KEITH OLBERMANN: We are, tonight, without one of the great people. Not somebody you knew, probably, and I'm sorry for that. You missed somebody special. But a legend in the television community.
Michele O'Callaghan had been the primary make-up artist on "The Late Show With David Letterman" for 18 years. She had the same role with HBO's "Real Sports" for about half that length of time. She worked on nearly all of Bob Costas' shows on NBC and HBO. Specifically, on "Football Night in America," which is where I worked with her from 2007 through 2009.
Well, she was listed as the make-up artist. In fact, she ran each and every one of those shows. The first time I went on with Letterman, it was "Meesh" who talked me down from something close to an out-of-body experience, and when I started on the football show on NBC, she did the same thing.
She was blunt and hilarious, and — at one and the same time — the best source for information about your own show and the person who most earned your confidence. She believed life was to be lived no-holds-barred, and, as was mentioned by her best friend at her funeral mass this morning, for "somebody who acted like she hated everybody, there sure were a lot of heartbroken people there saying goodbye."
In fact, the big church in the New York suburb of Pleasantville was literally standing room only today. Her adoring husband, Tommy, and their kids held up admirably. Three kids, or — as she used to say to the visitors to the makeup room at "Football Night," — "Three kids, but that doesn't count K.O. or Costas."
Peter King from "Football Night" was there this morning, and Mary Carillo and Frank Deford from "Real Sports." And, bless him, David Letterman and Paul Shaffer, and must've been half the "Late Show" staff were there, and Alan Kalter, who sat with me and helped me get through it.
And I don't know how they did it, but they all went back and did a show for tonight, and David was going to talk about Michele. And that'll be three guys holding back tears on their programs, because Costas did it last night on "Football," too.
That's a tribute, I guess. I think the mass was more of one, though you hate to seem like you're judging these things by attendance.
But the true tribute was the fact that Michele had been fighting cancer for more than a year. And the hair went, and then it came back, and then it went again. And I saw her six weeks ago, when I went and did Letterman's show, and she was still working whenever she could, no matter what the doctor said about hugs or infections. You just didn't lie down when life was at full speed — which it always was for Michele.
When I asked her how she was, she said, "Well, I'm bald again." It was awful at times in the last year. It was awful at times this morning, but if I don't note how much time was spent laughing with her in spirit today, that spirit would probably come down and hit me in the back of the head. Hard.
Which reminds me, if you've ever seen Mr. Letterman make fun of the size of my head, this was an observation he reached with the help of Ms. Michele O'Callaghan. Mary Carillo told me today she had once seen some comment I'd done, knew Michele also worked with me, and had wanted to pass along her regards.
Michele told Mary she'd have plenty of time to do that because it took so long to finish my makeup because I had the "biggest effing head" she had ever seen and she couldn't get it all covered while just standing on one side of me. She had to walk around in back of me to reach the rest of it.
In point of fact, she used to do exactly that, and, more than once, she warned me that I wouldn't see her for awhile, but that I shouldn't worry if it seemed like she'd disappeared. She was just crossing behind me and would be right back on the other side.
Every Sunday, it was like that. And for David and Paul and all the guests on "The Late Show," every day, it was like that. And for her family, every moment, it was like that.
So, please forgive all of us if none of us are exactly the same again. We are tonight without one of the great people. Thanks, Meesh.
