Calvert DeForest, who played Larry “Bud” Melman for several years on Letterman’s show, died a few days ago. Mark Evanier has the details, and the video of one of the funniest Melman appearances, when Letterman had him greeting people at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal — no one ever had better microphone technique.
Wikipedia says DeForest’s great uncle was Lee DeForest, “a radio pioneer who in 1906 invented the Audion tube, also known as the triode, which made large-scale broadcasting commercially feasible.”