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Pastoral nomads camping near Namtso in 2005. In Tibet, nomads constitute about 40% of ethnic Tibetan population.^[1]

Beja nomads from Northeast Africa

Nomadic people (Greek: νομάδες, nomádes, "those who let pasture herds"), commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world.^[2]

Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in industrialized countries. Nomadic cultures are discussed in three categories according to economic specialization: hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads, and "peripatetic nomads".

Nomadic hunting and gathering, following seasonally available wild plants and game, is by far the oldest human subsistence method. Pastoralists raise herds, driving them or moving with them, in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover. Peripatetic nomads, who offer the skills of a craft or trade to those with whom they travel, are most common in industrialized nations.

Hunter-gatherers[link]

Many groups of 'nomadic' hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers) moved from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago.

Following the development of agriculture, hunter-gatherers were displaced by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming and/or keeping animals.

Pastoralism[link]

Cuman nomads, Radziwiłł Chronicle, 13th century.

An 1848 Lithograph showing nomads in Afghanistan.

A yurt in front of the Gurvan Saikhan Mountains. Approximately 30% of the Mongolia's 3 million people are nomadic or semi-nomadic.

A Sami (Lapp) family in Norway around 1900. Reindeer have been herded for centuries by several Arctic and Subarctic people including the Sami and the Nenets.^[3]

Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied population growth and an increase in the complexity of social organization. Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:

• Pastoralism: This is a mixed economy with a symbiosis within the family.
• Agropastoralism: This is when symbiosis is between segments or clans within an ethnic group.
• True Nomadism: This is when symbiosis is at the regional level, generally between specialized nomadic and agricultural populations.

The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.^[4]

Origin[link]

Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.

The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8500-6500 BC in the area of the southern Levant.^{[citation needed]} There, during a period of increasing aridity, PPNB cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock.^[5]

This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Greko-Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.^[6]

Increase in the former Soviet Central Asia[link]

One of the results of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its Central Asian republics has been the resurgence of pastoral nomadism.^[7] Taking the Kyrgyz people as a representative example nomadism was the centre of their economy prior to Russian colonization at the turn of the C19/C20, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly urbanized after World War II, but some people continued to take their herds of horses and cows to the high pasture (jailoo) every summer, i.e. a pattern of transhumance.

Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrank, unemployed relatives were absorbed back on the family farm, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased. The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the centrality of their nomadic history and past in the creation of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan.pomp

Sedentarization[link]

By 1920; nomadic pastoral tribes represented over a quarter of Iran's population.^[8] Tribal pastures were nationalized during the 1960s. The National Commission of UNESCO registered the population of Iran at 21 million in 1963, of whom two million (9.5%) were nomads.^[9] Although the nomadic population of Iran has dramatically decreased in the 20th century, Iran still has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of about 70 million.^[10]

In Kazakhstan where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding,^[11] forced collectivization under Joseph Stalin’s rule met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock.^[12] Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. The resulting famine of 1931-1934 caused some 1.5 million deaths: this represents more than 40% of the total Kazakh population at that time.^[13]

In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as home ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. Government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. A century ago nomadic Bedouin still made up some 10% of the total Arab population. Today they account for some 1% of the total.^[14]

At independence in 1960, Mauritania was essentially a nomadic society. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive problems in a country where 85% of its inhabitants were nomadic herders. Today only 15% remain nomads.^[15]

As many as 2 million nomadic Kuchis wandered over Afghanistan in the years before the Soviet invasion, and most experts agreed that by 2000 the number had fallen dramatically, perhaps by half. The severe drought had destroyed 80% of the livestock in some areas.^[16]

Niger experienced a serious food crisis in 2005 following erratic rainfall and desert locust invasions. Nomads such as the Tuareg and Fulani, who make up about 20% of Niger's 12.9 million population, had been so badly hit by the Niger food crisis that their already fragile way of life is at risk.^[17] Nomads in Mali were also affected.^[18]

Contemporary peripatetic minorities in Europe and Asia[link]

A tent of Gypsies in Hungary, 19th century.

"Peripatetic minorities" are mobile populations moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.

Each existing community is primarily endogamous, and subsists traditionally on a variety of commercial and/or service activities. Formerly, all or a majority of their members were itinerant, and this largely holds true today. Migration generally takes place within the political boundaries of a single state these days.

Each of the peripatetic communities is multilingual; it speaks one or more of the languages spoken by the local sedentary populations, and, additionally, within each group, a separate dialect or language is spoken.^{[citation needed]} The latter are either of Indic or Iranian origin,^{[citation needed]} and many are structured somewhat like an argot or secret language, with vocabularies drawn from various languages. There are indications that in northern Iran at least one community speaks Romani language, and some groups in Turkey also speak Romani.

