRD, he was sent to Jamshedpur to work on the shop floor at Tata Steel with other blue-collar employees, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace.^[9] In 1971, he was appointed the Director of National Radio and Electronics (Nelco), which was in dire straits when he came on board: with losses of 40% and barely 2% share of the consumer electronics market. However, just when he turned it around (from 2% to 25% market share), the Emergency was declared. A weak economy and labour issues compounded the problem and Nelco was quickly near collapse again.

For his next assignment, in 1977 he was asked to turn around the sick Empress Mills, which he did. However, he was refused a Rs 50 lakh investment required to make the textile unit competitive. Empress Mills floundered and was finally closed in 1986.

In 1981, JRD Tata stepped down as Tata Industries chairman, naming Ratan as his successor. He was heavily criticized for lacking experience in running a company of the scale of Tata Industries.^[9]

In 1991, he was appointed group chairman of the Tata group. As group chairman, he has been responsible for converting "the corporate commonwealth" of different Tata-affiliated companies into a cohesive company. He has been responsible for the acquisition of Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover and Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He also pushed the development of Indica and the Nano. He is widely credited for the success of the Tata Group of companies, especially after the liberalization of controls after the 1990s.^[1]

In August 2007, Ratan Tata lead Tata Group's acquisition of British steel maker Corus. At that time, this was the largest takeover of a foreign company by an Indian company, and resulted in Tata Group becoming the fifth largest steel producer in the world. According to the BBC, however, some analysts criticized the move, saying that Tata Group had overpaid for Corus and had prioritized national pride before its shareholders.^[10]

Tata is set to retire in December 2012 to be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, the 42-year-old son of Pallonji Mistry and managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.^[11]

Honours, awards and international recognition[link]

Ratan Tata serves in senior capacities in various organisations in India and he is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. Tata is on the board of governors of the East-West Center, the advisory board of RAND's Center for Asia Pacific Policy and serves on the program board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative.^[12]

Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND Corporation, University of Southern California and Cornell University.^[13][14] He also serves as a board member on the Republic of South Africa's International Investment Council and is a member of the Asia-Pacific advisory committee for the New York Stock Exchange. In 2010, he joined BMB Group as an advisory board member.

• FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism.^[27]
• 26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education, awarded by Cornell University^[28]
• Recipient of the 'Global Indian Award' at the NASSCOM Global Leadership Awards 2008^[29]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ratan Naval Tata

• Ratan Naval Tata's chairman profile at Tata Group
• Profile at The Guardian
• Ratan Tata collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal
• Ratan Naval Tata collected news and commentary at The Bloomberg Businessweek
• Ratan Naval Tata collected news and commentary at The Times of India
• Ratan Tata at the Notable Names Database
• "Ratan Tata '59: The Cornell Story" YouTube video

v t e Chairmen of Tata Group Jamsetji Tata Dorabji Tata Nowroji Saklatwala J. R. D. Tata Ratan Tata Cyrus Pallonji Mistry Category

v t e Tata Group Divisions and subsidiaries Cromā · The Indian Hotels Company (Ginger · Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces) · Tata Advanced Systems · Tata Business Support Services · Tata Chemicals (British Salt · Tata Chemicals Europe) · Tata Communications (VSNL International Canada) · Tata Consultancy Services (CMC · Tata Research Development and Design Centre) · Tata Elxsi · Tata Global Beverages (Eight O'Clock Coffee · Good Earth Teas · Tata Coffee · Tetley) · Tata Housing Development Company · Tata Interactive Systems · Tata Motors (Jaguar Land Rover · Tata Daewoo · Tata Hispano) · Tata Power (Tata Power SED) · Tata Steel (Tata Steel Europe · Tayo Rolls) · Tata Technologies · Titan Industries (Tanishq) · Trent (Star Bazaar · Westside) · Voltas Joint ventures TATA AIG General Insurance (74%) · TATA AIG Life Insurance (74%) · Tata BP Solar (50%) · Tata McGraw-Hill · Tata Sky (80%) · Tata Teleservices (Tata DoCoMo · Virgin Mobile India (50%)) (74%) · Telcon Construction Solutions (40%) Brands I-shakti People Jamsetji Tata · Ratanji Dadabhoy · R Gopalakrishnan · Dorabji Tata · Nowroji Saklatwala · J. R. D. Tata · Ratan Tata · Pallonji Mistry · Surya Kant · Cyrus Pallonji Mistry Other Bombay House · Tata-Dhan Academy · Tata Football Academy · Tata Sons Category

