David Letterman’s Oddball ‘Cue Card Boy’ Tony Mendez dies at 76


Tony Mendez, who was in charge of the cue cards on “Late Show With David Letterman,” as well as one of the show’s debuting quirks, died at his Miami Beach home on July 29, until an altercation with one of the writers (over claim cards) in 2014 got him fired. . He was 76 years old.

His old friend Andrew Corbin confirmed the death but said he didn’t know why.

Mr. Mendez’s on-camera conversations with Mr. Letterman have made him a key member of the show’s non-star group, which includes the comedian’s mother. Dorothy Mengering; stage manager Biff Henderson; and Mujibur and Sirajul, vendors at a gift shop near the Ed Sullivan Theater where the show was recorded.

Mr. Mendez began printing and flipping cue cards (in large, black letters) for Mr. Letterman when he moved the midnight show from NBC to CBS in 1993. Nicknamed “Cue Card Boy” by Mr. Letterman, Mr. Mendez continued to flip oversized cards for the comedian’s monologue and other script pieces for 21 years.

“Turning the cards is very important” Mr Mendez told The New Yorker: in 2001. “If you turn it too fast, they can’t see the last line. If you’re too slow, you slow them down.”

Mr. Mendez was also the star of “The Tony Mendez Show,” a series of bizarre online videos posted on the show’s website for several years. in 2007, A billboard promoting the Mendez show It opened near the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, where Mr. Letterman recorded his program.

However, Mr. Mendez’s time on the “Late Show” came to an end in October 2014 when he attacked one of the writers, Bill Scheft. Backstage incident made headlines in The New York Post “HAVE SHOW: The Backstage Battle Begins in Letterman.”

The two men had argued over the changes to the cue cards prior to the recording of the October 8 show. “He tells me what to do and I have to say, ‘I know what I’m doing,'” Mendez told The Post.

The next day, The Post reported that Mr. Mendez was still angry. She grabbed Mr. Scheft’s shirt and rocked it, leading to his firing (six months after Mr. Letterman announced he would retire from the show in 2015).

“It was an unfortunate way to end his time on the show and a sad way to end a 22-year friendship,” Mr Scheft said in an email.

Antonio Emilio Mendez Jr. was born in Havana on March 27, 1945 and left Cuba by plane in 1961 with his father and mother, Josefina, who were studying law at the University of Havana.

No immediate family member survives.

In Los Angeles, where Mr. Mendez lives with his family, his mother, who teaches Spanish at UCLA, met someone who knew this. Barney McNulty, is considered the first person to use cue cards on television. Mr. McNulty hired Mr. Mendez to flip cards for soap operas, sitcoms like “The Lucy Show” and the variety show “The Hollywood Palace.”

In her early 20s, she started dancing in a roundabout way. his sister, Josefina was a principal ballerina He worked with the Cuban National Ballet and grew to appreciate its art. She studied with the Houston Ballet, apprenticed with the Harkness Ballet, and received a scholarship to the American Ballet Theatre.

“And in those days if you could show your fingertips they would have given you a scholarship,” he told Time Out New York magazine in 2008.

She danced on Broadway in the 1970s and ’80s in “Pippin”, “Irene”, “Dancin” and “King of Hearts”. She also danced on the “Applause” and “Evita” tours.

In 1984, approaching 40, he returned to flipping cards, this time for “Saturday Night Live” where he stayed for nine years.

“It was the most stressful job I’ve ever had,” he told The New Yorker. “The hosts went completely crazy. They would all try to memorize it and tell them the script would change until the last minute, so they had to follow me.”

Then, in 1993, Mr. Mendez began flipping cards for Mr. Letterman, replacing his friend Marty Zone, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1988.

Mr. Mendez’s relationship with Mr. Letterman was unusually strong, as he once recalled, until he was fired.

“No one talks to him the way I do, and he welcomes it because everyone is so afraid of him,” Mr Mendez told Time Out. “And he knows he’ll learn the truth from me.”



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