Which actually doesn't surprise the Man Who Would Be Letterman. "It's a bit invasive, what I'm doing. I'm really not that sort of person," says Higgins, who wore a fake gap in his teeth and suffered through "23 cigars" for one scene before finally vomiting.
When the movie was filming, Letterman asked Higgins to appear as a guest. Higgins declined. "There was some concern [Letterman]was lying in wait," remembers Roebuck, who subjected himself to 4 1/2 hours of makeup each day to create Leno's Burbank-size chin. "I know if I go on Leno, at least I'm not going to be emasculated."
Another nonfan: NBC. After all, the waffling Peacock executives emerge with some serious yolk on their faces. According to one source, the network even refused to sell old Leno and Letterman footage to the production.
But perhaps no one will be less amused than Leno's former manager Helen Kushnick, who comes off as a foulmouthed virago. In one scene, Kushnick (played by Kathy Bates) insists that Leno, in his debut show, make no mention of Carson (Rich Little)--a move now regarded as one of The Tonight Show's Top 10 mistakes.
Kushnick wasn't pleased with the book. In 1994, she filed a $30 million libel suit against Carter and his publisher, Hyperion. Kushnick, who couldn't be reached for comment, later dropped the suit but can still sue over the film. "I know Helen, and she will probably be upset by the movie," says Carter. "All I'm doing is writing what I know to be true."
Which raises an interesting point: When writing about living people, the truth has a curious way of shifting. The result: The Late Shift has the most fretted-about end since Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter.
An early script, written when Letterman was still Nielsen czar, finishes with an epilogue slamming NBC, claiming Leno cost the network "about a half a billion dollars." But then Leno edged past Letterman in the ratings. "I guess this means HBO's got to shoot a new ending to their movie," Leno crowed in his Emmy acceptance speech last year.
They did. The movie's most recent kicker, which was still undergoing tinkering last month, marked Hugh Grant's flutter-eyed apology as Leno's turning point. Meanwhile, another proposed ending got left on the cutting-room floor. This one featured two anonymous NBC execs cooing about Leno's comeback. "Now," one says, "what are we going to do with this Conan guy?" Regardless, seesawing ratings may actually help. Says director Betty Thomas: "All the stuff that goes on between them--we kept praying it would all keep happening."
Like Thomas, everyone on the production dismisses the idea of a talk-show-war overdose. "I used to be against showing what's behind the canvas," says producer Carmody. "But there's this incredible fascination with the inside of show business."
Indeed, anticipation is so high, media junkies have been clamoring for a grade-Z bootleg that, much to HBO's dismay, is making the rounds. The network beamed an unfinished version of The Late Shift on one of its obscure auxiliary channels at 4 a.m. in late December. According to HBO president Bob Cooper, the broadcast was for the IRS--allowing the network to write off a portion of the movie's expense in 1995. But some trigger-fingered night owl caught the amateurish production on tape.
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