Tata Young
Tata Young in 2007
Background information
Birth name	Amita Marie Young
Born	(1980-12-14) December 14, 1980 (age 31) Bangkok, Thailand
Genres	Dance-pop, pop, R&B, electropop
Occupations	Singer, dancer, actress, entrepreneur
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1991–present
Labels	GMM Grammy (1995-2000) TERO Records (2001-2003) Sony Music (2004-present)
Website	http://www.tatayoung.com/

Amita Marie Young (Thai: อมิตา มารี ยัง, December 14, 1980), better known under her stage name Tata Young, is a Thai singer, model, actress and dancer.

She gained prominence when she placed first in a national singing contest at age 11, subsequently signing a record deal and releasing her first album Amita Tata Young in 1996. Within five months, the album had sold over one million copies. Since then, Young has released eight studio albums, three in English and five in Thai. Her most recent album is Ready for Love, released on August 25, 2009.

She has acted in three films, The Red Bike Story (Jakkayan See Daeng), O-Negative and Plai Tien a TV drama Wick of the Candle. She sang "Reach For The Stars" at the Bangkok opening ceremony for the 13th Asian Games in 1998 and also sang the English part of the title song for the Bollywood movie, Dhoom.

Early years[link]

Tata was born to a Thai mother and an American father in 1980 and by the age of eleven had won her first national talent contest, the Nissan Awards Thailand Junior Singing Contest. By the age of fourteen she had signed her first professional contract and released her debut million selling album in 1995. This led to her winning multiple awards at the Thai Radio Vote Awards in 1996.

In 1997 the Chinese government chose her to represent Thailand at the handing over of Hong Kong and later that year such as Wet Wet Wet, Michael Learns to Rock, Lisa Stansfield, All 4 One and Brand New Heavies. She received the prestigious "Golden Pikkanes God Award" from the Musical Artist Association of Thailand, becoming the youngest performer to receive this reward.The Tata Young Fan Club was also formed in 1997, to gather support from her fans to provide assistance to the Thai children's charity, the Human Development Foundation. Tata continued her success by singing a duet with Mos in the album MOS & TATA, that was launched on January 23. This album made Tata to be the newest Teen Idol, the songs like ‘Malang’ (Bugs) was one of the songs in Thai music memories, even until now everyone can sing it!

On February 15, Tata featured in ‘Mos, Tata & Friends’. She sang along with many guest artists such as Beau Sunita, Fluke Clerkpon, Jason Young and Nana Cha.

She made her film debut in 1997 in the youth drama ‘The Red Bike Story’, which broke records for audience-attendance for the Thai film industry. Her debut earned her the "Best Actress Award (Thailand)" presented at the Fourth Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards 1997. She followed that up with two other hit films, O-Negative and Plai Tien.

Her next album, the self-titled Tata Young, was released in 2001 with many of its songs reaching high chart positions and in 2003 she released her fourth album, Real TT.

Asian star: 2004-2007[link]

In 2004, Tata released her English-language debut album, I Believe on Columbia Records.

The first single taken from the album was "Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy", which was controversial in Thailand. In Malaysia, she had to change the name of the tune to "Sexy, Naughty, Cheeky". Further single releases from the album included 'I Believe' and 'Cinderella'

She expanded her reach to India, recording the song, Dhoom Dhoom, for the soundtrack to a Bollywood movie, Dhoom. Dhoom, whose OST album sold over 800,000 units in India, was a phenomenal success for a soundtrack. Later, she embarked on her Dhoom Dhoom tour.

In Taiwan, Tata became the first Thai artist to be invited to perform at the Golden Melody Awards – Taiwan's equivalent of the Grammy Awards. In Hong Kong, China and Japan, "Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy" and "I Believe" climbed to the top of the charts.

