How I Got This Way

by Regis Philbin

  ME: [overwrought] I swear to God, every night there’s another Regis put-down joke!

  DAVE: [earnestly, maybe] I know. It’s because I think the world of you, and I love you, and I know that, because you’re the big man, you can take it.

  ME: No, no, no. You’ve always been the Big Man! But the jokes are getting . . . Well, here [pulling out a sheet of paper full of raw evidence], here—listen to this: “The Austria Supreme Court ruled a chimpanzee is not a person. If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees, then Regis loses his show!” [Dave and his audience laughed at that one . . . again.] Or this: “Magician David Blaine postponed his stunt to stay up for thirteen days. He accidentally kept falling asleep while watching Regis!” [More laughs all around, naturally.] One more—then I’m done.

  DAVE: Okay, good.

  ME: [reminding audience again] I mean, these are things he has said in the last few days! Okay: “Two guys wheeled their dead pal”—now look at this! Do you understand what the man here is saying? The man is saying that two guys wheeled their dead pal . . .

  DAVE: [squirming just a little] It may not have anything to do with you.

  ME: We’ll see. “They wheeled their dead pal through midtown on an office chair to cash his Social Security check.”

  DAVE: True story, by the way.

  ME: “The last dead guy in New York to cash a check was Regis!”

  DAVE: [quickly changing the topic to butter me up] Regis—the word means “king,” doesn’t it?

  ME: [giving up on all hopes for an apology] Yeah, it means “king” . . . so what?

  And that, my friends, is a small taste of how two grown men have maintained a crazy dynamic that has somehow only brought us closer. Or as close as we can be—intertwined in our mutual admiration society that defies any kind of interpretation. But with him that’s exactly how it ought to be. . . .

  By now you should probably know that I’ve always been a fan of the late-night talk shows. Clearly I was formed by them as much as anything else. I started my own TV talk career by becoming the host of a popular local one that ran late on Saturday nights in San Diego and, afterward, was involved with more than my share of post-prime-time programs, whether syndicated, network, or local. But even as a kid, I remember how we all eagerly watched NBC’s first venture into the form, Broadway Open House, starting in 1950. That was the beginning of it all. Comedian Jerry Lester was the host, but the real reason all the guys in the neighborhood watched was his remarkable sidekick, Dagmar—a big, beautiful, buxom blonde with one very exotic name, which was enough. Life and career detours being what they are, I found myself paired in the late sixties with Dagmar in a summer-stock stage play in Houston, Texas. Now please don’t laugh, but my role was that of—yes—the virgin boy in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And Dagmar, well, at that point in time, she actually played my mother. But those many years later, she was still big and beautiful and buxom, thank you very much. And I might as well just confess this now: I was never as happy when I was a naive, inexperienced kid as I was playing one onstage during the run of that show!

  Later NBC reconceived Open House as The Tonight Show, and a trio of talented men each came and left his inimitable mark while hosting that television institution: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and, of course, Johnny Carson. What a great triumvirate, each with his own set of strengths. Of course you know how I watched and observed and studied these guys in action all those years and admired every one of them. And you also know what Paar meant to me and to my broadcast style, in particular.

  Now, of course, they are all gone and so are too many of their fans. They were in a class all their own—but in my opinion, the only one who can match them these days is my great sparring partner and friend Dave Letterman. Now don’t get me wrong: Anyone who is chosen to host a network talk show late at night has to be uniquely talented, and all of the rest of them are. And the newer ones will only get better. But Dave just possesses so many of the qualities I remember in that Tonight Show holy trinity I mentioned. He has Steve Allen’s imaginative spontaneity. He’s learned to turn interviews with the biggest names into events—thoughtfully probing away like Jack Paar did—but regardless of what his guests do for a living, they tend to come off great. Or at least more memorably than anywhere else. And he has that midwestern flavor like Johnny; He can deliver a monologue, especially as he’s grown through the years, with that Carsonesque command and sly dexterity. His show has it all—writing, directing, production values, really great lighting (which always made me envious)—it’s all purely top-of-the-line.

