David Letterman and the Gnat Who Sank the Love Boat

True Facts About Dave

David letterman used to chain-smoke. Now he refuses almost everything: alcohol, drugs, caffeine. He does, however, smoke cigars. "I'll probably have to stop that, too," he says. "It could get out of control."

His first TV show — he's had three — was a pilot called Leave It to Dave. The set was constructed to resemble the inside of a pyramid. Letterman's chair was a throne. He hated it.

Letterman was once a substitute weatherman in Indiana, where he was born (Indianapolis) and attended college (Ball State). He once predicted hail the size of canned hams. He left Indiana in 1975 and moved to Los Angeles to write comedy.

Jay Leno, the stand-up comedian, is one of his best friends and favorite guests on the show. Letterman has never invited him to his house for dinner.

David Letterman believes he could break out of prison. He isn't optimistic about much else.

'We're Just Trying to Sell Pintos'

Dressed in blue shorts pulled over blue sweat pants, a baseball jersey and Adidas sneakers, David Letterman is throwing a toy football across his office. He tosses it to one of Late Night's segment producers, Robert Morton, whom everyone calls Morty. They are in the middle of a meeting. Morty talks to guests to prepare questions for Letterman and now is briefing him on actor Tony Danza and sportscaster Bob Costas. Letterman seems very serious, which is how he seems most of the time. Around the office, he wears glasses, is obviously shy and looks on the verge of anxiety. But since he's also constantly tossing a ball and almost always wearing sweat clothes, the final Letterman effect is appealingly contradictory. He's an oversize Little Leaguer with an editorial point of view, and he never stops watching — you or himself. There just aren't many false moves with this guy.

Which also means he's not exactly the David Letterman you see on TV. There are similarities — they're both very fast and rather elusive — but the Letterman on television wears suits and ties and is a high-octane version of the real-life Letterman. And though the separation of the real Letterman and the TV Letterman is intentional, there's a catch; differentiating means playing a part, and that means being in show business. And show business, for Letterman, is problematic. He is more than slighly contemptuous of it — his whole show makes fun of it — but he's also a great performer. Conflicted, but great.

"In the beginning," he says, "I thought the closer to your actual self you were on the show, the better it would be. But now, having done it for three years and a couple of months, I realize you definitely have to be more than yourself. You have to pretend that you're bigger than you are, that you're enjoying it more than you really are. It all has to be blown up, and you have to say and do things that you wouldn't normally have the scantest opinion on. It's just show business, you know. We're just trying to sell Pintos here."

Letterman pauses. He's cautious on this topic and, frankly, every other topic. He keeps a close watch on what he says and does. "I like being on at 12:30," he says. "The audience is much smaller, and — I was thinking about this the other day — that's pretty much where I've been my whole life. In high school, I was never with the really smart kids, I was never with the really good-looking kids, and I was never with the really great athletes. But there was always a small pocket of people I hung out with, and all we did was make fun of the really good-looking people and make fun of the really smart kids and make fun of the great athletes.

"Martin Mull has the best line I ever heard about show business. He says, 'Show business is like high school with money.' And it is. And even though I have a rather large ego — anyone who goes into comedy has a bottomless ego — I still feel more comfortable in a not fully accepted circumstance than I do if I'm surrounded and engulfed and embraced. I always felt better being a little on the outside in high school, kind of lobbing in annoying things from the outer periphery. It's just easier to be on the outside making fun of it. This show is a little fortress, a little bastion, from which I can whine about practically anything. We're just an irritant. We're like a gnat trying to sink The Love Boat."

Morty laughs and drops the football. Now Darcy Hettrich, Late Night's talent researcher and softball-team manager, walks into the office. She has been setting up games for Late Night's trip to Los Angeles, where they will broadcast live for a week from NBC's studios in Burbank. "I called the Comedy Store and asked about their team," she tells Letterman. He gasps. "Forget the Comedy Store," he says. "That's a nightclub!. It's filled with nightclub people. Nightclub people are the lowest on the evolutionary scale. That's the lowest you can get. That, and then record executives." Darcy leaves to correct her mistake ("Say you hallucinated or something," instructs Letterman), and Morty follows, saying, "It should be a good show tonight." It should be, but Letterman doesn't look convinced. "This whole show is like recovering alcoholics," he says. "We take it one day at a time." It's impossible to tell if he's joking.