Her second English-language album, Temperature Rising was released in August 2006; its first single was "El Nin-YO!". The album includes songs composed by Diane Warren, Paul McCartney and Natasha Bedingfield.

In 2007, she recorded her single "Zoom" in Simlish for the top-selling PC game The Sims 2: Seasons.

Tata has also lent her voice to humanitarian causes, including the AIDS program of Father Joe Maier's Human Development Foundation and MTV's Exit campaign to end human trafficking.^[1][2]

In early 2008, Tata Young released her sixth Thai album. The headline single "One Love" was released on Valentine's Day.

Health and professional struggles: 2008-present[link]

Young had been working on her third studio English album since 2008 in Berlin, Germany, working with Sony BMG Europe. Demo tracks of four new songs from the album surfaced on the internet in early 2009' 'Ready for Love' and 'Suffocate'. She hired Korean stylists to direct her image for the new album. The first single, Ready For Love, was released in July 2009 with a Korean directed video. Although "Ready for Love" reached number one in some local radio markets in Indonesia, the single and the album were considered flops in other markets. 'My Bloody Valentine' reached the Indonesian Charts and Tata Young has been credited as the singer with the label Sony BMG. The single was finally released as the album's second single. Tata announced a promotional tour in Australia and Europe, which did not take place. Her third single, "Mission is You", was later released with video footage from the opening of the album but no additional film, raising questions about the situation between her and her label. In 2010, Tata changed her image again and participated in a concert contributing to Michael Jackson.

In 2007, Young developed hypothyroidism, treatment for which caused her to gain weight and went through a notable image change, also dying her trademark red hair black.

In September 2011, Young premiered "Let's Play", believed to be Her upcoming single produced by Jeliah and co-written by singer-songwriter VASSY, Jeliah and Tata Young, it was performed live at the True Academy Fantasia Season 8's Grand Finale Concert as her comeback.^[3]

Discography[link]

Over the course of her career, Young has released nine studio albums, five compilation albums, two EPs and one remix album. Two of her studio albums are in English rather than Thai.

She has embarked on eleven tours, the first starting in 1995, the last ending in 2009. Also, she has released sixteen VCDs and DVDs: ten of them featuring karaoke to her songs, six documenting her concerts. Additional to her song discography, she has been featured on over twenty songs with other artists and other organisations, such as an official FIFA song.

• 1995 - Amita Tata Young
• 1997 - Amazing TATA
• 2001 - Tata Young
• 2003 - Real TT
• 2004 - I Believe (English)
• 2005 - Dangerous TATA
• 2006 - Temperature Rising (English)
• 2008 - One Love
• 2009 - Ready for Love (English)

Singles[link]

Filmography[link]

• 1997 - The Red Bike Story (จักรยานสีแดง)
• 1998 - O-Negative
• 2009 - Bitter/Sweet

Television[link]

• 2002 - Wick of the Candle (ปลายเทียน)
• 2011 - Academy Fantasia (True), Judge (Season 8)
• 2012 - Academy Fantasia (True), Judge (Season 9)

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Tata Young Official Web Site
• Tata Young Fan Club
• Tata2You
• Tata Young Fan Club Spanish
• Tata Young songs lyrics

Jay Leno
Leno in July 2008
Birth name	James Douglas Muir Leno
Born	(1950-04-28) April 28, 1950 (age 62)[1] New Rochelle, New York, U.S.[1]
Medium	Television, Film, Stand up
Nationality	American
Years active	1973–present
Genres	Observational comedy, Political satire
Subject(s)	American culture, Everyday life
Influences	Johnny Carson, Robert Klein, Alan King, George Carlin,[2] Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, Rodney Dangerfield
Influenced	Dennis Miller[3]
Spouse	Mavis Leno (1980–present)
Notable works and roles	The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (host, 1992–2009, 2010–) The Jay Leno Show (host, 2009–2010)
Signature
Website	The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series 1995 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno /ˈlɛnoʊ/ (born April 28, 1950)^[1] is an American stand-up comedian and television host.

