The son of a florist he began his broadcasting career as a campus disc jockey at Indiana’s Ball State

The son of a florist, he began his broadcasting career as a campus disc jockey at Indiana’s Ball State University. As his Late Show opens, the camera pans across the city’s skyscrapers before honing in on his lair. His set at the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway (where the Beatles made their famous appearance in 1964) is a model of the Manhattan skyline.It is hard to overstate the scale of Letterman’s success, a rise to power that will finally be complete when he steps out in front of the diamond- encrusted Oscar crowd. For, despite his Mid-western roots, in the minds of most Americans, David Letterman represents New York, LA’s fierce rival for the title deeds of the world’s capital of entertainment. It’s not as if he, well, takes this show business rubbish terribly seriously.For Angelenos, this is not surprising. Sure, he interviews the stars, the biggest, but on his terms, with little of the sugary sycophancy that characterises most Hollywood interviews.

Over the years they’ve had to appear on programmes on which he has also dressed up in a suit of Rice Crispies and leapt into a giant bowl of milk to see if he would snap, crackle and pop; covered himself in tortilla chips and been lowered into a vat of onion dip, and paraded an array of performing pets, including parrots that supposedly look like the boxing promoter Don King. But by the late Eighties, America was on to him; he was widely acknowledged as a man whom even Time magazine declared was “defining the cutting edge of TV comedy”.Ask Americans why they adore Letterman, and you usually get a muddled answer about his zany sense of humour, his penchant for parading unusual pets and unknown New York shopkeepers on air, and his refusal to kowtow to celebrity. “Hmmmmm,” he said, munching appreciatively.Standard Letterman stuff. Ever since he embarked on his first national late night television show in 1982, he has delighted America’s night owls and insomniacs with his mixture of the quirky and the slapstick, laced with irreverence and served up with his wide, small boy’s Mad magazine grin.He began as a young, scraggy-looking avant-garde comic, a Doonesbury- esque figure, with a strong student following, competing for attention on the airwaves with the array of obscure preachers, product pitchers and re-runs that fill the small hours in America. There it is, one thought, that weird-looking, androgynous trophy that has exercised such a magnetic hold over so many, that has both inspired and ruined giant careers, that has generated so much wealth.

Then he peeled back its golden covering and bit off its chocolate head. On his last programme before the Big Night, he placed one of the small statuettes on his desk. No, on to the stage will stride a very different kind of person, a tall, gap-toothed Midwesterner For three hours, we will be guided through the envelope-opening, the music, the tears and the gushing speeches by David Letterman, a former TV weatherman who is also the undisputed King of American late night television, the Johnny Carson of the Nineties.Letterman has been talking about the Academy Awards on his Late Show for weeks, and not always in the reverential tones that Hollywood prefers. More than 1 billion across the planet will tune in to find out whether Jodie Foster will win her third Best Actress Oscar, whether Pulp Fiction was too distressing to be worthy of honours, and whether justice will be done, and the US film industry will recognise the brilliance of the little-known Briton Nigel Hawthorne.
But, unlike previous years, this fraught ritual will not be presided over by one of Hollywood’s own, like Billy Crystal, who was master of ceremonies for four years running, or the razor-witted Robin Williams, or the less funny, but heartwarming, Whoopie Goldberg. Despite predictions that we will once again be treated to one of Tom Hanks’s rambling acceptance speeches, and that the idiot savant Forrest Gump has charmed the Academy voters out of their senses, the organisers expect a larger global audience than ever. The world will catch its breath, anxious to begin its annual inspection of the chosen few it has crowned with fame Oscar night is upon us. The 67th Annual Academy Awards will, if anything, be an even larger display of star-power, wealth and glamour than its predecessors.