Johnny Carson as Art Fern,
and Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady
January 13, 1985: Actress Carol Wayne dies under mysterious circumstances while on vacation in Mexico. She was only 42 years old.
Carol Marie Wayne was born on September 6, 1942 in Chicago. She started out as a figure skater, before growing into a voluptuous figure which made that difficult. From 1967 to 1984, she made 41 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, usually playing the Matinee Lady in the "Tea Time Movie with Art Fern" sketch.
On September 2, 1974, the musicians' union was on strike, and so Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen couldn't appear on the air. Nor could Tommy Newsom, the saxophonist who led the band when Ed McMahon, Johnny's announcer and sidekick, was unavailable and Doc had to do the announcing. And Ed got sick during the strike. So Johnny asked Carol to step in, making her the only woman ever to announce the immortal words, "And now, ladies and gentlemen: Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!"
She was once married to Burt Sugarman, the producer who created the late-night music TV show The Midnight Special. She was also a frequent game show panelist. But by 1984, substance abuse had left her broke enough to accept Playboy magazine's longstanding offer to display her, um, assets. At 42, she was still a good choice for it.
In January 1985, she went on vacation to the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with a new boyfriend, Edward Durston, a car salesman. On January 13, they had an argument, and she told him she was going to take a walk on the beach.
Three days later, a local fisherman found her body in a shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body, and her death was ruled "accidental."
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January 13, 1985 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its Conference Championships and Super Bowl XIX, which the San Francisco 49ers would win over the Miami Dolphins, 38-16 at the original Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California.
There were 6 games in the NBA:
* The New Jersey Nets beat the Houston Rockets, 100-99 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Bullets, 115-104 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 121-98 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Denver Nuggets, 140-116 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. It's now named the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 124-101 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.
* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Kansas City Kings, 119-114 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
And there were 6 games in the NHL:
* The New York Islanders beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-5 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 at the Colisée de Québec. Brothers Peter and Anton Šťastný each scored 2 goals for the Nords.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Calgary Flames, 7-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Brian Propp scored a hat trick.
* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-4 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Los Angeles Kings, 6-5 at The Forum outside Los Angels in Inglewood, California.
* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Denver.
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