From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time, UTC-5), also on NBC. After The Jay Leno Show was canceled in January 2010 amid a host controversy, Leno returned to host The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 1, 2010.^[4]

Early life[link]

James "Jay" Leno was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1950. His mother, Catherine (née Muir; 1911–1993), a homemaker, was born in Greenock, Scotland, and came to the United States at age 11. Leno's father, Angelo (1910–1994), who worked as an insurance salesman, was born in New York to immigrants from Flumeri, Italy.^[5] Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and although his high school guidance counselor recommended that he drop out of school, he later obtained a Bachelor's degree in speech therapy from Emerson College, where he started a comedy club in 1973.^[6] Leno's siblings include his late older brother, Patrick, who was a Vietnam veteran^[7] and a lawyer.^[6]

Career[link]

During the 1970s, Leno appeared in minor roles in several television series and films, first in the 1976 episode "J.J. in Trouble" of Good Times and the same year in the pilot of Holmes & Yo-Yo. After an uncredited appearance in the 1977 film Fun with Dick and Jane, he played more prominent parts in 1978 in American Hot Wax and Silver Bears. Other films and television series from that period include Almost Heaven (1978), "Going Nowhere" (1979) from One Day at a Time, Americathon (1979), Polyester (1981), "The Wild One" (1981) from Alice, "Feminine Mistake" (1979) and "Do the Carmine" (1983) from Laverne & Shirley.

[edit] The Tonight Show

Leno in 1993, shortly after becoming host of The Tonight Show

Starting in 1987, Leno was a regular substitute host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. In 1992, he replaced Carson as host^[8] amid controversy with David Letterman, who had been hosting Late Night with David Letterman since 1982 (aired after The Tonight Show), who many had expected to be Carson's successor. The story of this turbulent transition was later turned into a book and a movie. Leno continued to perform as a stand-up comedian throughout his tenure on The Tonight Show.

In 2004, Leno signed a contract extension with NBC which would keep him as host of The Tonight Show until 2009.^[9] Later in 2004, Conan O'Brien signed a contract with NBC under which O'Brien would become the host of The Tonight Show in 2009, replacing Leno at that time.^[10]

During the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, Leno was accused of violating WGA guidelines by writing his own monologue for The Tonight Show. While NBC and Leno claim there were private meetings with the WGA where there was a secret agreement allowing this, the WGA denied such a meeting.^[11] Leno answered questions in front of the Writers Guild of America, West trial committee in February 2009 and June 2009, and when the WGAW published its list of strike-breakers on 11 August 2009, Leno was not on the list.^[12][13]

In 1998, Leno competed in a tag-team match at the WCW's "Road Wild" pay-per-view . In 2001, he voiced The Crimson Chin, a superhero in the Nickelodeon animated series The Fairly OddParents and continues to do so today.

Leno said in 2008 that he was saving all of his income from The Tonight Show and living solely off his income from stand-up comedy.^[14]

On April 23, 2009, Leno checked himself into a hospital with an undisclosed illness.^[15] He was released the following day and returned to work on Monday, April 27. The two subsequently cancelled Tonight Show episodes for April 23 and April 24 were Leno's first in 17 years as host.^[16][17] Initially, the illness that caused the absence was not disclosed, but later Leno told People magazine that the ailment was exhaustion.^[17][18]

Michael Jackson trial[link]

In the 2005 trial of Michael Jackson over allegations of child molestation, Leno appeared as a defense witness (many celebrity defense witnesses had been expected, but Leno was one of the few whose testimony was actually needed). In his testimony regarding a call by the accuser, Leno testified that he never called the police, that no money was asked for, and there was no coaching — but that the calls seemed unusual and scripted.^[19]

Leno in 2006.

As a result, Leno was initially not allowed to continue telling jokes about Jackson or the case, which had been a fixture of The Tonight Show's opening monologue in particular. But he and his show's writers used a legal loophole by having Leno briefly step aside while stand-in comedians took the stage and told jokes about the trial. Stand-ins included Roseanne Barr, Drew Carey, Brad Garrett, and Dennis Miller among others.^[20]

[edit] Succession by Conan O'Brien and The Jay Leno Show

Because Leno's show continued to lead all late-night programming in the Nielsen ratings, the pending expiration of Leno's contract led to speculation about whether he would become a late-night host for another network after his commitment to NBC expired.^[21] Leno left The Tonight Show on Friday May 29, 2009,^[22][23] and Conan O'Brien took over on June 1, 2009.

