LORNE’S WORLD The archive contains relatively few traces of Michaels’s handwriting and little personal material, according to Ancelyn Krivak, the archivist who is processing the collection.

Michaels first garnered the attention of Dick Ebersol, NBC’s head of late-night television programming, in the early 1970s. At that time, Michaels was a 29-year-old comedy writer from Toronto ...