Dom people[link]

In Afghanistan, the Nausar worked as tinkers and animal dealers. Ghorbat men mainly made sieves, drums, and bird cages, and the women peddled these as well as other items of household and personal use; they also worked as moneylenders to rural women. Peddling and the sale of various goods was also practiced by men and women of various groups, such as the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz, the Noristani, and the Vangawala. The latter and the Pikraj also worked as animal dealers. Some men among the Shadibaz and the Vangawala entertained as monkey or bear handlers and snake charmers; men and women among the Baluch were musicians and dancers, and Baluch women also practiced prostitution. Jogi men and women had diverse subsistence activities, such as dealing in horses, harvesting, fortune-telling, bloodletting, and begging.^{[citation needed]}

In Iran the Asheq of Azerbaijan, the Challi of Baluchistan, the Luti of Kurdistan, Kermānshāh, Īlām, and Lorestān, the Mehtar in the Mamasani district, the Sazandeh of Band-i Amir and Marv-dasht, and the Toshmal among the Bakhtyari pastoral groups worked as professional musicians. The men among the Kowli worked as tinkers, smiths, musicians, and monkey and bear handlers; they also made baskets, sieves, and brooms and dealt in donkeys. Their women made a living from peddling, begging, and fortune-telling.

The Ghorbat among the Basseri were smiths and tinkers, traded in pack animals, and made sieves, reed mats, and small wooden implements. In the Fārs region, the Qarbalband, the Kuli, and Luli were reported to work as smiths and to make baskets and sieves; they also dealt in pack animals, and their women peddled various goods among pastoral nomads. In the same region, the Changi and Luti were musicians and balladeers, and their children learned these professions from the age of 7 or 8 years.^{[citation needed]}

The nomadic groups in Turkey make and sell cradles, deal in animals, and play music. The men of the sedentary groups work in towns as scavengers and hangmen; elsewhere they are fishermen, smiths, basket makers, and singers; their women dance at feasts and tell fortunes. Abdal men played music and made sieves, brooms, and wooden spoons for a living. The Tahtacı traditionally worked as lumberers; with increased sedentarization, however, they have taken to agriculture and horticulture.^{[citation needed]}

Little is known for certain about the past of these communities; the history of each is almost entirely contained in their oral traditions. Although some groups—such as the Vangawala—are of Indian origin, some—like the Noristani—are most probably of local origin; still others probably migrated from adjoining areas. The Ghorbat and the Shadibaz claim to have originally come from Iran and Multan, respectively, and Tahtacı traditional accounts mention either Baghdad or Khorāsān as their original home. The Baluch say they^{[clarification needed]} were attached as a service community to the Jamshedi, after they fled Baluchistan because of feuds.^[19][20]

Gallery[link]

• 

  A Scythian horseman from the general area of the Ili river, Pazyryk, c.300 BCE.

• 

  A young Bedouin lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan.

• 

  Kyrgyz nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, Uzbeckestan, by pioneer color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, ca. 1910.

• 

  Tuareg in Mali, 1974.

• 

  Kyrgyz nomads, 1869-1870.

• 

  Nomads in the Desert (Giulio Rosati).

See also[link]

• List of nomadic peoples
• Seasonal human migration
• Uncontacted peoples

Specific:

• Eurasian nomads for the historically and pre-historically important Horse People
• Mongol Empire
• Nomadic empires
• Nomadic tents
• Nomads of India
• Sea Gypsies

Concepts in industrialised societies:

• Global nomad
• Snowbird (people)
• Military brat
• Perpetual traveler
• RV lifestyle
• Third culture kid

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nomads

• Oberfalzerova, Alena. (2006): Metaphors and Nomads, Triton, Prague. ISBN 80-7254-849-2
• Sadr, Karim. The Development of Nomadism in Ancient Northeast Africa, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8122-3066-3
• Cowan, Gregory. "Nomadology in Architecture: Ephemerality, Movement and Collaboration" University of Adelaide 2002 (available: http://hdl.handle.net/2440/37830 [1])
• Chatty, Dawn. Articles on Nomadic life (1983–2009)
• Chatwin, Bruce. The Songlines (1987)
• Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (1980)
• Melvyn Goldstein: The Impact of China's Reform Policy on the Nomads of Western Tibet
• The Remote World of Tibet's Nomads
• Grousset, René. L'Empire des Steppes (1939) (French)
• Michael Haerdter Remarks on modernity, mobility, nomadism and the arts
• Kradin, Nikolay. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective. In Alternatives of Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, A.V. Korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P.K. Wason (p. 274-288). Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; reprinted in: The Early State, its Alternatives and Analogues. Ed. by Leonid Grinin et al. (р. 501-524). Volgograd: Uchitel', 2004.
• Kradin, Nikolay N. 2002. Nomadism, Evolution, and World-Systems: Pastoral Societies in Theories of Historical Development. Journal of World-System Research 8: 368-388.
• Kradin, Nikolay N. 2003. Nomadic Empires: Origins, Rise, Decline. In Nomadic Pathways in Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, Dmitri Bondarenko, and T. Barfield (p. 73-87). Moscow: Center for Civilizational Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Kradin, Nikolay N. 2006. Cultural Complexity of Pastoral Nomads. World Cultures 15: 171-189.
• Beall, Cynthia and Goldstein, Melvyn: Past becoming future gor Mongolian nomads National Geographic Magazine May 1993
• Vigo, Julian. 'Nomadic Sexualities and Nationalities: Postcolonial Performative Words and Visual Texts'. Inscriptions in the Sand Famagusta: Eastern Mediterranean University Press, 2005.

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