He ‘increasingly played the horny creep’
came on, Letterman leaned over and snarled, “How’d you like to be married to that c---?”
What the author calls Letterman’s “ferocious fear of failure” was there from the first.
The feeling of foreboding was exacerbated by the 1980 cancellation of his NBC morning show, “The David Letterman Show,” within months of its debut.
His girlfriend at the time and for years to come, Merrill Markoe, was a brilliantly inventive comedy writer and instrumental in shaping the show.
Markoe, who rarely comments on Letterman publicly, told the author about the resulting fallout.
“If it weren’t for you and your crazy ideas,” Letterman shouted at her on the street, “I’d still have a talk show like John Davidson!”
It’s a comment funny only in retrospect.
Markoe became head writer on NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman” from the first show in 1982 — and suffered for that, too.
Every night after the show, an agonized Letterman would lock himself in his office with Markoe.
“The last 10 months have included a nightly discussion about what a failure we are,” she once noted.
In those days, the acid-tongued Letterman would hang out, trading barbs with the writers. His targets learned not to return in kind, as the hurt would show on Letterman’s face.
“He was very sensitive,” says Barbara Gaines, a producer who remained with Letterman until his 2105 retirement.
By the end of the ’80s, Letterman was the king of hip and cool. He now smoked cigars and assumed “a statelier air.” Notably, he no longer made a show of despising celebrities, as he had for a decade.
When Barbara Walters booked him as a guest interview on one of her specials, he walked around the office openly expressing his admiration for her.
“What happened, Dave?” asked head writer Steven O’Donnell.
“They are like my peers now,” the host told him.
It was during that era that Letterman started abruptly turning on longtime, trusted colleagues. Barry Sand, a producer and ally since the morning show, suddenly could do nothing right.
After a guest canceled at the last minute, Sand scrambled and was able to book Mel Gibson — then at the height of his fame. Letterman turned on the producer and snarled, “Who the hell wants Mel Gibson? I don’t want Mel Gibson.”
He opted instead for Kamarr the Discount Magician. Sand was soon gone.
In the rush of his success, the formerly prudish Letterman switched up his persona, booking “leggy supermodels” as frequent and welcome guests.
The phrase “leggy supermodels” was funny, but Letterman’s leers came off as sincere and appreciative.
Boorish advances became his signature. Sitting next to Jerry Hall, whose breasts exploded from her dress, he openly enjoyed the view.
“I get the awful feeling I may have overinflated my tires,” quipped Letterman.
On one cringeworthy show, he sucked on a strand of Jennifer Aniston’s hair.
Zinoman writes that after a time, the satire faded away to show the bits for what they were — a rich and famous man indulging his fantasies.
“As he got older, Letterman increasingly played the horny creep,” he writes.
By the time he was an eminence grise on CBS, he became “crudely sexual” in his interviews. The camera would slowly pan over the legs of Aniston or Gwen Stefani as he delivered lascivious comments.
“He seemed like a pervy old man at times,” says one of his head writers, Eric Stangel.
Even before the 2009 scandal when an affair with an assistant exposed Letterman to an extortion try, the host interacted infrequently with most of the show staff.
The only trusted colleagues were those who had worked with Letterman for decades — at least, those left standing.
Letterman just couldn’t bring himself to talk to people.
It seems, though, that after a year and a half in retirement, Letterman is now eager to chat.
In an interview with New York magazine, Letterman claims his son, Harry, 13, doesn’t like being in public with him.
Not because of his snow-white mountain man beard, but because he talks too much to everyone.
Letterman might have been kidding. Or not.