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- <text id=93TT2137>
- <title>
- Aug. 30, 1993: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Aug. 30, 1993 Dave Letterman
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> "At some point during the article can you mention that I'm looking
- tan and well rested?" David Letterman asked TIME in an interview
- four years ago. "I know I'm not, but I always think that makes
- for a real successful piece." It was a quintessential Letterman
- quip, poking fun at himself and the conventions of show business.
- This time around, we obliged him right on the cover. The truth
- in his jest is that Letterman is never really tan and well rested--wasn't then and isn't now, as he puts the finishing touches
- on the latest entry in the late-night-TV sweepstakes. "He's
- in as good shape as I've ever seen him, but he's basically an
- anxious, insecure guy," says senior writer Richard Zoglin, who
- wrote the 1989 article and this week's cover story.
- </p>
- <p> Zoglin, who counts himself a "huge fan," has been following
- Letterman for more than a decade--tuning in nearly every night
- since Late Night first aired in 1982. Zoglin arrived at TIME
- the next year, after four years as TV critic at the Atlanta
- Constitution. Since then he has watched TV for us with a couch
- potato's endurance and a sharp but fair-minded critic's eye,
- writing hundreds of savvy, tightly crafted reviews and features--as well as cover stories on such subjects as Bill Cosby,
- Diane Sawyer, Arsenio Hall and Murphy Brown.
- </p>
- <p> This week's cover held a special appeal for Zoglin, who always
- regretted that he didn't get to review the Letterman show for
- TIME. As if to make up for that missed opportunity, he did much
- of the reporting himself--interviewing Letterman's two executive
- producers, several of his writers, some of his old friends from
- the comedy-club days, his diminutive band leader, and the gap-toothed
- host himself at his new venue in the freshly renovated Ed Sullivan
- Theater.
- </p>
- <p> "Letterman is a tough celebrity to crack," says Zoglin. "He's
- complicated, enigmatic and sincerely uncomfortable tooting his
- own horn. He's got a girlfriend he desperately tries to keep
- from the public. He likes his private life private."
- </p>
- <p> As does Zoglin, it turns out. When he finally decided to get
- married last summer, at 43, to Glamour entertainment editor
- Charla Krupp, his closest co-workers didn't find out about the
- engagement until it was disclosed, show-business style, in a
- gossip column. Next time you have news like that, Richard, give
- us a call before it leaks to the tabloids. That goes for you
- too, Dave.
- </p>
- <p> Elizabeth Valk Long
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-