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By Root 1504 0

of people, millions of people, and soliciting laughs almost defined the term narcissism. Every performer would have needed an outsize ego to get through that crucible every night. Clearly the two giants of this late-night era had that in common, but they reacted to it in totally opposite ways. Jay Leno told friends and colleagues he had the easiest job in the world. One friend remembered hearing Jay say that and replying, “Jay, I know you’re at ease with what you do. But you really think you have the easiest job in the world? Every night getting a report card? Nobody else’s job gives them a grade every time they finish up their work. No, Jay, really this is the opposite of the easiest job.”

The same friend also knew Dave well. The significant difference between them, the friend said, was that “with Jay nothing is ever wrong and with Dave nothing is ever right.”

Jay’s narcissism took the form of an overarching single-mindedness about his career and the material that fed it. To some close observers of Jay over the years, the Tonight Show star didn’t seem to be living life so much as he seemed to be living comedy material.

Dave’s narcissism, however, seemed more officially diagnosable. Some of Dave’s associates who had interacted with him over long periods of time began to look for ways to try to help him cope better with his demons, and dug through psychological tracts looking to match the symptoms of Dave’s apparent neurosis. They settled on a variant of narcissism, because the straight clinical condition—the one defined by grandiosity and egotism—didn’t seem a match. Dave seemed at times the direct opposite of that. His condition was more defined by a swing between huge confidence and feelings of worthlessness.

No one who spent a lot of time with Letterman ever doubted that he had true demons. The guesses about the reasons for that were varied, although, as might be expected, some pointed to his relationship with his mother. His mom’s public persona, from her numerous appearances on the show, was that of a lovely older woman from Indianapolis who baked pies every Thanksgiving. But in countless interviews Dave described her in variations of the same theme: “The least demonstrative woman God ever breathed life into.” It was another thing Dave had in common with his old rival: Jay’s mother seemed to have issues with showing emotion, as well.

Many of those closest to Dave urged him to seek some help, get counseling of some kind, maybe visit a psychiatrist. But that idea always unsettled him. One member of his inner circle said, “Every time I brought up over the years that he ought to see a shrink he always had the same reaction: ‘I wouldn’t be as funny.ʹ There was probably no question that he was right.” For the same reason Dave resisted recommendations that some kind of medication might help.

As committed as he was to staying funny, Letterman didn’t completely disregard his psychological state. Many of his colleagues believed he had occasionally sought some kind of psychological assistance—either formal or through his own research—because he dropped observations like his conclusion that he suffered from anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasurable emotions. And on the air he would tell guests that he couldn’t come to their play, or party, or dinner because he suffered from a social-anxiety disorder. Invariably the audience would laugh. The Letterman they knew was supremely sell-confident, the master of his domain, in charge of every interaction with his guests. This guy was socially awkward?

Dave did turn up at a private party NBC held for Tom Brokaw at the Museum of Modern Art in 2004, when Tom was leaving the anchor position. Though it was well known that Letterman and Brokaw had developed a solid personal relationship, heads turned all around the room when Dave walked in, accompanied by Regina Lasko, for fifteen years the woman in his life. Regina had an even lower profile in New York social circles, but at the Brokaw event she appeared smiling at Dave’s side, happily accepting congratulations on the birth of