TV

CBS’ Riccie Johnson has prepped stars for 61 years

Last week, makeup artist Riccie Johnson reported to her job at the CBS studios on West 57th Street, taking two buses, to get “60 Minutes Sports” correspondents Armen Keteyian and Sharyn Alfonsi ready for their on-air reports.

“I’ve worked on them before,” says Johnson. Nothing unusual.

Unless you consider that Johnson has been doing this sort of work for CBS since before Keteyian was born. And he is 60.

Declining with a laugh to give her age, or even reveal what graduating class she was in at Georgian Court University in her native New Jersey, the 80-something makeup artist is now in her 61st year of getting people ready for their close-ups at CBS.

Although the Upper East Sider didn’t become an actor as she had planned, Johnson has prettied up plenty of them over the years — along with comedians, singers, presidents, journalists and just plain folks.

Among the bold-facers who have sat in her makeup chair: Frank Sinatra. “He said to be careful, he was wearing a [hair] piece.”

Sid Caesar, who was “not really funny. Most comedians aren’t funny off the set.”

Tallulah Bankhead. “Lovely, but . . . you wouldn’t [have known] it was her without makeup.”

Famous “60 Minutes” curmudgeon Andy Rooney usually did his own makeup. But when Johnson did work on him, she says, “You don’t touch those eyebrows!”

Johnson worked on Richard Nixon — “not for that famous debate,” she’s quick to add of the 1960 tussle with John F. Kennedy, when Nixon’s sweaty upper lip and 5 o’clock shadow were said to have lost him the presidential election. Johnson spiffed up the politician later, for “60 Minutes.”

“By that time, we all knew about his problems,” Johnson says. “You had to get rid of that shadow. He appreciated it.”

Bill Clinton didn’t want Johnson to work on him at all before a debate. “He was afraid he was going to look too made up,” she explains. “He came in rather tense, and I told him, ‘Mr. President, I assure you I have a very light touch.’ ” He signed a photo for her, “Thank you for making my old face look good.”

One of her toughest times on the job was getting Mike Wallace ready to go on the air to report the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. She had made up Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, out at their Long Island home when he was going to run for the US Senate in 1964. “He was introducing his children, and there were a lot of them,” says Johnson, who has seven kids of her own. “He would introduce each one and say their age, and he got it wrong. The children would correct him under their breath; it was funny. Then he’d have to re-do it.”

Johnson, the former Florence Riccobono, even met her husband, James, at CBS in 1952 — on the set of “The Guiding Light,” where he was a cameraman.

It was James, who died in 1999, whom she called from “The Ed Sullivan Show” the day The Beatles performed on set in 1964. He was home alone with the seven kids. She could tell something special was going on and asked if they wanted to come over. He declined, and, says Johnson with a laugh, “Of course now [the kids] hate me for not insisting.”

As for her own regimen, “I wear very little makeup,” she says. “A little under-eye concealer, eyeliner and lipstick. At my age — whatever it may be — less is more.”