  During the early nineties when Dave was in his final days at NBC, having hoped in vain to replace Johnny Carson, my dear friend Peter Lassally (who had worked as one of Johnny’s invaluable top producers for decades) joined Dave’s brain trust to eventually help guide him to CBS and to a bright new future. You all remember the drama that followed. It’s a very tough thing to walk across the street to set up shop at someone else’s network, and I’m sure Peter helped tremendously to ease that transition. Dave wanted to be on his own so he could be himself and not have the network types hovering around analyzing him and throwing reams of audience research in his face. He actually locked the studio doors tight when it came to the network suits and nobody got in. Even on opening night, all the major execs from CBS, its president included, had to watch the show at the bar next door. Having been through a similar experience years ago—the too-many-chefs-in-the-broadcast-kitchen nightmare—I was proud of him. He did it his way, and it worked.

  Peter was always after me to be a guest on Dave’s show. I always resisted. I thought of myself as the interviewer, not the guest. I didn’t think I had anything of interest to offer. If I had funny stuff to say, I would use it all up on my own show in the morning and wouldn’t want to repeat it. But Peter persisted: “I think you would work well with Dave,” he kept saying. They were doing some wacky Steve Allen–type things in the early years of the CBS Late Show (just as they had back at Dave’s NBC Late Night program) and Peter would always think of me for these stunts. I liked the show so much that I wanted to be a part of it—even if it meant running up and down the aisles of the Ed Sullivan Theater like a maniac, interrupting Dave and throwing crazy items out into the audience. You name it, I’d do it: I would paint graffiti outside on the studio walls on Fifty-third Street late at night for a skit or get flattened by a giant runaway manhole cover. There would be lots of little clever vignettes all over New York, which were overseen by his associate producer Jill Leiderman, who later went on to become executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel’s entertaining ABC late-night show. Most of these bits were very funny, well produced, and meticulously directed by Jerry Foley. I loved the exacting way they were plotted and thought out and the precise way they came off. I became such a staple and go-to guy for them, Dave’s other big-shot producer, Rob Burnett, once told me in front of an Esquire writer: “You know what we call you around here? Two words: show saver.” It had a nice ring to it, I admit.

  But Peter wanted more than just these Stupid Regis Tricks: “You must sit down as a real guest and talk to him!” he told me. “You must.”

  Finally I gave up and gave in. I don’t actually remember the very first desk-side interview, but Peter, who’s famously a tough judge, gave me the big okay signal when it was over. Ever since, they’ve kept on calling for more and more Regis—and as it stands right now, I have appeared more times on Dave’s Late Show than anyone else. The truth is, I have a great time with him; I think, from the start, we created a uniquely warm but jabbing rapport. Whenever we’re together, I try to keep it a little edgy, a little playfully confrontational, so he has a chance to be edgy with me. Sometimes that edge of his comes on like a steamroller—but a toy steamroller, for the most part. What I’m saying is that I think he enjoys it. People always ask me about him, but very much like his hero Johnny Carson, Dave keeps it very private and even a bit mysterious. His staff doesn’t kno
w him all that well. I probably know him best when he’s seated behind that desk—unless we’re privately comparing medical notes, which I’ll get to shortly. Anyway, I’m always a little thrown off by the introductions he gives me when I’m about to come out—frankly, they’re quite effusive and very generous. Some nights I stand backstage there with his stage manager, Biff Henderson, and the audio man, Bobby Savene, listening to what he’s saying, and these intros are just so warm and complimentary that—honest to God, how can I say this?—sometimes I don’t feel worthy enough to come out onstage. I mean, who can live up to that kind of glowing introduction? Fortunately, the minute I sit down with him, he starts taking shots at me, and then we’re off to the races again as usual.

