David Letterman was born April 12, 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He grew up on the north side of the city attending Broad Ripple High School. Just a few miles away from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Letterman worked at the local grocery store as a kid. After he graduated high school, Dave attended Ball State University. He is a Sigma Chi fraternity member and graduated in 1969 from the Department of Radio and Television. A self-described average student, Letterman later endowed a scholarship for what he called “C students” at Ball State. Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college’s student-run radio station, WBST—a 10-watt campus station that is now part of Indiana Public Radio.
In 1992, Johnny Carson retired, and many fans believed that Letterman would become host of The Tonight Show. When NBC instead gave the job to Jay Leno, Letterman departed NBC to host his own late-night show on CBS, opposite The Tonight Show at 11:30 p.m., called the Late Show with David Letterman. The new show debuted on August 30, 1993,
Since he retired from television, Letterman has always been interested in cars. David, Bobby Rahal, and Mike Lanigan co-own Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, an auto racing team competing in the Weathertech Sportscar Championship and NTT IndyCar series. The team has twice won the Indianapolis 500: in 2004 with driver Buddy Rice, and in 2020 with Takuma Sato.
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