He’s one of the biggest icons in late-night history: David Letterman! Indianapolis, Indiana’s favorite son began his career as a radio talk show host before transitioning to a career as a weatherman. Encouraged by his then-wife, David headed west to Los Angeles with hopes of becoming a comedy writer. While performing a stand-up act at The Comedy Store in the 1970s, he was noticed by Jimmie Walker, who hired him to write jokes for Walker’s stand-up act. As his career picked up — with appearances on Mary Tyler Moore’s variety show, ‘Mary,’ and on ‘Mork & Mindy,’ just to name a few – he drew the attention of scouts for ‘The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.’ David would be a regular on the program, becoming a favorite of Carson (who Letterman credits as being the biggest influence on his career.) David was given a morning show on NBC, ‘The David Letterman Show,’ in 1980. Though it was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, it failed to gain an audience. NBC slated him in a different time slot, and ‘Late night with David Letterman’ debuted on NBC on Feb. 1, 1982. The rest was history. When the ‘Tonight Show’ hosting gig went to Jay Leno in 1992, following Carson’s retirement, Letterman jumped ship to CBS. He hosted ‘Late Night’ until his retirement in 2015. He would return to the talk-show world in 2018 with the Netflix show ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.’