  I know he’s a private guy, pretty much unknown to everyone, especially the New York press, even when he masterfully navigated through some unpleasant public moments. But I always thought that elusive quality makes him even more interesting. I wish I could have been more private about my own life—but without writers to invent things for me to say on television each day, all I can do is recount what I did on the previous night and hope for a morning laugh. So when I became a regular guest, I decided very early on to exploit this intense privacy issue. I began telling him how I wanted to be his friend! I mean a real friend! And not just another guest on the show. Every time I’d go on the show, I made it a point to lay into him: “Why can’t we be friends? You need a friend! We need more time together. Why can’t we go to the movies together?” Once, I said to him, “Let’s go see Hidalgo together!” Even he had to laugh at that one.

  Then I started taking a different tack. I starting asking, “Why don’t you invite me to your top-secret Montana ranch where we can sit by a fire and maybe sing cowboy songs, where we can go riding—a horse for you, a pony for me? Why can’t we be together? Why can’t we be friends?” He brushes me off every time, but the audience loves it.

  Once I’d gotten to be a dependable presence in that guest chair, calls for yet another appearance would come at times when I least expected them. One such call came at perhaps the grimmest moment our country had ever seen—in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001. Those were the never-to-be-forgotten horrible days in New York after we lost the Twin Towers. The city was in shock like we’ve never known it. The toll was enormous. Some three thousand people lost. All the late-night talk shows were silenced. Paralyzed, in fact, because there was nothing they could do. It was all news, all the time. Finally, Dave made a decision to return on the night of September 17, just six days later. He would be the first. The other late-night hosts later admitted they had waited for Dave to be the first, just to show them the way back again. But around two in the afternoon of that day, he called and told me he was going back on the air and that he would like me to join him. I was flattered—but what a spot to be in.

  When I got to the studio late that afternoon, I learned that longtime CBS News anchor and esteemed managing editor Dan Rather would be the first guest. Dave was quite eloquent in his opening remarks, especially describing the effect on that little town in Montana where he also resides, where people actually had passed the hat to gather money to help our stricken city. Dan Rather was quite somber as Dave interviewed him about the whys and hows of what had happened. I remember that Rather, who’d covered more than his share of major crisis stories in the span of his great career, began to display an emotional crack in his steady composure. And then he sobbed. It was more than a little traumatic to watch, but who didn’t feel like crying over this tragedy? Dave quickly went to a commercial, and when they came back Dan seemed to be regathered, but suddenly, as he talked further about the terrible events, he again broke down. That’s how emotional the situation was.

  Finally it was my turn. It seemed to be dark and gloomy out there on the set. The audience was silent. There hadn’t been a laugh on TV since this disaster. Dave wanted to know my thoughts, my reaction. I was as distraught as anyone, and when I finally ended my comments, I said, “Look, let me tell you how we can end this quickly. Send Kathie Lee over there. She’ll straighten them out in a hurry!” Kathie Lee was, of course, quite vocal and opinionated about things and everybody knew it—and they still do. But the most important thing was that the audience laughed. Like that, it was okay to laugh again, just a little, even though no one knew what other terrorism might follow. It was a night to remember.

  And there were other times, more personal. Like the night twenty-one months earlier, in mid-January 2000, when I was sitting there in the guest chair and he confessed to me—and to his entire viewership—that he was worried about going in the next morning for an angiogram and possible heart procedure. Not even his staff knew about it until that moment. Suddenly he was telling me that I was his “role model” and began asking me all about the angioplasty I’d undergone years earlier. . . .

  DAVE: Were you scared?

  ME: I was scared, yeah.

  DAVE: Because they take that thing and go right up inside your . . .

  ME: They run it right up your groin muscle.

  DAVE: Right. Very close to your deal!

  ME: Well, in my case, it was too close to my deal. In fact, that was a big deal! It’s not so funny when it’s your deal!

  DAVE: No, it’s not funny. I don’t know why you’re laughing and kidding around here!

  Understandably, the man was rattled, and rightly so. The next morning he received a very successful quintuple bypass at New York Hospital from the same surgeon who would do my own triple-bypass operation seven years later. (When that time came and I knew the bypass was inevitable, who else but Dave could I call, just to get his reassurance that everything was going to be okay? And guess what, he told me all the right things, which helped me more than he knows.) Anyway, five short weeks following David’s procedure, there he was back on the air, and once again (at his insistence!) I was sitting right next to him, picking up right where we had left off. And as usual I was trying to pry loose some of the details of what he’d just gone through. . . .

