David Letterman

David Letterman

David Letterman grew up in a small town in eastern Indiana. He

was born to Joseph and Dorothy Letterman. After reading the novel, "David

Letterman: On Stage and Off" by Rosemarie Lennon, I have learned about all his

struggles and joys. Because of this book, I feel sorry towards one of the

funniest people on Earth, David Letterman. I also admire him for his good acts

and abilities.

To realize why I feel what I feel toward Letterman, you have to look at

some of the main points in his life. First of all, Dave was exactly an A

student. He struggled all of his life through grade school to college. He also

wasn't very popular. He stated, " I remember standing around. . . with the

other losers, watching all the athletes play sports. All we could do is make

fun and ridicule them." He was never good at anything until high school. "All

I ever knew how to do was to make people laugh. In high school I was the class

clown, making fun of everything and everyone." This personality trait was what

gave him his thousands of faithful fans, watching his show every night to see

Dave rip to shreds anyone who dare challenge him. Another thing that was

important to him was his mother and father. His father, Joseph Letterman, and

Dave went fishing quite often when he was young. Dave looked up to his father

tremendously. When Joseph had his first heart attack when he was thirty-six,

Dave and his father started to drift away. Later, Dave's Dad died when he was

fifty-three. One of David's top regrets was never spending a lot of time with

his dad. As for his mother, she is the classical conservative mother of the

fifties. She was always very hard on Dave when he got into mischief in school--

which was quite often. She is still a part of Dave's life, and can be seen

quite often on his show, doing a comedy sketch, or telling audience members what

the temperature was in Lillihammer during the Winter Olympics.

The Reason I feel sorry for Letterman is because of his tragedies of his

past. His Dad's passing was hard enough, but he had other trials to deal with.

Like his mother. She was never really proud of David, constantly reminding him

he was going to fail, and not encouraging him to take his natural ability to