David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American comedian, television host, writer, and producer. He hosted late-night television talk shows for 33 years, beginning with the February 1, 1982, debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC and ending with the May 20, 2015, broadcast of Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. In total, Letterman hosted 6,080 episodes of Late Night and Late Show, surpassing his friend and mentor Johnny Carson as the longest-serving late-night talk show host in American television history.
Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company, Worldwide Pants, produced his shows as well as The Late Late Show and several primetime comedies, the most successful of which was the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Several late-night hosts have cited Letterman's influence, including Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers (each of whom succeeded Letterman on Late Night), Stephen Colbert (his successor on The Late Show), Jimmy Kimmel, and Jon Stewart. Since 2018, he has hosted the Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.
Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 12, 1947. He has two sisters, one older and one younger. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 15, 1915 – February 13, 1973), was a florist. His mother, Dorothy Marie Letterman Mengering (née Hofert; July 18, 1921 – April 11, 2017), a church secretary for the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, was an occasional figure on Letterman's show, usually at holidays and birthdays.
Letterman grew up on the north side of Indianapolis, in the Broad Ripple area, about 12 miles (19 km) from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers. In 2000, he told an interviewer for Esquire that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at the age of 36 when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack in 1973 at the age of 57.
Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas Supermarket. In an interview, he said the first concert he attended was by the Beach Boys at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum, when he was 17. According to the Ball State Daily News, he originally wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades were not good enough, so he instead attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and graduated in 1969 from what was then the Department of Radio and Television. A self-described average student, Letterman later endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State. Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from college, he was not drafted for service in Vietnam because he received a draft lottery number of 346 (out of 366).
Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station that is now part of Indiana Public Radio. He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence. He then became involved with the founding of another campus station—WAGO-AM 570 (now WCRD, 91.3).
He credits Paul Dixon, host of the Paul Dixon Show, a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while he was growing up, for inspiring his choice of career:
I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all of a sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!
Soon after graduating from Ball State in 1969, Letterman began his career as a radio talk show host on WNTS and on Indianapolis television station WLWI (which changed its call sign to WTHR in 1976) as an anchor and weatherman. He received some attention for his novel on-air delivery, which included congratulating a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane, as well as for predicting hailstones "the size of canned hams".
Letterman also occasionally reported the weather and the day's very high and low temps for fictitious cities ("Eight inches of snow in Bingree and surrounding areas"). On another occasion, he riffed that the state border between Indiana and Ohio had been erased, when a satellite map accidentally omitted it, jokingly attributing it to dirty political dealings: "The higher-ups have removed the border between Indiana and Ohio, making it one giant state. Personally, I'm against it. I don't know what to do about it."
Letterman also starred in a local kiddie show, hosted a late-night TV show called "Freeze-Dried Movies" (a show in which he once acted out a scene from Godzilla (1954) using plastic dinosaurs), and hosted a talk show that aired early on Saturday mornings called Clover Power, in which he interviewed 4-H members about their projects.
In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500, which was his first nationally telecast appearance (WLWI was the local ABC affiliate at the time). He was initially introduced as Chris Economaki, but this was corrected at the end of the interview (Jim McKay announced his name as Dave Letterman). Letterman interviewed Mario Andretti, who had just crashed out of the race.
In 1975, encouraged by his then-wife Michelle and several of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, Letterman moved to Los Angeles, California, with the hope of becoming a comedy writer. He and Michelle packed their belongings in his pickup truck and headed west. As of 2012, he still owned the truck. In Los Angeles, he began performing comedy at The Comedy Store. Jimmie Walker saw him on stage; with an endorsement from George Miller, Letterman joined a group of comedians whom Walker hired to write jokes for his stand-up act, a group that at various times also included Jay Leno, Paul Mooney, Robert Schimmel, Richard Jeni, Louie Anderson, Elayne Boosler, Byron Allen, Jack Handey, and Steve Oedekerk.
By the summer of 1977, Letterman was a writer and regular on the six-week summer series The Starland Vocal Band Show, broadcast on CBS. He hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show called The Riddlers (which was never picked up), and co-starred in the Barry Levinson-produced comedy special Peeping Times, which aired in January 1978. Later that year, Letterman was a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Mary. He made a guest appearance on Mork & Mindy (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard) and appearances on game shows such as The $20,000 Pyramid, The Gong Show, Hollywood Squares, Password Plus, and Liar's Club, as well as the Canadian cooking show Celebrity Cooks (November 1977), talk shows such as 90 Minutes Live (February 24 and April 14, 1978), and The Mike Douglas Show (April 3, 1979, and February 7, 1980). He was also screen tested for the lead role in the 1980 film Airplane!, a role that eventually went to Robert Hays.
Letterman's brand of dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and he was soon a regular guest on the show. He became a favorite of Carson and was a regular guest host for the show in 1980–1981. Letterman credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.
On June 23, 1980, Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, The David Letterman Show. It was originally 90 minutes long but was shortened to 60 minutes in August 1980. The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, but was a ratings disappointment and was canceled, the last show airing October 24, 1980.
Late Night with David Letterman
NBC kept Letterman on its payroll to try him in a different time slot. Late Night with David Letterman debuted February 1, 1982; the first guest was Bill Murray. Murray went on to become one of Letterman's most frequent guests, guesting on his later CBS show's celebration of his 30th anniversary in late-night television, which aired January 31, 2012, and on the final CBS show, which aired May 20, 2015. The show ran Monday through Thursday nights at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, immediately following The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (a Friday night broadcast was added in June 1987). It was seen as edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following (particularly among college students). Letterman's reputation as an acerbic interviewer was borne out in verbal sparring matches with Cher (who even called him an "asshole" on the show), Shirley MacLaine, Charles Grodin, and Madonna. The show also featured comedy segments and running characters, in a style heavily influenced by the 1950s and 1960s programs of Steve Allen.