David Letterman Knows You Hate His Beard
David Letterman (Photo: Getty Images)
David Letterman gives a lengthy and introspective interview to the Whitefish Review, a magazine in the western Montana town where Letterman owns a ranch.
As it does, Letterman’s mountain man beard comes up and, yes, David Letterman knows you aren’t too crazy about it.
You know what? I used to say, every day, “I am so sick and tired of shaving.” I had to shave every day, every day, for 33 years. And even before that when I was working on local TV. And I just thought, the first thing I will do when I am not on TV is stop shaving. And everybody hates it. My wife hates it. My son hates it. But it’s interesting. I’ve kind of developed a real creepy look with it that I’m sort of enjoying. And I can tell that people are off-put by it. And the more people implore me to shave, the stronger my resolve is to not shave. So the day that I shave, I’ll call you.
Stephen Colbert, who took over the Late Show after Letterman retired was also sporting a beard in the months between The Colbert Report going off the air and his Late Show debut.
Letterman also ruminates about his television legacy in the interview.
“[B]ecause of [ratings], you believe that what you are doing is of great importance and that it is affecting mankind wall-to-wall. And then when you get out of it you realize, oh, well, that wasn’t true at all,” Letterman says. “It was just silliness. And when that occurred to me, I felt so much better and I realized, geez, I don’t think I care that much about television anymore. I feel foolish for having been misguided by my own ego for so many years.”
So how does a native Indianian who hosted a television show in New York City for 33 years end up in Montana? As it always does, it all comes back to Tom Brokaw.
“Tom Brokaw is the reason we ended up in Montana,” Letterman reveals. “For years and years, Tom said [in Brokaw accent], ‘You ought to go to Montana.’ And I said, ‘OK, sure, Tom. Sure.’ And I would look at Montana and I would think, Good Lord — who wants — why — I mean, look at that! — it’s too wide, for one thing. And so finally we went.”
