Peter Lassally, the dean of late-night producers who worked with Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show,” David Letterman on the “Late Show” and Craig Ferguson on “The Late Late Show,” has died. He was 93 years old.

Lassally was long nicknamed the “host whisperer” for helping run some of the biggest late-night franchises of all time. He worked with Carson until that host retired in 1992; After that, he joined forces with Letterman, who had hoped to take the helm for “Tonight,” but was passed over for the gig. That’s when Lassally, joining Letterman’s Worldwide Pants group, was instrumental in helping Letterman decide to leave NBC and create an entirely new “Late Show” franchise on CBS.

Under Letterman’s deal with CBS, Worldwide Pants also scheduled the 12:37 a.m. time slot with “The Late Late Show,” which Lassally executive produced in its first incarnation with Tom Snyder. When it later passed to Craig Kilborn, Lassally partially retired, but when Craig Ferguson took over in 2005, Lassally served as executive producer of the show.

“Peter had two loves in his life that lasted more than half a century, the first with his lovely wife, Alice, and the second with the world of television,” said Michael Naidus, who worked with Lassally on Ferguson’s “Late Late Show” as showrunner. “Each of those love affairs was a two-way street. Literally hundreds of millions of people owe their nightly smiles to this beautiful soul, whose gift for finding extraordinary talents and perfecting them is incomparable and unmatched.

“And at the same time, Peter enjoyed the moments he helped create so much that his smile was as ubiquitous as his daily cut apple,” she added. “What little I gave to the format is because he was kind and patient enough to show it to me. It’s traditional to say ‘he will be missed’ in these circumstances, but the truth is that Peter was and is irreplaceable.”

Lassally retired in 2015, when Ferguson left “The Late Late Show,” overseeing guest hosts before James Corden took over.

in a 2015 Variety In her profile, then-CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler referred to Lassally as “the strong, silent guy,” with an unerring ability to “diagnose problems with surgical precision” and a caring attitude that got the best of the big personalities he dealt with, as well as the show’s staff. “He has no ego,” Tassler noted. “There is comfort in not wanting or needing to be the center of attention.”

Lassally was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1932 to a Jewish family that later had to flee to the Netherlands with the rise of Nazi Germany. While there, Lassally’s sister went to school with Anne Frank, and he, his mother and sister were imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp and later in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After surviving the Holocaust, Lassally and his family moved to New York in 1947.

Lassally was a part of television from the beginning, joining the NBC page show at age 19 and serving as an usher at Radio City Music Hall alongside his friend Regis Philbin. He worked in radio and then moved on to the popular Arthur Godfrey show.

He joined “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in the 1970s, rising to executive producer until Carson’s retirement. From there, he moved on to “Late Night with David Letterman” and then helped establish “Late Show” with Letterman. (That franchise, which later continued under the direction of Stephen Colbert, recently concluded following CBS’ surprise cancellation.)

Lassally’s final late-night act was to identify comedian Craig Ferguson (then known primarily for his role on “Drew Carey”) and transform him into a talk show host, which ultimately, as Ferguson grew in the role, became a unique and critically acclaimed late-night outpost.

Lassally has won two Emmy Awards over the years, while discovering and nurturing multiple generations of talent.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Alice Lassally, and survived by his daughter, Andrea Gibbin (Chris Gibbin); his son, Tom Lassally (Romi Lassally) of 3 Arts; and his four grandchildren, Walker Gibbin, Eloise Gibbin, Annabel Lassally and Owen Lassally.