David Letterman Auditioned for ‘Saturday Night Fever’

What was the name of that movie they made with John Travolta? 

Dave Letterman couldn’t quite remember the title as he reminisced with Barbara Gaines and Mary Barclay on his official YouTube channel. “Saturday Night Fever?” he wondered. “Was that what it was called?”

You’d think the name of the movie would have stuck with Letterman because, according to him anyway, he auditioned for the Travolta part. You read that right — somebody believed the gap-toothed comic might be able to pull off “disco dancing god.” To be fair, Letterman might be referencing Makin’ It, the 1979 sitcom that ripped off Saturday Night Fever’s plot and cast Travolta’s sister, Ellen. In either case, Letterman would have been a ridiculous choice. 

“They were going to turn it into a TV show,” Letterman said. 

See? It’s gotta be Makin’ It!  

“My management people of the day sent me out on this, and I had no real understanding of what I was getting into,” Letterman explained. “So we’re sitting there waiting to be called, and I read the thing. I’m reading for the part of John Travolta. Sonny Parkins or whatever his character’s name was.” (Tony Manero in the movie, Billy Manucci in the sitcom — but who’s counting?)

“The deal is I’m getting ready to go out Saturday night and dance,” Letterman continued. “I’m looking in the bathroom mirror standing over the sink. I got a hair dryer, and I’m blowing my hair. There’s some kind of music, and while I’m drying my hair, I’m dancing.”

If there’s a God in heaven, there would be footage of Letterman blow-drying his hair and dancing. But alas, the comedian sabotaged his tryout before it even began. After he read the script, “I go up to the desk, to the person sitting there, and I said, ‘Oh Jesus, I left my car running. I’ll be right back.’ And I just got the fuck out of there.”

The lie to the casting assistant was the best acting Letterman did that day. 

What would have possessed Letterman’s agents to send him out on a song-and-dance audition? Perhaps they were dazzled by the young comic’s stint as part of the ensemble on Mary Tyler Moore’s short-lived 1970s variety show. 

While young Michael Keaton gives it his all, Letterman looks like he’s about to die. (“I’m hiding!” he confessed after viewing the clip.) His variety show week included learning choreography for a big dance number every Wednesday. “That was the worst day of my life,” Letterman revealed, although “after one or two weeks, they just said, ‘You know what, Dave? Take Wednesday off.’” 

Dancing David Letterman should have been an obviously bad idea, but he did what he had to do. “It’s interesting that these things that I did, presumably because I was in show business, are just so ghastly,” he said. “I can’t stand to look at them.”