Calvert DeForest, a fixture on David Letterman's late-night TV shows as the character Larry "Bud" Melman" died Monday in Long Island at age 85.

"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 in a statement.

DeForest appeared on the show between 1982 and 2002, often stuffed uncomfortably into a black suit and thick glasses. Among his odd chores for the show: singing "I Got You Babe" with Sonny Bono, covering the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway and handing out hot towels to new arrivals at New York's bus terminal.