And His No. 1 Reason For Retiring: Rejection
Listen closely and you’ll notice something different about the opening of David Letterman’s “Late Show” tonight.
Bill Wendell, the announcer who has heralded “Daaaa-vid Letterman” for the past 15 years, retired Friday.
Not that it was a particularly poignant moment. Letterman declined comment. Wendell told the Los Angeles Times they haven’t spoken since Christmas, explaining: “Our paths don’t cross.”
Pressed to describe their relationship, Wendell said tersely: “I’ve never been to his house and he’s never been to mine. OK?”
It grew more distant following Letterman’s move to CBS. “We used to do skits, go over and talk with Letterman,” Wendell said. “All of that is gone. I have to leave it to others to say whether it’s better or not.”
Loose talk
Author and social critic Mark Leyner, predicting lifestyle maven Martha Stewart’s next move: “Soon she’s going to branch into nuclear weaponry, cold fusion and voodoo.”
We imagine he’ll get at least 20,000 cards
Wilt Chamberlain turns 59 today.
So what’s the real story? Don’t be so snoopy
“Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz has fired his business manager of 25 years, Ron Nelson, but insisted it has nothing to do with Nelson’s being shot by his wife at Schulz’s studio last month over an alleged affair with a secretary.
Their flower arrangements are improving, too
Zoning officials have decided to let Martha Stewart keep using the gourmet kitchen and groomed grounds of her Westport, Conn., home to film her “Living” TV show. Neighbors complained that film crews were parking willy-nilly, but they’ve been better behaved lately.
He’s always getting such negative treatment
The September cover of Wired magazine pictures O.J. Simpson as a white man, with half the copies saying “Innocent” and the other half “Guilty.” The blue-eyed, blond-haired rendering of Simpson was accomplished by computer.
Her verdict: It fits both of them like a glove
Simpson defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran is threatening to sue his exwife over her new book, “Why I Left the Sweetest Talking, Most Successful Lawyer in L.A.” Barbara Cochran Berry writes that O.J. and Johnny are “mirror images of each other” in that both “have very little respect for women, abuse and need to control the women in their lives … and are routinely unfaithful.”
She did do some of her best work by starlight
Estella Marie Thompson, aka Divine Brown, busted for allegedly selling sexual services to British film star Hugh Grant, told reporters at a court hearing Friday that her hooking days on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard are over and she no longer wants to be referred to by her adopted name, requesting: “Call me Stella.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino