Skitch Henderson, who died Tuesday at 87, was a conductor and icon of popular music who, to his delight and dismay, owed his greatest fame to his two stints as bandleader on “The Tonight Show.”

Despite having studied with Arnold Schoenberg, Fritz Reiner, and Albert Coates, it was his years with Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby – and especially Steve Allen and Johnny Carson – that seemed to define him most, even as he traveled the world, guest-conducting major symphony orchestras. In recent years, he was seen several times yearly at Carnegie Hall conducting the New York Pops orchestra, which he founded, in 1983.

Henderson was musical director at NBC for two decades starting in 1953, but America knew him as the jovial “Tonight” bandleader who occasionally mugged in skits opposite Allen as the “amiable dimwit, Sydney Ferguson. “After he grew a Vandyke, appreciation of his music took another unplanned turn: “Where I used to be Skitch, now half the time I’m Mitch,” he complained in 1961, referring to the similarly bearded Mitch Miller, whose CBS show “Sing Along With Mitch” urged prime time viewers to “follow the bouncing ball” as it pounded out the lyrics.

“If you’re on television, you’re automatically an idiot,” he told the St. Petersburg Times in 1992. “If you smile, and if you’re what people in television call a ‘banana,’ which I was for many, many years, it’s something you can’t shed.”

This was half-true at most, and his New York Pops concerts regularly drew large audiences as new generations came to appreciate the mix of the American songbook, big-band jazz, show tunes, and opera. Most of them probably had no idea that he was the guy who hired Doc Severinsen and created the mold for the rest of the television bandleaders.

“We were a vaudeville band, an entertainment band; we could really improvise,” Henderson told the Rocky Mountain News in 1994. “I wasn’t a leader as much as a traffic cop. There’s nothing like that orchestra working anymore, it’s all gone. I saw that Letterman was calling his band the “CBS Orchestra.” My God, that hurts. But who knows? Maybe it is an orchestra, maybe that’s what they look like now.”

Henderson was born in Birmingham, England, and although accounts of his childhood differ, most include his growing up in the Midwest, in Kansas and Oklahoma, under the tutelage of his mother, a church organist. He left home be fore finishing high school and made a living in the mid-1930s playing piano at roadhouses in Minnesota and Montana.

His big break came in 1938, when he filled in for an ailing accompanist on an MGM roadshow, featuring Garland and Mickey Rooney, promoting “Love Finds Andy Hardy.” This led to an invitation to Hollywood, where Henderson found work at MGM and then became the pianist for Bob Hope’s “The Pepsodent Show” on the NBC radio network. He also worked with Sinatra and Crosby, who either gave Henderson the name “Skitch” for “sketch,” the kind of quick transposition that made Henderson a great accompanist, or else told him to stick with a childhood moniker; Henderson told both stories, but always said he idolized Crosby and learned about stage presence from him. While in California, he also played with the Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw bands.

During World War II, Henderson first flew fighters for the Canadian Air Force, then took U.S. citizenship and became a B-29 pilot for the Army Air Corps.

After the war, Henderson worked with Sinatra and Crosby, organized a dance band, and then became music director of Sinatra’s “Light Up Time” (aka “The Lucky Strike Show”). In 1950, he was hired as morning host for WNBC radio in New York. Over the next few years, he maintained a frenetic pace, doing radio and guest-conducting the NBC Symphony while Arturo Toscanini took summer vacations. In 1953, he founded the first version of the New York Pops, using members of the New York Philharmonic to play Vienese waltzes, selections from Gershwin and Tchaikovsky, and Prokofieff’s “Peter and the Wolf,” narrated by his wife, Faye Emerson. The project failed to catch on, however, and Henderson later described it as “one of the biggest train wrecks in the history of Carnegie Hall.” He began serving as guest conductor at symphony orchestras around the nation. He also hosted daily television programs with titles like “A Man and His Music,” “Strictly Skitch,” and “Best of All.”

In 1953,Henderson organized the band for “The Tonight Show,” and stayed on as music director through 1959, when Allen moved the show to Los Angeles. Henderson rejoined the show when Johnny Carson took over in 1962 and further developed his persona role as straight man. Meanwhile, he continued to find ambitious outside projects. In 1963,he directed the City Center production of Kurt Weill’s opera “Street Scene,” and also composed the musical score for the film “Act One.” The following year, he won a Grammy for a recording of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield. He also appeared on “To Tell the Truth,” “Match Game,” and “Password.”

He finally left “Tonight” in 1966, although he remained as music director of NBC until 1971.He subsequently served as director of the Tulsa Philharmonic.

In 1974, Henderson was convicted of filing a false tax return, after he claimed a big deduction for donating his papers to the University of Wisconsin. Press reports at the time described his testimony as “authoritative about music but confused about taxes.” He was sentenced to six months in prison.

Henderson scaled back his public appearances for a few years. He owned several restaurants, including Daley’s Dandelion on East 61st Street. In 1983, he founded the New York Pops.

In recent years, Henderson continued to accept guest-conducting assignments and refused to contemplate retirement. He issued a series of albums with the New York Pops, including show tunes, swing, and duets with the guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. He was scheduled to conduct the New York Pops on November 11 in a program including music by Glenn Miller, Cole Porter, and Jule Styne, as well as Marc Blitzstein’s “Airborne Symphony.”

Henderson was married twice, the first time to his frequent television partner Faye Emerson. It is said that the Emmy award is named for her; the statue resembles her profile. They were divorced in 1958. He then married Ruth Einsiedel, a model. In 1972,they opened the Silo, an art gallery and cooking school adjacent to their farm in New Milford, Conn. Together they published cookbooks, including “Ruth and Skitch Henderson’s Christmas in the Country,” which came complete with a New York Pops holiday CD.

Lyle Russell Cedric Henderson

Born January 27, 1918, in Manchester, England; died November 1 at his home in New Milford, Conn.; survived by his wife, Ruth, and their children, Heidi Maria and Hans Anderson.