Background

Ethnicity: David Letterman's father had English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. His mother's family was of German descent.

David Letterman was born on April 12, 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the United States, to Harry Joseph Letterman, who was a florist, and Dorothy Marie Letterman Mengering, who was a secretary for the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis. His father suffered a heart attack when David was a young boy. He eventually died of a second heart attack at the age of 57. David has two sisters, Janice and Gretchen.

Education

David Letterman grew up on the north side of Indianapolis. He attended the Broad Ripple High School and worked at the local Atlas Supermarket. He studied radio and television at the Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, and graduated in 1969. He completed a four-year double major in journalism news/telecommunications.

Career

Letterman worked in Indianapolis as a radio talk-show host, the host of a children's program and a late-night movie show, a news anchor, and as a television weatherman, where his brand of humor was already evident if not necessarily appreciated. One night he reportedly upset his bosses when he congratulated a tropical storm on being upgraded to a hurricane.

In 1975 he moved to Los Angeles, where he began performing regularly at the Comedy Store, a club for fledgling stand-up comedians. He joined American actor and comedian Jimmie Walker’s group of comedians to write jokes for his stand-up acts. He also wrote material for popular shows like Good Times.

In 1977, he became a regular writer on the six-week series The Starland Vocal Band Show, aired on CBS. In 1978, he became a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Mary. Finally, he landed at The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and soon became a regular guest on the show.

The following year, Letterman, who had revered Carson since childhood, served as the show’s guest host, the first of many such appearances. In 1979 the visibility Letterman gained as a guest host won him an NBC mid-morning show, The David Letterman Show. However, his unconventional humor - exemplified by the time he sent an audience member out to fetch him coffee - failed to engage daytime viewers. Although it received two Emmy Awards, the show was canceled after three months.

Letterman did not gain a following until he moved to late-night television with the critically acclaimed Late Night with David Letterman, which premiered in 1982 on NBC. The show ran immediately after Carson’s The Tonight Show, and its ironic and offbeat humor was a hit with viewers. His fans loved his self-mockery and cynical sense of humor. Later, his style inspired numerous comedy talk shows.

Letterman also became known for antagonizing some notable guests; Cher, for example, was moved to curse him on camera. If his behavior turned off some guests, it excited the critics, who saw in his work an attempt to parody talk shows. Letterman insisted, however, that doing a funny talk show, not a parody, was his main intent. Late Night with David Letterman earned five Emmy Awards and 35 nominations.

After NBC chose Jay Leno as the replacement for the retiring Johnny Carson in 1992 - a position Letterman had publicly desired - Letterman moved to CBS. He signed a lucrative deal to host Late Show with David Letterman, which aired opposite The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He also founded his own production company, Worldwide Pants, that same year, which bought a stake in his new show.

His displeasure with NBC executives was fodder for his monologues, and when they blocked him from transferring regular features of his show to CBS (claiming it was NBC's "intellectual property") that, too, was mocked on air. The years that followed this head-to-head competition spawned a book and cable movie documenting the late-night talk show "wars."

Aside from being a talk show host, Letterman is an active producer. His production company is called Worldwide Pants. Over the years he has been executive producer of his original show, his new show, Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), The Building (1993), Bonnie (1995), The High Life (1996), The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1999), and Ed (2000).

On January 14, 2000, Letterman undergone emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery. In typical Letterman fashion, the recovering patient joked that "in addition to rerouting the arteries, they also installed an E-Z pass." Letterman's first post-op show aired on February 21, 2000, featuring Regis Philbin, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams (wearing medical scrubs), and eight members of the team who took care of Letterman during his stay in the hospital. During his recovery, various performers, including Bill Cosby, served as guest hosts. His emotional return in February was among the show’s highest-rated episodes.

In December 2006, Letterman renewed his contract with CBS, agreeing to host Late Show with David Letterman through the fall of 2010. In 2007, he was ranked as No. 17 on the Forbes list of richest men in the entertainment industry, making an estimated $40 million that year. In 2009, Forbes also listed Letterman as No. 14 on its list of most powerful personalities in entertainment.

On February 1, 2012, Letterman celebrated 30 years as a late-night talk-show host, which was the longest tenure in American television history. By then the Late Show had received numerous Emmys. Later that year he was named a Kennedy Center honoree. In 2014 Letterman announced that he was retiring from the Late Show the following year, and Stephen Colbert was later announced as his successor. Letterman hosted his last show on May 20, 2015.

Although Letterman initially avoided public appearances after retiring, in 2016 he was a celebrity correspondent for the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which focused on the threats of climate change. The following year Letterman received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2018 he returned to television as host of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, a monthly one-hour talk show that aired on Netflix.

Achievements

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  Letterman is best known for his gap-toothed self-mockery and his brash, wry, somewhat cynical sense of humor. His unconventional demeanor and sense of humor attracted a cult following, which has gone on to inspire countless comedians and talk show hosts who have followed him.
  
