Peter Lassally, a concentration camp survivor who became known as the “Host Whisperer” for producing talk shows headlined by Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, has died. He was 93. Lassally died Sunday of natural causes at a memory care facility in Los Angeles, his son, Tom Lassally, the partner, producer and manager at 3 Arts Entertainment, told The Hollywood Reporter. Lassally had produced programs starring Arthur Godfrey and Mike Wallace before joining Carson on NBC’s The Tonight Show, then based in New York, in 1969. He served as the quiet behind-the-scenes guy in a producing partnership with the boisterous Fred De Cordova and remained with the show until Carson’s final broadcast on May 22, 1992. blogherads.adq.push(function () { blogherads .defineSlot( 'medrec', 'gpt-article-mid-article-uid0' ) .setTargeting( 'pos', ["mid-article1","mid-articleX","mid","mid-article"] ) .setTargeting( 'viewable', 'yes' ) .setSubAdUnitPath("ros\/mid-article") .addSize([[300,250],[2,2],[300,251],[620,350],[2,4],[4,2],[320,480],[620,366]]) .setClsOptimization("minsize") ; }); Related Stories TV Sylvia Bugg, PBS Programming Chief, Dies at 55 Music Jim Gilstrap, Singer on 'Good Times' Theme and Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," Dies at 79 After just one week off, Lassally jumped to Late Night With David Letterman as an executive producer for what would prove to be the NBC program’s final season. When Jay Leno was picked over Letterman to replace Carson, Lassally advised Letterman what to do next. “I said to Dave, ‘If you’re going to follow Jay Leno at 12:30 when he gets The Tonight Show, you’re going to hate yourself, you’re going to be miserable,'” Lassally recalled in a 2009 chat for the Television Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “You’re going to think, ‘Why am I following Jay Leno when I for 12 years hosted the 12:30 show … and my reward should be The Tonight Show?’ If you agree, I’ll try to get you an 11:30 show — not knowing when I said that just how I was going to do that.” Lassally hooked Letterman up with powerful CAA agent Michael Ovitz, and the host fielded lucrative offers in syndication, cable and broadcast before deciding to move to CBS in 1993 to topline Late Show With David Letterman from the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway at 11:35 p.m. blogherads.adq.push(function () { blogherads .defineSlot( 'medrec', 'gpt-dsk-tab-mid-article2-uid1' ) .setTargeting( 'pos', ["mid","mid-article2","mid-articleX"] ) .setTargeting( 'viewable', 'yes' ) .setSubAdUnitPath("ros\/mid-article2") .addSize([[300,250],[300,251],[620,350],[2,4],[4,2],[320,480],[620,366]]) .setClsOptimization("minsize") ; }); The deal included ownership of a 12:35 a.m. program, The Late Late Show, and Lassally returned to California to set up that program with host Tom Snyder. When Snyder left after four years in March 1999, Lassally disapproved of his replacement, the snarky Craig Kilborn — he had pushed for Jon Stewart — and stepped aside. But when Kilborn quit in a salary dispute in 2004, he got his man in the charming Scottish actor-comedian Ferguson. “I always had a good relationship with the hosts that I worked with because I would tell them the truth. That has really worked well for me. That’s how I got the title the ‘Host Whisperer,'” the two-time Emmy winner said. “I’m not good at pumping sunshine up their rears. If I didn’t like it, I can’t fake it, I can’t pretend it was good. I’m very lucky the hosts respected that.” Peter Eduard Lassally was born on Oct. 14, 1932, in Hamburg, Germany. His father, Paul, was an importer/exporter in the coffee business, and his mother, Elsa, was a housewife.