Leno said that Harvard and the Hasty Pudding had always been important to him.
“The first show I ever did was right here on the campus of Harvard,” Leno said.
Leno, an Andover, Mass. native who attended Emerson College, worked at Foreign Motors when he was young. Leno said that he was selected to drive celebrities like Fay Dunaway, Peter Falk, and Liza Minnelli to Hasty Pudding Man and Woman of the Year events.
Because of his job he met Jack Lemmon ’47, who won the Man of the Year Award in 1973. According to Leno, Lemmon always teased Leno, asking him whether he got “that Hasty Pudding award yet.”
Leno dedicated his Pudding Pot to Lemmon, who passed away 10 years ago this June.
—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.