On July 28, 1987, Back to the Future star Crispin Glover appeared on Late Night with David Letterman to promote his movie River’s Edge. From the moment he first walked on stage, it was clear that we weren’t going to be getting a typical interview out of him. Glover came out wearing a wig and platform shoes, looking nervous and uncomfortable. Letterman started by asking him some pretty basic questions, but wasn’t able to get much out of him.
Within a couple of minutes, Glover began rambling about the press twisting things around and pulled some newspaper clippings out of his pocket. He read a few excerpts from articles about himself before Letterman pointed out that he seemed distraught. From there, Glover asked Letterman if he wanted to arm wrestle; Letterman declined. Glover then threw a kick in Letterman’s direction that stopped just a few inches from the late-night host’s face.
It was at that point that Letterman stood up and walked off the set, saying that he was going to go “check on the Top Ten.” By the time they came back from the commercial break, Glover was gone, and Letterman said that they were running short on time. “I would’ve loved to have chatted more with Crispin Glover, but I understand he had a cab to catch,” Letterman explained to the audience. “Traffic this time of night here in Midtown is pretty brutal, so we wanted to ensure every possibility that he would get wherever he was going on time.” You can watch both clips in their entirety below.
Interestingly, Glover made a second appearance on Letterman’s show a few weeks later. It was arguably just as bizarre. Glover spent half the time laughing and stuttering and offered no real explanation for his previous behavior:
Over the years, people have speculated that Glover was doing a bit as his character from the movie Rubin & Ed. This British production got a limited release in the U.S. five years after Glover’s first appearance on Late Night. Take a look at the trailer right here:
Whatever Glover’s intention was back in 1987, he’s not interested in discussing it in interviews. The answer he says that he always gives the media is, “I neither confirm nor deny that I was ever on the David Letterman show,” which is apparently intended humorously. He went on to say, “When people ask me at my shows, I go into a lot of detail about anything.”
So there you have it: If you wanna know what the real story is, you’ll have to catch him at a live show and make sure not be part of the media. Or you can assume, like we do, that he was doing a bit that nobody understood, and he got the boot for almost kicking his interviewer in the face; whichever you prefer.
The post The Actor Who Made David Letterman Walk Off His Own Show appeared first on VICE.
