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Here's Johnny

During the tenth anniversary party of "The Tonight Show" on September 30, 1972, Johnny Carson announced that he and former model Joanna Holland had secretly married that afternoon.

The news came as a shock to his guests – including Jack Benny, George Burns and Lucille Ball – not just because tabloids were still reporting details of Carson's divorce from second wife Joanne Copeland four months before, but also because the state of California had recently installed a new community property law, which would entitle the latest Mrs. Carson to half of the talk show host's earnings should the marriage fall apart.

"You know how long this marriage is going to last?" joked "Get Smart" star Don Adams. "Would you believe it's going to last ten years? Would you believe five? It's over tomorrow."

To Spend is to Save

The couple proved Adams wrong, however, going just over ten years before separating. By that time, Carson was the highest paid personality on television, making about $15 million per year. But during a decade marred by financial difficulties – a $500,000 investment with the failed De Lorean Motor Company, a hand in the founding of the calamitous Commercial Bank of California – Carson would remember his third divorce most bitterly.

In many ways, Carson was the victim of bad timing: The early 1970s was a time before public acceptance of prenuptial agreements – even among the rich and famous – so judges in California awarded alimony based on how much a spouse spent in the waning days of a marriage. According to Laurence Leamer's definitive Carson biography, "King of the Night," when it comes to failing marriages, "the matrons of Bel Air and Beverly Hills have one fundamental axiom: To spend is to save."

In 1983, Joanna Holland asked for $220,000 per month in temporary support in order to maintain her standard of living. It was a request that included $5,000 per month for maid and chef salaries at their Bel Air mansion, $8,500 per month for the upkeep of three luxury apartments in New York, $5,000 a month for clothes, $30,000 a month for jewelry, and $3,000 a month for her son from a previous relationship.

After nearly three years of highly publicized negotiations, Holland wound up receiving considerably less: $35,000 per month tax-free, plus $7,000 per month for maintenance of the New York apartments (Carson's lawyer pointed out that the regular delivery of fresh-cut flowers did not constitute maintenance) for five years. This, combined with securities and notes worth $8 million, $4.1 million in personal property, $1.5 million in retirement plans along with the house in Bel Air and the three New York apartments, and Holland walked away with about $22 million in cash and property.

During the divorce proceedings, when asked how his love life was going, Carson replied, "I've got to learn to rent."

Fourth Time's a Charm

Carson married longtime companion Alexis Maas in 1987. The Malibu wedding was a small affair, officiated by retired judge William Hogoboom, the same judge who had ruled on Carson's divorce from Holland.

The only other person in attendance that day was Carson's younger brother, Dick, though the bride's parents participated in the ceremony via speaker phone. The marriage, by most accounts a happy one, lasted until Carson's death in January 2005.

Want more? This is the sixth in our series "From the Vault: Financial Analyses of the Sometimes Rich and Famous," an ongoing ReZoom.com Finance feature that spotlights celebrities and their money. To learn about the financial woes of Hollywood honcho Robert Evans and "The Cotton Club," click here. To learn about the changing nature of prenuptial agreements, click here.