Details are emerging from yesterday's destruction of the Ed Sullivan Theater's glass doors, and it appears that the suspect, 22-year-old James Whittemore, was an aspiring actor who had hit a rough patch. Whittemore graduated from the AMDA in 2009, and worked in restaurants between stints at regional shows at the Tropicana in Atlantic City and the Six Flags in Massachusetts. Just two weeks ago, he was jumped near his home on W. 135th Street and had his nose broken. "Jimmy is a good kid with a bad life," his foster sister tells the Daily News. Whittemore's mother was allegedly an alcoholic who hung herself in prison, and his father is a homeless ex-con. His uncle tells the paper, "The demons just grow in our family like that."
Still, Whittemore's roommate describes him as "the life of the party, in a good way." A playwright who invited him to read noted that he was "very, very industrious, very, very professional, very dedicated." After work late Saturday night, Whittemore sung karaoke in Midtown where he was heckled "while he was singing." A coworker explains, "He was upset. We left at 4 o'clock." Police apprehended him on Sunday morning and noted that he was "blind drunk."
Whittemore allegedly did close to $2,000 in damage, but given that the mess in front of the theater has been cleaned up, what could be better for Letterman's ratings (and Whittemore's career) than an on-air apology? According to an online resumé, Whittemore has a mean "Elmo voice" and can "do 20+ Russian splits in a row." That's better than a few Stupid Human Tricks we've seen.
