[1] In later years, Cavett has written an online column for The New York Times, promoted DVDs of his former shows as well as a book of his Times columns, and hosted replays of his TV interviews with Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Salvador Dalí, Lee Marvin, Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Mitchum, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Douglas and others on Turner Classic Movies.

[10] When asked by Lucille Ball on his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and possibly partly French, and ... a dose of German."

[15][16] In eighth grade, Cavett directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League and played the title role in The Winslow Boy.

He also took advantage of any opportunity to meet stars, routinely going to shows in New York to hang around stage doors or venture backstage.

[21] Cavett took many odd jobs ranging from store detective to label typist for a Wall Street firm, and as a copyboy at Time magazine.

Cavett was a copyboy (gofer) at Time magazine[24] when he read a newspaper item about Jack Paar, then host of The Tonight Show.

[26] In his capacity as talent coordinator for The Tonight Show, Cavett was sent to the Blue Angel nightclub to see Woody Allen's act, and immediately afterward struck up a friendship.

In San Francisco, he met Lenny Bruce, about whom he said, "I liked him and wish I had known him better ... but most of what has been written about him is a waste of good ink, and his most zealous adherents and hardest-core devotees are to be avoided, even if it means working your way around the world in the hold of a goat transport.

[citation needed] After doing The Star and the Story, a rejected television pilot with Van Johnson, Cavett hosted a special, Where It's At, for Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear.

In 1970, he co-hosted the Emmy Awards Show (from Carnegie Hall in New York) with Bill Cosby (from Century Plaza in Los Angeles).

Unlike many contemporary shows that attempted to compete with Carson in the same timeslot but were quickly cancelled, Cavett managed to remain on the air for five years despite ABC being a smaller network with fewer affiliates than NBC at the time.

[37] Cavett earned a reputation as "the thinking man's talk show host" and received favorable reviews from critics.

[17][24] Clive James described Cavett "as a true sophisticate with a daunting intellectual range" and "the most distinguished talk-show host in America.

[17][34] His show often focused on controversial people or subjects, often pairing guests with opposing views on social or political issues, such as Jim Brown and Lester Maddox.

The over‐70 set walked off yesterday morning with a television program that combined the engaging qualities of lightly recalled nostalgia, the sophisticated stiletto, and a demonstration of genuine affection that had more substance than adolescent wails on how love will save the world.

Sir Noël Coward, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, friends of a lifetime, met on Dick Cavett's show on the American Broadcasting Company network.

[40] O'Neill had been approached by the Nixon administration to work through the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace to counter Kerry's influence on the public.

[41][42] The debate went poorly for the pro-war side, so angering President Nixon that he is heard discussing the incident on the Watergate tapes, saying, "Well, is there any way we can screw him [Cavett]?

[45] Cavett hosted many pop stars, both in interview and performance, such as David Bowie, Sly Stone,[46] Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

[47] Several of his Emmy Award nominations and one Emmy Award were for Outstanding Musical or Variety Series, and in 2005 Shout Factory released a selection of performances and interviews on a three-DVD set, The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons, showcasing interviews of and performances by rock musicians who appeared on the Dick Cavett show from 1969 to 1974.

"[50] Cavett has appeared as himself in various other television shows, such as The Odd Couple as well as serving as a host for Saturday Night Live in 1976.

The special, titled Dick Cavett Meets ABBA, was taped by the Swedish TV network SVT and was broadcast mainly in Europe.

He also appeared in footage from The Dick Cavett Show in Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994), and Ron Howard's Apollo 13 (1995).

[24] Cavett is featured in the 2003 documentary From the Ashes: The Life and Times of Tick Hall about the fire that destroyed his home in Montauk, New York and his effort to rebuild it.

[53] Cavett's signature tune has long been a trumpet version of the vocalise "Glitter and Be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

[54] In 2008, Cavett entered an Iraq war dispute with a New York Times blog entry criticizing General David Petraeus, stating "I can't look at Petraeus—his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals, and ribbons—without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance."

Cavett went on to recall Sahl's expressed contempt for General William Westmoreland's display of medals, and criticized Petraeus for not speaking in plain language.

Coward had made an appearance on Cavett's ABC late-night television show in 1970 after being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in December 1969.

Cavett re-enacted his show of January 25, 1980, when literary critic Mary McCarthy appeared as a guest, and declared every word playwright Lillian Hellman wrote was "a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."

After graduation, the two acted in summer theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts; and Cavett worked for two weeks in a local lumberyard to be able to buy an engagement ring.