David Letterman on retirement: It's time, but he's torn
NEW YORK — You don't think of David Letterman as a stop-and-smell-the-flowers type, but here he is, at a major turning point yet savoring his chocolate milkshake.
Perched on a stool at a fast-food restaurant beside the Ed Sullivan Theater, where he has hosted "Late Show" for two decades but will do so only a bit longer, Dave unwinds from that day's taping and graciously submits to a reporter's questions while, more than once, he comments on his shake's deliciousness.
He also thinks today's show was excellent, a surprising appraisal from this famously self-critical star.
It was a smash. Cher did a surprise walk-on. Martin Short belted out a comic eulogy to Dave ("It's the end,/ My pretend show-biz friend!"). Norah Jones sang "Don't Know Why" and everyone got misty.
Every moment seemed precious, and for no one more so than the host. During each commercial break, as Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra rocked out, Dave rose from his desk and shed his suit jacket, then, in his shirt sleeves in the shadows, prowled his stage, an august presence silhouetted against the cityscape backdrop as, almost certainly, he pondered how quickly time is running out.
"I wish tonight's show had been the last show," says Letterman, dressed down now in long-sleeve T-shirt, painter's pants and sandals. "Tonight should have been the last show. 'That's it! Good night, everybody!' I don't know what we're gonna do for the next two weeks."
It isn't hard to detect, or understand, the simmering ambivalence in Letterman's decision to take his leave after 33 years in late night and 22 years hosting CBS' "Late Show," on May 20.
But by now he's done it all. Letterman has carved a place in cultural history with his pioneering brand of postmodern silliness that collared "Late Night" fans on his arrival in 1982 and subsequently was absorbed into the Age of Irony he played a major role in charting.
He personified a prankish, insubordinate style that mocked the world he inhabited on and off the air. Early in his career, he summed up his mission as "smart, shrewd observations" about pretty much anything, with their unifying theme imposed by the fact of their airing on TV: "You and I both understand that this is stupid."
He maintained an arch detachment from most everything, in particular the celebrity world most TV hosts cozied up to.
If he was never quite beholden to celebrities, a story from his childhood helps explain. Back in Indianapolis, he with his dad, mom and sister would observe an American ritual on Sunday nights watching "The Ed Sullivan Show," the CBS variety show that originated for a quarter-century from the very theater he would someday occupy.
"After every act, Ed would go, 'C'mon, now, let's really hear it! Come on, everybody!' And my mom would say, 'I hate the way he begs the audience to applaud the performers. You either deserve it or you don't!' And I think that's me: Yeah, they're performers, but there's no reason you should bend over for them."
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Granted, when "Late Night" began, A-list stars weren't exactly beating down the doors of NBC's Studio 6A to join Dave. Letterman's solution: Find and launch "stars" of his own drawn from his own staff and the world at large.
"I was never quite sure whether a big star would get better ratings than if you had the Potato Chip Lady," he muses. "I never knew. But we ended up having more of the Potato Chip Lady in the first couple of years."
Such resourcefulness helped put Letterman on the crest of a new wave of comedy that came to be called "found humor" and remains a major part of his legacy, one long ago coined "Lettermanesque."
But don't talk legacy with Dave. He swiftly raises his deflector shield.
"The real credit goes to the writers," he insists. "It was their show that I was doing, especially early on. And then I got to a point I knew how to do what they were wanting me to do.
"We had guys who had worked at the Harvard Lampoon!" he says, flashing a grin. "I attended university in Muncie, Indiana."
As the end nears, "Late Show" has dug into its vaults to replay a sampling of vintage comedy bits, some almost Dada-esque in their absurdity. (On a recent show, a 1993 clip found Dave cruising Manhattan making mischief with his car phone, as when he alerted a news-radio station that traffic was backed up on Amsterdam Avenue, then corrected himself: "Oh, I think it was just a red light.")
Those old clips make him nostalgic for the Lettermanesque-ness he may have since outgrown.
"I realize what the old show was, and we haven't being doing the old show in years," he says. "And that's all because of me."
But no one stays avant-garde forever, especially after a record-breaking, surely never-to-be-matched run that exceeds even Johnny Carson's 30 years on "The Tonight Show." And especially when so many of the elements that certified Dave as cutting-edge have by now become of the cultural status quo.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: