Obituary: Calvert DeForest

The balding, bespectacled nerd who gained cult status as the oddball Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late-night television shows has died after a long illness.

Brooklyn-born Calvert DeForest was 85. He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows between 1982 and 2002.

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself - a genuine, modest and nice man," Letterman said.

The gnomish DeForest was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman's NBC show started on February 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film "Frankenstein".