At 74, Jay Leno Prepares for the Inevitable, Sets Aside Fortune for His Cars — ‘No One Lives Forever

After leaving behind his successful career as the host of late-night talk shows, Jay Leno launched a web series on nbc.com (2015 to 2022) about cars.

Jay Leno’s Garage, now appearing to more than 3.7 million subscribers on YouTube, allows the comedian to share his passion for cars and bikes with his audience.

In November 2022, the former Tonight Show host was badly burned when a fire broke out in his Burbank, California garage.

“I got some serious burns from a gasoline fire.” Leno told Variety at the time “I am OK. Just need a week or two to get back on my feet.”

According to reports, the now 74-year-old man was working under a car when the fire sparked. He suffered third degree burns on his face and got a new left ear after losing his first one to the fire.

Unfortunately, his luck didn’t get any better.

Only two months after the fire, he suffered a broken collarbone, two cracked ribs and two cracked kneecaps in a motorcycle accident.

‘Treats Mavis like gold’
Despite his body breaking down with aging, passion-related accidents and high cholesterol, the one thing that holds strong in his life is his love for Mavis, who he married in 1980.

“I always tell guys when they meet a woman, ‘Marry your conscience. Marry someone who’s the person you wish you could be and it works out okay.” Leno tells People of his enduring love with Mavis, now 77.

After 45 years together, the childless couple started facing some hardships.

Mavis was diagnosed with dementia and her condition is rapidly declining.

In April 2024, Leno was granted a conservatorship over his wife’s estate by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge who ruled the measure was “necessary and appropriate.”

According to court documents obtained by Entertainment Tonight, “Mavis has been progressively losing capacity and orientation to space and time for several years.”

The filing also says and “Jay is fully capable of continuing support for Mavis’ physical and financial needs, as he has throughout their marriage,” but her “current condition renders her incapable of executing the estate plan.”

Included in the documents is a statement from her neurologist Dr. Cohen: “Sometimes [Mavis] does not know her husband, Jay, nor her date of birth.”

Cohen, Mavis’ attending doctor at Cedars Sinai, adds that Leno “loves his wife very much” and “treats [Mavis] like gold.”

‘No one lives forever’
Only months later, In Touch reports that Leno is now preparing for his own death, making end-of-life arrangements so his fortunes are delivered to the rightful beneficiaries.

The filing reads: “No one lives forever, and the actions taken by Mr. Leno are reasonable and necessary for his and Mavis’ protection. Mavis does not object to the petition and in my opinion consents to it. Mr. Leno is her protector, and she trusts him. This estate planning is in her best interest and protects her interests.”

Leno’s latest filing details provisions for Mavis’ care and discloses that the couple intends to stay in their home “for as long as reasonably possible,” using their money for “assistance from household employees or caregivers as may be necessary.”

If Leno dies first, “the estate will divide into the Leno Marital Trust…it will have the Leno Collection and any real property housing Leno Collection. It will be irrevocable, and the survivor receives all income, plus principal for reasonable support. After the survivor’s death, after-tax balance will be distributed, along with the Leno Trust to JDM.”

The Leno Collection is Leno’s collection of automobiles and motorcycles, that’s valued at more than $52 million, and any real property.

Leno also instructed the JDM Foundation, a charity he launched in 1988, to open a museum with his automobile collection, and he’s already named the three initial directors.

In addition, Leno is leaving $7 million to Mavis’ brother Rikki Nicholson, who lives next door, and to his nephew Richard Leno.

The court-appointed official said Leno’s amendments to the trust will likely be approved.

It’s hard to imagine a world without Jay Leno! Please let us know what you think and then share this story so we can send Leno and Mavis a lot of love!

Inside the life of Debra Paget and why Elvis was ‘obsessed’ with her

Debra Paget was extremely beautiful in her prime and charmed millions of Americans when she starred in Elvis Presley’s film debut, Love Me Tender.

The talented actress was ”touched by the hand of God,” according to legendary director Cecil B DeMille.

Apparently, even the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ became obsessed with her…

Debra Page was born on August 19, 1933, in Denver, Colorado. Her real was Dabralee Griffin – but the actress changed her name as she moved towards movie stardom.

Raised in a showbiz family, Debra’s parents moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s so that they all could be closer to developing the film industry in Hollywood. (Debra’s two sisters, Tala Loring and Lisa Gaye, also had substantial film & TV careers).

Debra, who always wanted to be a dancer, has described herself as a ”post-depression” baby. She came into the world during a devastating and prolonged economic recession. Her family didn’t have much, but Debra held her parents in high regard.

“When I looked back, we had so much love in our home,” Debra said when being interviewed by Dale Evans Rogers

‘Most beautiful legs in the world’

Pushed by her mother, Debra enrolled in the Hollywood Professional School when she was 11.

The talented young girl landed never doubted herself, landing her first professional job aged eight. Soon after that, she starred in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.

