| The Professor |
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| 8.14.02 - By John Taylor Does Dave Letterman ever give interviews? His last guest appearance for an interview was in 1996 ? on the Howard Stern Show. Before that, he turned up a couple of times on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and ? well, that?s about it. He does variety talk-shows: The David Letterman Show from 1980 until 1982, Late Night with David Letterman from 1982 until 1993, and the Late Show with David Letterman from 1993 to the present. He does cameos: Alf, Beavis and Butthead, The Nanny, Seinfeld, Spin City, and The Cosby Show. He produces: The Building, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Ed. But, for the most part, Mr. Letterman doesn?t do interviews. For a moment, I wondered: Why not? What social, psychological, logistical, technical or astrological forces prohibit Dave from participating in what would otherwise seem typical in a celebrity?s career? Is he shy? Is he lazy? Is he arrogant? After all, he?s certainly successful, having been rated seventh in TV Guide?s list of the 100 greatest television shows of all time. He?s definitely rich, as was revealed during the recent scuff-up over his possible move to ABC. And he?s got the gabs: There are few people in the world, to my mind, who could stand to talk to so many people over so many years and continue to be so very engaging. So what?s the deal? I took a drink. I took another drink, letting this moment of contemplation pass over. Soon, the next obvious question began to emerge: Who cares? I mean, shouldn?t it be enough to just like the guy as an entertainer and leave it at that? I don?t really need to know what kind of fruit he likes to eat before the show, unless its part of a joke during the show. My viewing pleasure will not be affected by learning in the National Enquirer that he doesn?t like it when people touch the back of his neck. That is, of course, unless he wigs out and starts bitch-slapping Paul Schaffer for brushing his sensitive décolletage. That would be funny. Set in this frame of mind, and kind of drunk by this point, I decided to stay up one night and watch UpClose, another one of those one-on-one interview shows, this one hosted by Nightline?s Ted Koppel. In what Ted considered to be a beautifully embroidered twist of irony, Dave was invited to be the show?s inaugural guest, and he accepted. OK, I thought, let?s see what we?ve been missing all of these years. Let?s find out whether ? and why ? it is important that I should care that David Letterman doesn?t do this more often. A half hour later, I found myself thinking less about why Dave doesn?t do more interviews (a futile question, after all) and more about everything there is to appreciate in the man. I didn?t laugh much during his interview. He didn?t steal the stage from Ted by going on about his favorite fishing hole in the Hamptons (in fact, Ted took up an abnormally large proportion of the talk-time). And he didn?t force me into considering various political or social issues, as some stars seem to consider their God-given right and/or obligation. As a matter of fact, he really didn?t do anything that you?d come to expect in an interview these days. Instead, the first installment of UpClose amounted to a demonstration of how good interviews can be when little is stated but much is said: When the conversational gaps that most often reveal the depth of (a) person are not clogged up with a bunch of claptrap nonsense. Witness: KOPPEL The second time that I saw you choke up a bit was, of course, was after Sept. 11. I forget the date which you came back on the air. How many days after? LETTERMAN The 17th. KOPPEL You clearly were conflicted about whether that was the right thing to do, and you also felt conflicted about sort of going immediately into a comedy show, which I can absolutely understand. You gave Rudy Giuliani a lot of credit at the time and said you felt what he had said was important. Can you talk about that day a little bit? I mean, unfortunately, we may confront more of that in this country. And I don't know, it's much easier for me, all I have to do is to cover the news, but you have to make people laugh every night. LETTERMAN I didn't know what to do. As late as four o'clock that day I was talking to various people on the staff about: are we honestly going to do a show? And CBS in this case, to their credit, had started talking about, "Nah, you've got do a show; you've got to do a show." So, this is how we kind of all returned to our posts, because we felt like, "Well, they want a show, so we've got do something." And I guess I was just starting kind of trying to talk myself into why it was OK to do a show. KOPPEL Did it work for you? I know you're very critical of your own work. When you were through with that evening, and you were through with your broadcast, did you go upstairs to watch it? LETTERMAN No. KOPPEL You usually do. LETTERMAN Yeah. KOPPEL Why not that night? LETTERMAN Um, I didn't want to see it. KOPPEL Because? LETTERMAN I'm not sure. And that?s that. No avoidance of the question. No strained attempts at insight. No bull. As best he could, Dave explained his actions in exactly the way that most of us would in a similar situation: He owned up to his fallibility. He accepted his lack of recourse to an answer to an impossible question and shut up as if to say, ?Ted, you should hear yourself right now. How would you answer these questions?? If you?re in the habit of watching Dave on a fairly regular basis, as I tend to be during slow periods in the year, you?ll notice that this is a persisting trait of Dave?s persona. He is acutely aware of his lack of physical, emotional and intellectual control over his surroundings. He seems always to know that he?s one gaffe away from a meltdown, one screw-up short of television carnage, and it?s at those points during the show where that single step into the abyss appears imminent that he is at his absolute best. |
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| Sometimes he?ll look at Paul with that bemused look. Sometimes he?ll lean back and sigh deeply. Sometimes he?ll just keep laughing after everyone else has stopped. He displays an awareness of the forces that operate because of and despite his best efforts, watches with the rest of us how they play themselves out for the camera, and lets them speak for themselves. Dave isn?t really the host of his show in the strictest sense of the word: He pretends to be. So why doesn?t Dave give interviews? Who knows? Who cares? A better question may be why other celebrities give so many interviews. Sure, marketing plays a role. No celebrity in his or her right mind would venture onto a talk show without having a new product to promote. But that?s partly the point. Those on the talktalk circuit aren?t really there to get to know anyone. They?re there to get everyone to know them ? or at least someone that that is appropriate to the product being sold. More importantly, they do so thanks to an underlying hubris that convinces them that they can pull it off: be personable, but not too personal. Dave?s lack of interest in taking part in all of this belies (or at least suggests) that he understands the inherent dishonesty in this reasoning. He refuses to be someone else. And he avoids those who would compel him to be. |
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