In her office at "Tonight", Zucker had run the scenario by Debbie, a kindred spirit because of their shared experience producing the two most famed franchise programs in television history, "Today" and "Tonight". Or maybe it was the private conversation he'd had with Jay's executive producer, Debbie Vickers, two days earlier. So what was so unnerving about having to walk down to Jay Leno's dressing room at NBC's headquarters in Burbank, California, and hand him a closing notice for his long run as the host of "The Tonight Show"? Maybe it was knowing that Leno could not possibly have seen this coming, not with his ratings still dominant in late night, not with his compulsion to do this job - and only this job as long as there was still breath in his lungs - undiminished in the slightest. By that point in his career Zucker had made the convoluted daily machine of the "Today" show run as smoothly as a Swiss fire drill he had produced with distinction the endless election night of November 2000 for NBC News he had navigated his way - not unbloodied, but certainly unbowed ,through the piranha-filled water of Hollywood during a three-year stint running NBC's entertainment division and he had beaten cancer - twice.
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