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Her motion picture career began at the age of 14, and her big break came in 1950 when she was cast in Broken Arrow. Co-starring alongside James Stewart, Debra Paget portrayed a Native American maiden called Sonseeahray (“Morningstar”).

Debra’s “exotic” looks won her several roles in adventure dramas, and she soon earned the reputation as the only starlet who had never been kissed. 

In the 1950s, she earned the title “The most beautiful legs in the world” when the National Association of Hosiery Manufactures polled 15,000 people in the industry. The deeply religious Debra won by a wide margin, according to The Baltimore Sun.

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As a 14-year-old, Debra had signed an exclusive contract with 20th Century Fox. But it was when Paramount Pictures borrowed Debra for The Ten Commandments that she made her most successful movie.  

Debra played the part of Lilia, the water girl, in Cecil B. DeMille’s giant biblical, spectacular movie. The blue-eyed Debra had to wear brown contact lenses – something that caused quite some trouble for her.

“If it hadn’t been for the lenses, I wouldn’t have gotten the part. They were awful to work in because the klieg lights heated them up,” she said.

The movie, which won seven Academy Awards, changed her life forever.

”It was probably the highlight of my career, ” Debra said. 

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Meeting Elvis

Debra Paget was a 22-year-old established Hollywood star when she stepped onto the set of Love Me Tender. Back then, she was probably the most beautiful actress of the Hollywood Golden age. And that is saying something.

She and Elvis Presley first met months earlier when both appeared on the Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was the moment when Elvis shocked conservative America by gyrating his famous, or infamous, pelvis during his now-iconic rendition of Hound Dog.

“Although I usually don’t form an opinion of a person until I have met him,” she explained. “Frankly I looked forward to my first meeting with Elvis Presley with mixed emotions. I’d heard and read a lot about this new young singing sensation from Tennessee—and most of it was not complimentary.”

The young singer surprised Debra in many ways during their first, memorable meeting. As a born-again Christian, you might think that Debra disliked The King, but it was quite the opposite.

When Mr. Berle introduced the 21-year-old rising star to Debra, he firmly grabbed her hand and said: “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Paget.”

Elvis then shook her mother’s hand with ”equal vigor,” excused himself, and a couple of minutes later came back with a chair for her.

“We were together for only a couple of hours but sometimes you can learn more about a person in a short span of time than in weeks of seeing one another constantly. I felt I did. From the very beginning, Elvis impressed me as a pleasant, sincere, obliging young man,” Debra recalled.

The proposal

A few months later, Debra starred opposite Elvis in Love Me Tender – his first movie. According to Daily Express, the singer became obsessed with his co-star. He believed that Debra was ”the most beautiful girl he had ever seen” and even visited her parent’s house.

“From the time he first came to the house, my folks have considered Elvis a member of the Paget clan—a feeling which, I believe, he reciprocated,” Debra explained.

But Debra and Elvis’s relationship was more family-oriented than a whirlwind romance – at least in the eyes of the young actress.

“I was very shy, very quiet and very immature for my age. I was in my very early 20’s but I was emotionally more like a 16-year-old. Elvis and I just sort of came together like a couple of children really.”

Rock and roll singer Elvis Presley kisses Debra Paget in a still from ‘Love Me Tender’ in Los Angeles in 1956. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Elvis, however, seems to have thought otherwise.

“Following the film, he did ask me to marry him but my parents objected to my getting married. I cared about Elvis, but being one not to disobey my parents, that did not take place,” Debra shared.

In the end, Debra turned Elvis down – she had already fallen in love with Howard Hughes, a famous film producer and billionaire.

Debra would later marry actor and singer David Street, but she always spoke fondly of Elvis. And Elvis didn’t forget Debra either – many think she did set the template for Elvis’ fixation with the ‘Debra Paget look.’ For example, it was reported that young Priscilla Beaulieu changed her hair and make-up when she learned about Debra. 

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Debra left the entertainment industry in 1964 and is now 89 years old. Sadly, there is not much information about her life today; Debra seems to live a quiet and private life out of the limelight.

Elvis and Joan Blackman

Interestingly, Elvis’s proposal to Debra in the late 1950s wasn’t the only time he wanted to marry a co-star. After shooting Blue Hawaii with Joan Blackman in 1961, he wanted to tie the knot with her as well – while he was dating Priscilla.

Joan Blackman, who looked very much like Priscilla, has shared what really happened during the making of Blue Hawaii.

When we first set eyes on each other (in 1957), there was a spark, a magic in the air… There was just that special something between us, sometimes so warm and wonderful you could almost reach out and touch it,” she told the Midnight Globe newspaper in 1977.

In the sensational interview, Joan Blackman said that Elvis ”really wanted” her as his wife and that he repeatedly begged her to appear in his movies, but she turned him down each time. 

“I wanted parts because of my ability, not because I was dating Elvis,” she stated.

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