  ME: Now let me ask you something—when they had you on the gurney and they were wheeling you down the hallway, what were your final thoughts before you went under? Did you think of me at all?

  DAVE: Actually, I was thinking about Joy. . . .

  Anyway, as I told you at the top of this chapter, Letterman slips my name into practically any given monologue on any given night. His head writers, the Stangel brothers, and their writing team have made sure I remain a choice punch line, no matter what the setup. And frankly, I like it—even though I’ve protested onstage with regularity. Naturally, since I’d become his “role model” as a hospital patient, he has always pounced on my medical problems with glee. On the eve of my triple-bypass operation, I was sitting in my bed watching his show and he told the audience: “Well, Regis is going for his heart bypass operation tomorrow morning. They’re going to take his clothes off, put him on a gurney, and crack him open like a lobster.” And the audience screamed with laughter. Try to sleep after that one. He used that operation for material all through my hospital stay. “This wasn’t Regis’s first operation, you know,” he said one night. “A few years ago, he had Kathie Lee Gifford removed.” But on the day I came back to work six weeks following the procedure—even though he never, ever appears as a guest on any show—he was there for me that morning. He wanted to return the favor of my being his first guest after his bypass surgery seven years earlier. I was both thrilled and touched. And of course he was very funny, which couldn’t have been more welcome after that trauma:

  DAVE: You look tremendous. Unbelievable. Wow. Look, Regis, don’t be a hero. If you need to lie down, Kelly and I can finish up here. This is good. A couple of heart patients. This isn’t a TV show, this is a recovery room. [big laughs]

  ME: [to the audience] You know that David, of course, went through a quintuple bypass . . .

  DAVE: Actually, my first bypass was The Tonight Show. Tha
nk you very much.

  ME: Boy, some things we just can’t forget. Let go of it, Dave!

  DAVE: Let’s start talking about the surgery! C’mon! For me, it was the most exciting thing in my life, ever. Even today.

  ME: Listen to the man . . . you came on your show just as you are now, and you talked about the glory of having this surgery.

  DAVE: Oh, it’s the best. And it looks to me that when they put you out, they gave you a little rinse. Looks to me like your hair is a little lighter.

  ME: It got a little grayer, I think! But, Dave, you didn’t tell me how tough this procedure was.

  DAVE: It’s HELL! But now don’t you feel like a hero? Don’t you feel like nothing can stop you? Nothing can get in your way? [Then he turned to Kelly and said in an aside, holding two fingers an inch apart] You know, you came this close to having your own show. . . .

  And of course, later that night on his Late Show, he talked about his visit with us earlier and said, “I saw Regis today. He’s a changed man. Yeah, I saw a nurse change him backstage.” There’s no stopping him, you see, when it comes to me. I guess it’s that bond I mentioned earlier, one that operates on some unspoken wavelength all its own, maybe just broadcaster to broadcaster—because Dave Letterman has always considered himself a broadcaster first and a comedian second. That could be why he took the news of my departure from the morning show much harder than I could’ve begun to imagine. But on that morning of January 18, 2011, when I made my announcement about moving on, I apparently didn’t hammer away hard enough to clarify the “moving on” part of it. Which meant, in fact, that I was simply leaving behind the early-riser broadcast routine and moving on to other ventures. Suddenly the word spread like wildfire that I was retiring—which, in fact, was the one word I never said. I thought I’d been clear about that. But ever since, people everywhere have kept telling me they’re so sorry that I’m retiring. They hope I enjoy my retirement; they tell me I deserve a nice retirement. Nobody remembers “moving on.” I should have known this would happen when Dave called me twice that day: once right after the show, full of concern, and then later on at home, while he was on the air taping his show, so that he could talk me out of this “retirement” I’d never announced to begin with. . . .