  David Letterman is the winner of several Emmy awards including the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Variety Series for The David Letterman Show in 1981 and the Primetime Emmy Award for the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series for Late Show with David Letterman in 1994. He was honored with the prestigious Peabody Award in 2015 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2017.

Works

More photos

• TV series

  • Everybody Loves Raymond

    (It never stops for successful sports writer Ray Barone, w...)

    1996
  • The Knights of Prosperity

    (Misfits band together to rob celebrities.)

    2007

Religion

David Letterman has been following Presbyterianism since childhood as it was a part of his upbringing.

Politics

David Letterman is a registered Independent, but all of his political contributions have gone to a Democrat. Letterman gave $2,300 to then Minnesota candidate Al Franken in the 2008 primary and general election.

Views

David Letterman is the founder of The Letterman Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, through it, Letterman donated a total of over $9.2 million to various foundations and other organizations. Letterman supports education. Ball State University received a $25,000 grant in 2013 and a $3,000 grant in 2012. Support has also gone to Broad Ripple High School, where Letterman graduated, Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson United School Corporation in Indiana. Outside of Indiana, recent money has gone to Columbia University, Case Western University, and Cornell University. In K-12 education, support has gone to Alder Elementary School in Montana and the Beaumont School in Ohio.

Around $230,000 went to Habitat for Humanity International in 2013, around $200,000 went to the outfit in 2012, and more than $167,000 went there in 2011. Money has also gone to the Friends of the World Food Program. Support has also gone to the Africa Foundation, which works to empower rural communities living adjacent to conservation areas in Eastern and Southern Africa, including Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania.

Quotations: "I'm a wiseass and a smartass, and I always have been."

"The worst tempered people I have ever met were those who knew that they were wrong."

Membership

David Letterman is a Life Loyal Member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.

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  Sigma Chi Fraternity

Personality

Once an alcoholic, David Letterman hasn't had any alcoholic beverages since 1983 and stopped smoking cigars in 2004. He enjoys collecting model cars. He also owns an extensive collection of cars. In 2012, he owned ten Ferraris, eight Porsches, four Austin Healeys, two Honda motorcycles, one Chevy, one Mercedes-Benz, one Jaguar, an MG, a Volvo, and a Pontiac.

Interests

• model cars

• Politicians

  Al Franken

• Music & Bands

  Foo Fighters, The Spinners, Warren Zevon

Connections

On July 2, 1968, David Letterman married his college girlfriend, Michelle Cook. They divorced in October 1977. From 1978 to 1988, he was in a live-in relationship with Merrill Markoe, former head writer and producer of Late Night. While still in the live-in relationship, he started dating Regina Lasko in February 1986. He also has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman, with her. Harry was born on November 3, 2003. David married Lasko on March 19, 2009.

Father:

Harry Joseph Letterman

Mother:

Dorothy Marie Letterman Mengering

ex-wife:

Michelle Cook

David Letterman's first wife was Michelle Cook. She was Letterman's college girlfriend and they were married in 1968. After college, Cook encouraged Letterman to move to Los Angeles and pursue a career in entertainment. She supported him while he started his career in comedy. Letterman and Cook were married for a period of nine years before getting divorced in 1977.

Wife:

Regina Lasko

Letterman became involved with Regina Lasko in 1986, who would be his girlfriend for 23 years. Lasko also worked on Letterman's show. Lasko and Letterman had a son, Harry, in 2003. Lasko finally became Letterman's second wife in March 2009.

Not long after he married Lasko, there was a scandal. Letterman had been cheating on Lasko with a number of staffers and others in a secret love nest above his offices at CBS. The boyfriend of one of his lovers, Stephanie Birkitt, attempted to blackmail Letterman over the affair, so David made the gesture of revealing his infidelity on-air and subsequently worked hard to save his marriage.

Son:

Harry Joseph Letterman

Sister:

Gretchen Letterman

Sister:

Janice Letterman

Acquaintance:

Oprah Winfrey

David is notorious for his acerbic tone which was also responsible for his 16-year-long feud with Oprah Winfrey. The discord started when Winfrey appeared on his Late Night Show on NBC in 1989. She later confessed that she felt uncomfortable with his tone and did not wish to experience it again.

The two, however, buried the hatchet with her appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman on December 2, 2005. He referenced the specific episode as The Superbowl of Love.

stalker:

Margaret Mary Ray

Margaret Mary Ray gained national attention as Letterman’s stalker from May 1988. She was suffering from schizophrenia and had managed to steal his Porsche, break into his house several times, and had also camped out on his tennis court. She committed suicide in October 1998 and Letterman expressed his grief at her sad demise.

Acquaintance:

Barack Obama

References

• Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night Jason Zinoman delivers the definitive story of the life and artistic legacy of David Letterman, the greatest television talk show host of all time and the signature comedic voice of a generation. In a career spanning more than thirty years, David Letterman redefined the modern talk show with an ironic comic style that transcended traditional television.
  2017