Leno had been performing stand-up comedy in a variety of venues when she found him, and afterwards, Kushnick was with him all the way to his role hosting The Tonight Show.

Her strong-arm tactics in her role as executive producer of the Tonight Show created a great deal of conflict with NBC.

Her first job was working as a secretary for David Gerber, a 20th Century Fox producer in New York City.

She moved to Hollywood with Gerber, working as a secretary and then as an agent as the International Creative Management talent agency.

[2] The 1996 HBO TV movie The Late Shift (based on Bill Carter's New York Times bestselling book of the same title) uncovered the network politics that occurred prior to the retirement of Johnny Carson from The Tonight Show on NBC.