TVSquad

In the wayback days of my entertainment journalism career (2004, to be precise), I had written a few poorly-executed but fun articles for a wonderful little site called Knot Magazine (not to be confused with The Knot, a website which I'm unfortunately all too familiar with these days). After publishing a couple of my missives, the editor had an idea for me: why not interview that spunky assistant Dave Letterman has on his show?

Sounded like a cool idea. It's not like Stephane Birkitt hadn't been interviewed before; she had spoken to a couple of papers from her alma mater and her hometown, and seemed approachable. And it would have been a fun story to try to figure out how she went from anonymous assistant to the girl who talked about her weekend on the phone to the on-stage presence Dave often called "Vicki." How hard could it be to get an interview?

Almost impossible, I found out.

My interview procuring skills weren't as good back then as they are now, but even then I never gave up when one door closed. From what I remember, I called CBS and found out who to talk to at the show. I either left that person an e-mail or voice mail. When that went nowhere, I even called the front desk of The Late Show and stated my case. Everyone was very friendly, but I never came close to talking to Stephanie.

When I tried to make the same request for TV Squad two years later, the impression I was given was that it was tough to speak to anyone from Letterman's staff. After hearing the news reports and tabloid stories surrounding the Letterman extortion scandal, I can understand why the crew was so tight-lipped.

It's not that Letterman was some sort of tyrannical boss who slapped a gag order on his staff. In fact, I'm guessing that it was quite the opposite; the people who worked for Letterman liked him and respected him so much that they didn't want to accidentally let something spill that might sully his rep as a good boss.

Think about it for a second: even the tabloidy reports from former staffers and interns who claimed to have had relationships with Dave say that they were in love with him and seem to harbor no ill will towards the guy. Birkitt herself is said to be "mortified" that ex Joe Halderman used her diaries and other info to blackmail Dave.

So it seems like Dave may love 'em and leave 'em, but always leaves on good terms. How many people in any walk of life can say that? No wonder why Birkitt didn't want to talk...