Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 17, 1994                   TAG: 9405170080
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

Oops.

"I was young. I was overzealous, too enthusiastic," Letterman told "A Current Affair" in an interview broadcast Monday night.

The comedian who used to showcase offbeat pet tricks when his show was on NBC admits he was drunk at a state fair poultry contest, where it happened.

Letterman says he was trying to get the rooster to crow when "I inadvertently bit its head off. We were both disqualified."

Letterman gave up drinking 12 years ago.

"I drank enough in my life for most guys," he said. "I punished myself, but boy did we have fun."

David Cassidy, teen heartthrob of the 1970s, says in his autobiography that he had a "semi-aborted" romantic encounter with Susan Dey, his "Partridge Family" TV co-star.

"Sexually, I never had that hunger for her," Cassidy writes in "C'mon Get Happy: Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus." "Susan lacked the slutty aspect of a female that I found so attractive."

Alex Trebek will make his conducting debut Nov. 5 when he waves on the Greenville (Pa.) Symphony Orchestra at the first performance of its 66th season.

Last year the "Jeopardy!" TV star said it was something he always wanted to do, and orchestra members in the community 70 miles north of Pittsburgh sent him a letter making an offer.

Greenville (pop. 7,000) claims to be the smallest U.S. community with its own symphony orchestra.

Former first daughter Patti Davis bares it all in the July issue of Playboy magazine. Davis, 41, says the nude shots are a great opportunity to show off the results of several years of weight training, not just another way of tweaking her parents.