It’s been almost two years since David Letterman's final show aired in May 2015. Now, The New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has written a definitive biography about the man and his show business career.
00:00And these people, night after night, have put up with my nonsense and taken great care of not just me, but everybody on the show.
00:08It's been nearly two years since David Letterman's final show aired in May 2015.
00:13Now, the New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinneman has written a definitive biography about the man and his show business career called Letterman, The Last Giant of Late Night.
00:23Here are four surprising revelations from the book.
00:25Fox News founder Roger Ailes was almost Letterman's producer.
00:28The host's first national program was a morning show on NBC that lasted five months in 1980.
00:34One of the people who was offered a job producing the show was a former Mike Douglas show producer and Nixon advisor named Roger Ailes,
00:42who briefly considered the job before turning it down.
00:45Letterman tried to get his ex-girlfriend Meryl Marco to write jokes for his mistress, or soon-to-be mistress.
00:51Marco, who had crucial creative influence on Letterman, appeared on The Late Show a few times in 1993.
00:56But she hadn't heard from the show for years when she got a call in the mid-2000s about doing some Olympic segments.
01:01She thought Letterman wanted her to appear on air, only to find out he wanted her to write segments for an intern named Stephanie Burkett to perform on camera.
01:10A few years later, Marco and the world learned that Letterman was having an affair with Burkett.
01:15Letterman was also a pretty crappy boss.
01:17The book describes the host's management style as passive-aggressive.
01:21It manifested itself in his inability to fire people.
01:24Instead of firing them, Letterman would just freeze people out until they got the hint that they were no longer wanted.
01:29And after Letterman confessed on air in 2009 to having affairs with women on his staff,
01:34he organized hours-long show post-mortems because he was afraid to go home.
01:38He would gather writers and producers to meet in an office to talk about everything but the show.
01:43Letterman admitted he started the post-mortems because I can't go home.
01:47I'm the most hated man in America.
01:49One staffer said it was like a hostage situation.
01:52For more huge reveals from the book, check out THR.com.
01:55I'm Tiffany Taylor for The Hollywood Reporter News,
01:57and that ex-girlfriend thing reminds me of an ex-boyfriend story.
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