Letterman Boss Not Laughing

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday May 11, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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David Letterman, 53, has ticked off his boss, CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, with jokes that "The Late Show" host has made at Moonves's expense, reports the Associated Press. Moonves, who recently returned from a trip to Cuba, has served as the butt of Dave's humor before, but this time, the exec (who says that viewers don't really care about him) is telling reporters that the zingers have gone on "a little longer than I'd like. Some of it is funny and some of it isn't." On Monday's "Late Show," in a skit called "Lunch with Les and Fidel," a character portraying Castro said, "Les, throughout the decades, to insure a strong dictatorship, I have starved my countrymen and tortured and murdered my political opponents." To which the Moonves character snaps back: "The Bette Midler show was my idea." Says the real Moonves: "I'm more concerned about whether it is funny or not than whether it is about me, (but) Dave is Dave." A spokeswoman for Letterman had no comment about Moonves's remarks. Meanwhile, veteran Variety columnist Army Archerd reports that Michael Moonves, son of Nancy and Leslie Moonves, was bar mitzvahed on Feb. 24 at L.A.'s University Synagogue. Afterwards, a party for 350 guests followed with greetings from Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) and Korn shown via a video. No mention of a greeting from Dave.