it s very, very letterman that instead of just paying this guy off to keep it quiet, he said, no, i m not doing that. and he went right to the cops. i just want to thank the people at the special prosecution bureau and the manhattan district attorney s office. and this is a guy who hates humiliation, hates it. the cbs producer pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny and spent four months in jail. a week after the scandal, dave apologized to his wife on air. my wife, regina, she has been horribly hurt by my behavior. and when something happens like that, if you hurt a person and it is your responsibility, you try to fix it. so let me tell you, folks, i got my work cut out for me. dave called this the lowest point in his life. the couple did reconcile and they are still together. talk about electric television. it s just television like nothing else you ve ever seen. his ratings went up. his ratings went up for that.
this morning, i wake up and next to me in bed is the head of a peacock. so i don t know. broadway s ed sullivan theater. it s a marvelous, wonderful edifice and we couldn t be happier to be here. august 1993. the thing that spooked dave more than anything else was the double balcony. and it was enormous. ladies and gentlemen, we have a wonderful program tonight, bull murray, billy joel. dave s first night on a new network. welcome to broughtway, baby! in a new time slot. when the dust of the late night war settled, jay leno had the tonight show and dave had a multi-million dollar deal with cbs. it was a risky move. cbs did not have anything in their history of late night. so letterman comes on. his first couple of months on the air was absolute can t-miss television.
side, it s a real treat. you re like, oh, what is going on here? who is this person we didn t know? the episode earned an emmy nomination. a year later, days after september 11th, dave couldn t hold back his emotions. we re told they were zealots fueled by fervor. i was in the room with him. he was pacing and trying to figure out what he would say. if you live to be a thousand years old will that make any sense to you? will that make any god damn sense. dave was the first late night host back on air. he made it okay to start laughing again. fatherhood also changed him. in 2003 he and his girlfriend regina lasko had a son, harry, named after dave s late father. it has been sweet to see the big moments in his life, from the heart surgery to the birth of his son. then i think as he s gotten older, we got to know him a little bit. your life doesn t really
i had only been on the air a couple of months and dave came on as a guest. that was a huge deal. when i first got this job, i came here to 30 rock how did you get this job, by the way? so always indebted to him for that. care for a free taco? dave delivered every where he went and for a couple of years he was golden. going head to head with his old pal at nbc at 11:30 and winning. from the nbc studios in burbank that is until a shocking celebrity scandal in 1995. question number one. a gigantic get when leno landed hugh grant after the actor s arrest for soliciting a prostitute. what the hell were you thinking? that epic interview, plus nbc s monster prime time hits and leno s own fine tuning of the show took a toll on
late-night host in show business history. my name is david letterman. the one fixed point in the ever-changing late-night sky. he s had more than 18,000 guests. howard stern. many of them, regulars. no! a little play right in there. yeah! julia roberts! you know, there was a time, dave, when i asked you on a date. wait a minute, turn off the cameras! clear the audience. turn off the cameras! jerry seinfeld. i m not going to mexico. why would i? their food is already here. after more than 30 years on-air for letterman, his younger rivals are grabbing