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Leno is not widely known as an actor, but has had
a number of small roles in movies, with a couple
larger 
roles, but in movies that weren't successful.  His
biggest (in terms of screen time) was in 1989, in
Collision Course, where he played a detective
opposite Pat Morita.  It was a comedy about a
mismatched crime fighting pair, one American, and
one Japanese.  Earlier he had a smaller role in
the more popular film, American Hot Wax.

===Stand-up===
Known for his work ethic and nice demeanor, and
most famously for his big chin, Leno started his
career as a stand up comedy|stand-up comic
performing in nightclubs, bars and any place that
would give him even five minutes of stage time. 
Though he had made the occasional foray onto
television in the form of guest appearances on The
Tonight Show, then hosted by Johnny Carson,
stardom eluded him and he continued to work
wherever he was allowed.  It has been reported
that Leno would sometimes work as many as eight or
nine clubs in one evening.  He began making more
frequent appearances on television when many of
his friends and contemporaries became more
influential on late night programs.  Leno made a
record number of appearances on Late Night with
David Letterman.  His popularity was noted by NBC
executives, who decided to make Leno the permanent
guest host for The Tonight Show when Joan Rivers
left that position.

==Host of Tonight Show==
When Carson retired in 1992 in television|1992 Jay
Leno became the new permanent host of The Tonight
Show after a long period of debate and negotiation
between the network, Leno, and David Letterman
(who had been considered by many to be Carson's
heir apparent); Letterman soon signed a deal with
CBS, sparking an ongoing late-night rivalry
between the two talk-show hosts. Although
Letterman's The Late Show with David
Letterman|Late Show led in the ratings from the
start, The Tonight Show took over the lead in 1995
and has, on the whole, had higher ratings ever
since. 

Although known mainly for his wit, he has also
shown his sensitive side on air. When The Tonight
Show came back after the September 11 attacks, he
nixed his usual monologue to talk about what had
happened. He also spoke about the Space Shuttle
Columbia disaster. In addition, following the
Figure skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics|skating
controversy surrounding the ice skating pairs
event at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Leno invited
the Canadian pairs teams onto his show the
following day and waved a Canadian flag and played
"O Canada" for them.

In 1998 in television|1998, Jay Leno and his show
partner Kevin Eubanks were invited to a wrestling
show called WCW Road Wild 1998, from Sturgis,
South Dakota|Sturgis, South Dakota, to wrestle
against Hulk Hogan|Hollywood Hogan and WCW
President Eric Bischoff.

On May 12, 2003 in television|2003, he and Katie
Couric switched places as a publicity stunt,
meaning Leno co-hosted the The Today Show|Today
Show with Matt Lauer. Also in 2002, Leno had a
group of professionals build him a robot called
"Chin Killa" for Battlebots, even though the
officals from the show only let his robot fight in
fun matches, and it couldn't fight in tournaments
because it was built by professionals

On The Tonight Shows 50th anniversary episode, on
September 27, 2004, he announced that he would
retire in 2009, when his current contract expires;
as many expected, Leno announced that Late Night
host Conan O'Brien will replace him.


==Cameos and voice acting==
Leno, who did some acting before being Tonight
Show host, has since done a number of cameos,
which usually appearing as talk show host, or make
fun of his famous chin.  In 1994 he played
Bedrock's Most Wanted Host in the live-action
comedy the Flintstones.  Making fun of his own
facial features, he played the the Crimson Chin on
the TV cartoon series "The Fairly OddParents". 
Most recently he was a talking fire hydrant in the
2005 computer animated movie, Robots (movie).

==Jackson trial==
In the 2005 trial of Michael Jackson over
allegations of child abuse, which Michael
Jackson|Jackson was acquitted of, Leno was one of
the many celebrity defense witnesses expected, but
one of the few who actually did.  At first Leno
was not allowed to continue making jokes about
Jackson and the case; however, he could and did
still write them, and used a stand-in to tell
them.  After NBC challenged this gag-order, the
judge allowed Leno to make jokes, as long as they
were not related to Leno's testimony.  Leno
celebrated the change by doing (or pretending to
do) a Moonwalk (dance)|moonwalk at the start of
first show he was allowed to joke about Jackson
again.  In his testimony, the defense, who called
him, expected him to say he called police to say
the accuser was coached by his mother to ask for
money; but instead Leno testified he never called
the police, no money was asked for, and there was
no
coachinghttp://www.courttv.com/trials/jackson/0524
05_ctv.html.  Leno finished his testimony by
telling the court he had RenÊe Zellweger on the
show that night.

==Hobby==
In automobile collecting circles, Jay Leno is
known as an avid collector and restorer of cars
and motorcycles.  He has a very large antique car
collection on which he is constantly working in
his spare time, and routinely drives cars from his
collection from his home to his studio.  He is
also a promoter of the mechanical crafts, through
his columns in Popular Mechanics and his
educational activities.  Recently Leno auctioned
off a Harley Davidson motorcycle signed by his
celebrity guests to help the victims of the 2004
Indian Ocean Earthquake, the bike sold for
$US800,100. Also, Leno's custom "Tank Car" was
featured in the 2005 racing game Gran Turismo 4.