Joanna Holland, a model and the third wife of the late television host Johnny Carson, has died at 93. She died in July, although an exact date and cause of death was not released publicly. Carson and Holland met at the 21 Club in 1971, when she was one of New York’s highest-paid models and was divorced with one son. Carson was nine years into hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one year separated from his second wife, Joanne Copeland. He was originally married to Joan “Jody” Wolcott from 1949 to 1963, with whom he shared three sons. After his marriages to Copeland and Holland, he married a fourth time to Alexis Maas in 1987 and stayed with her until he died in 2005 from emphysema. Carson told People that when he first met Holland, he was “flirting like a sophomore” and invited her to his 46th birthday celebration. He called her every day, religiously, at exactly 4:30 p.m. for the next year, until they got secretly married in 1972. Carson, however, had a drinking problem, and the couple got divorced 13 years later. Holland received a generous sum from their divorce proceedings and stayed out of the limelight. Holland’s only child, Joe Holland, died at 32 in 1994 of complications from AIDS, and she became a contributor for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. The foundation paid tribute to her upon her death, writing that she had “Elizabeth Taylor’s spirit of love and support.”
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