“You have ruined my day,” Barbara Bush told David Letterman in 1994, shortly after joining him onstage at the Late Show, during a press tour for her memoir. “Ive been interviewed all day long and everybody says, You are going to be on David Letterman . . . All day long! I have an inferiority complex. Roseanne Barr, Stupid Pet Tricks, Madonna, . . . and Barbara Bush?”
The former First Ladys worries were for naught. Within the span of a 12-minute segment, Barbara Bush, in pearls and a pantsuit, both charmed and schooled her sardonic host—finding an elegant way to suggest Letterman quit smoking cigars; putting a firm stop to his nosy political questions (“I probably wont answer, but go on”); threatening a Secret Service arrest with a smile; and delighting audiences with tales of her husbands post-presidential love affair with Sams Club.
Bushs sense of humor was not a surprise, as much as it was a treat, when shared with the public. This was the same woman, after all, who joked of her son becoming president: “I may be the only mother in America who knows exactly what their child is up to all the time.”
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Julie MillerJulie Miller is a Senior Hollywood writer for Vanity Fairs website.
[contf] [contfnew] 
Vanity Fair
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
