Alan Kalter, longtime voice of Lettermans’ late show, dies at 78

Alan Kalter, the Late Show With David Letterman announcer for twenty years and a participant in a ridiculous series of comic book pieces during that race, died Monday at a hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, where he lived. He was 78 years old.

The death was announced by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, the synagogue which Mr Kalter attended. No cause was given.

Mr. Kalter would welcome viewers with an opening joke (From New York City, hotbed of Mad Taxi Sickness) and a guest list recitation. He would introduce the absurd secret word of the day and tell Mr. Letterman what needed to be put on the Will It Float? test, a recurring comic strip. He would lather himself up on this or that and run off down the street shirtless.

But, equally incongruously, he once sang a heartfelt version of Send In the Clowns for no particular reason, then fled from the stage, overcome with emotion as the audience stood up and cheered. Another time, he turned what at first seemed like fatherly advice on attending the ball into a painful confessional about going to the ball with his own mother, her middle-aged body tight as a sausage in a sequined dress, her makeup and scent a cruel mockery of the femininity your hormones crave.

His transformation from announcer to versatile comic began early. On day one, he said, Mr. Letterman, who had an Olympic diver as a guest, blew Mr. Kalter into a pool while wearing his best suit.

I float on my back, I watch the cameraman, I go, that’s what it’s like to announce on Letterman, he recalls in an interview on CBS New York in 2015, when Mr. Letterman ended the show.

If you’re going to have a talk show, Mr. Letterman said Tuesday in a phone interview, you’ve got to have a strong announcer, and he’s fulfilled that far beyond what’s required.

Mr. Kalter replaced Bill Wendell in September 1995, following Mr. Wendell’s retirement. Mr Letterman said Mr Kalters’ audition tape left no doubt when he and his then producer Robert Morton heard it.

It was like, Oh, my gosh, let’s go, Mr. Letterman said.

Mr. Kalters’ voice was already familiar to viewers at the time; he had advertised on game shows like To Tell the Truth and The $ 25,000 Pyramid and provided voiceovers for numerous commercials. Mr. Lettermans Late Show, however, brought him a whole different kind of fame. Her red hair and tousled beauty made her instantly recognizable, and Mr. Letterman gave her plenty of opportunities to show off her aptitude for both straightforward and over-the-top comedy.

Longtime Late Show producer Barbara Gaines said Mr. Kalter has adapted perfectly to the show’s craziness.

Alan would gladly do almost anything we asked of him, she said via email, this is how we love our people.

Mr. Kalter said he always had the option of refusing to do a particularly crazy stunt or asking for it to be changed, but Mr. Letterman remembered him as a perpetual game.

I don’t remember the guy ever saying no to anything, he said, and I guess that tells us something about his judgment.

And, he added, it wasn’t reluctantly, I’m into it.

But Mr. Letterman also noted that for him Mr. Kalter and his musical director, Paul Shaffer, were stabilizing influences.

Him and Paul, to me, they were devices every night, he said. You would look and see Alan and see Paul and know that everything will be fine like last night.

Guests also found Mr. Kalter to be a calming force.

Appearing with Dave sparked his own nerves, Brian Williams, a frequent guest on The Late Show, said Monday night on his MSNBC news show. But seeing the smiling face of a kind man like Alan Kalter backstage was still the necessary tonic at that point.

The show may have made Mr Kalter a celebrity, but he has kept a low profile off the set and at his home in Stamford, where he had lived since the 1970s.

I played cards in a poker group for a year and a half, he told the Stamford Advocate in 2003, before someone said: Someone told me you were in the game. audio-visual.

As for his Letterman job, Mr. Kalter was grateful for the opportunity and the long term.

I loved what they let me be, he told the Survey on Pulteney Street, the magazine from Hobart and William Smith colleges, where he was once a student, a 10-year-old, paid to do things my mother would never let me get away with.

Alan Robert Kalter was born on March 21, 1943 in Brooklyn. He started broadcasting on WGVA radio in Geneva, NY, while he was in Hobart. The radio work had a benefit in kind.

During my off hours, he said, I would create the music tapes for all of our fraternity parties from the age of 45 who arrived at the radio station.

After graduating in 1964, he studied law at New York University, then taught high school English for three years, while recording instructional tapes and working weekends on the radio in the suburbs. from New York. The allure of radio finally proved irresistible.

I quit teaching for an afternoon radio show at WTFM, he told the college magazine, and got hired to be a reporter for WHN Radio in New York, which quickly became a four-year gig interviewing celebrities who have come to town for movie and Broadway openings. , as well as covering nightclub openings three or four nights a week.

When WHN switched to country format in 1973, it turned to commercials and then got into game shows.

He is survived by his wife, Peggy; one brother, Gary; two daughters, Lauren Hass and Diana Binger; and five grandchildren.

Mr. Kalters’ commitment to The Late Show, Mr. Letterman said, was a good counterpoint to Mr. Letterman’s more laid back style.

I never liked putting on funny hats, he says. Alan would dress like a Martian and make it work.

He filled so many blanks on this show, Mr. Letterman joked, that he probably deserved more money.