On December 8, 2008, it was reported that Leno would remain on NBC and move to a new hour-long show at 10 p.m. Eastern Time (9 p.m. Central Time) five nights a week.^[24] This show follows a similar format to The Tonight Show, tapes at the same lot, and retains many of Leno's most popular segments. Late Night host Conan O'Brien was his successor on The Tonight Show.^[25]

Jay Leno's new show, titled The Jay Leno Show, debuted on September 14, 2009. It was announced at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that it would feature one or two celebrities, the occasional musical guest, and keep the popular "Headlines" segments, which would air near the end of the show. First guests included Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey (via satellite), and a short sit-down with Kanye West discussing his controversy at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.^[26]

[edit] Timeslot conflict and return to The Tonight Show

Wikinews has related news: US TV host Conan O'Brien rejects NBC's offer to switch his show's time slot

In their new roles, neither O'Brien nor Leno succeeded in delivering the viewing audiences the network anticipated. On January 7, 2010, multiple media outlets reported that beginning March 1, 2010, Jay Leno would move from his 10pm weeknight time slot to 11:35pm, due to a combination of pressure from local affiliates whose newscasts were suffering, and both Leno's and O'Brien's poor ratings.^[27][28] Leno's show would be shortened from an hour to 30 minutes. All NBC late night programming would be preempted by the 2010 Winter Olympics between February 15 and February 26. This would move The Tonight Show to 12:05am, a post-midnight timeslot for the first time in its history. O'Brien's contract stipulated that NBC could move the show back to 12:05 a.m. without penalty (a clause put in primarily to accommodate sports preemptions).^[29]

On January 10, NBC confirmed that they would move Jay Leno out of primetime as of February 12 and intended to move him to late night as soon as possible.^[30][31] TMZ reported that O'Brien was given no advance notice of this change, and that NBC offered him two choices: an hour-long 12:05am time slot, or the option to leave the network.^[32] On January 12, O'Brien issued a press release that stated he would not continue with Tonight if it moved to a 12:05am time slot,^[33] saying, "I believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show."

On January 21, it was announced that NBC had struck a deal with O'Brien. It was decided that O'Brien would leave The Tonight Show. The deal was made that O'Brien would receive a $33 million payout and that his staff of almost 200 would receive $12 million in the departure. O'Brien's final episode aired on Friday, January 22.^[34][35][36] Leno returned as host of The Tonight Show following the 2010 Winter Olympics on March 1, 2010.

On July 1, 2010, Variety reported that total viewership for Jay Leno's Tonight Show had dropped from 5 million to 4 million for the second quarter of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009. Although this represented the lowest second-quarter ratings for the show since 1992, Tonight was still the most-watched late night program, ahead of ABC's Nightline (3.7 million) and David Letterman's Late Show (3.3 million).^[37] Ratings over the following summer, when compared to the same period in 2009 with O'Brien hosting The Tonight Show (including O'Brien's highly rated debut), showed that while total viewership was 12% higher for Leno, viewership in the important "adults aged 18–49" demographic was 23% lower.^[38] NBC ratings specialist Tom Bierbaum commented that due to the host being out of late night television for a period of time and the subsequent 2010 Tonight Show conflict, Leno's ratings fall was "not a surprise at all".^[39]

Public image[link]

Criticism of Leno[link]

Leno on The Tonight Show in 2005

Leno has faced heated criticism and some negative publicity for his perceived role in the 2010 Tonight Show timeslot conflict.^[40][41] Critics have pointed to a 2004 Tonight Show clip, wherein Leno claimed he would allow O'Brien to take over without incident.^[41][42] At the time, Leno stated he didn't want O'Brien to leave for a competing network, adding, "I'll be 59 when [the switch occurs], that's five years from now. There's really only one person who could have done this into his 60s, and that was Johnny Carson; I think it's fair to say I'm no Johnny Carson."^[42] Leno also described The Tonight Show as a dynasty, saying "you hold it and hand it off to the next person. And I don't want to see all the fighting..." At the end of the segment, he said, "Conan, it's yours! See you in five years, buddy!"^[43]

Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt was among the first celebrities to openly voice disappointment with Leno, saying, "Comedians who don't like Jay Leno now, and I'm one of them, we're not like, 'Jay Leno sucks;' it's that we're so hurt and disappointed that one of the best comedians of our generation... willfully has shut the switch off."^[44] Rosie O'Donnell has been among O'Brien's most vocal and vehement supporters,^[45][46] calling Leno a "bully" and his recent actions "classless and kind of career-defining."^[47]

Bill Zehme, the co-author of Leno's autobiography Leading with My Chin, told the Los Angeles Times: "The thing Leno should do is walk, period. He's got everything to lose in terms of public popularity by going back. People will look at him differently. He'll be viewed as the bad guy."^[48]

Support for Leno[link]

NBC Sports head executive and former Saturday Night Live producer Dick Ebersol spoke out against all who had recently mocked Leno, calling them "chicken-hearted and gutless."^[49]

Jeff Gaspin also defended Leno: "This has definitely crossed the line. Jay Leno is the consummate professional and one of the hardest-working people in television. It's a shame that he's being pulled into this."^[48]

Paul Reiser and Jerry Seinfeld are two of the number of celebrities to have voiced support for Leno.^[50][51]

Responding to the mounting criticism, Leno claimed that NBC had assured him that O'Brien was willing to accept the proposed arrangement and then would not let either host out of his contract.^[52] Leno also said that the situation was "all business."^[52] He appeared on the January 28 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in an attempt to repair some of the damage done to his public image.^[53][54]

Personal life[link]

Leno with President Barack Obama in March 2009

Leno has been married since 1980 to Mavis Leno; they have no children.^[55]

He is known for his prominent jaw, which has been described as mandibular prognathism.^[56] In the book Leading with My Chin he stated that he is aware of surgery that could reset his mandible, but does not wish to endure a prolonged healing period with his jaws wired shut.

Leno is dyslexic.^[6] He claims to sleep only four to five hours each night.^[57] Leno does not drink or smoke, nor does he gamble.^[58] He spends most of his free time visiting car collections or working in his private garage.^[58]

Leno reportedly earns $32 million each year;^[59] his total net worth is unknown, but has been estimated to be at least $150 million.^[60]

Charity[link]

In 2001, along with his wife, he donated $100,000 to the Feminist Majority's campaign to stop gender apartheid in Afghanistan, to educate the public regarding the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Mavis Leno is on the board of the Feminist Majority.^[61][62]

In 2009, he donated $100,000 to a scholarship fund at Salem State College in honor of Lennie Sogoloff. Mr. Sogoloff gave Leno his start at his jazz club, Lennie's-on-the-Turnpike.^[63]

Love Ride[link]

Since 1985 Jay Leno has been the grand marshal for the Love Ride, a motorcycle charity event which since its founding in 1984 has raised nearly $14 million dollars for charities benefiting muscular dystrophy research and, in 2011, Autism Speaks.^{[citation needed]}

Leno arriving at the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards in his Hispano-Suiza Aero^[64]

Vehicle collection[link]

Leno owns approximately 100 vehicles, not including about 90 motorcycles.^[65] He also has a website called "Jay Leno's Garage," which contains video clips and photos of his automobiles in detail.^[66]

He has a regular column in Popular Mechanics which showcases his car collection and gives advice about various automotive topics, including restoration and unique models, such as his jet-powered motorcycle and solar-powered hybrid. Leno also writes occasional "Motormouth" articles for The Sunday Times,^[67] reviewing high-end sports cars and giving his humorous take on automotive matters.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jay Leno

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jay Leno

• Official Tonight Show with Jay Leno web site
• Jay Leno's Car Collection
• Jay Leno's Columns at Octane magazine
• The New York Times on Leno's affiliation with McPherson College
• Live performance videos from the Tonight Show
• Jay Leno at the Internet Movie Database