Life Begins at 3:45 A.M.

For David Hartman, as for all those bleary-eyed stars of the morning, last Tuesday may be taken as a typical day. He gets up at 3:45 a.m., showers, dresses and drinks a pint of orange juice. At 4:30 an ABC limousine picks him up for the 30-minute ride from his home in suburban Westchester County to the Good Morning America studio on Manhattan's West 66th Street. Since seconds are precious at that dark hour, Hartman uses the 30 minutes to munch an apple and a banana and read--or "zap through," as he says--the New York Times and Daily News. (Joan Lunden uses the commuting time, also from Westchester, to nurse her three-month-old baby, whom ABC provides with a nurse and a nursery while she is working.)

Arriving at the studio at 5, Hartman sits down with Sonja Selby-Wright, one of Good Morning's three rotating producers, and goes over the day's schedule: an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a peek at the world's costliest diamond and a look at new and unusual watches. When Selby-Wright leaves, Hartman settles down in his second-floor dressing room to read background material, stopping now and then to sip coffee and take a bite or two of a bagel. To keep everyone awake, ABC has placed coffee urns, cartons of orange juice and plates of bagels and sweet rolls at convenient spots throughout the building.

By 6:15 the studio is buzzing. Because of the day's unusual guests--Begin and the giant sparkler--guards are everywhere: a dozen from the U.S. Secret Service, half a dozen from Israel's Shin Bet and another half a dozen from Cartier, which is showing off the diamond as big as the Ritz. Shortly before 7, Hartman comes downstairs, dressed in typically nondescript gray tweed jacket, dark trousers and brown loafers; he does not fancy himself a clotheshorse. He is told that Steve Bell, Good Morning's Washington-based newscaster, wants to talk with him, and Hartman takes the call on the set. Bell tells him that Israeli soldiers have shot and wounded eleven Arab students in the West Bank, and Hartman quickly revises his questions for the Prime Minister.

At 7 the red light comes on, and Hartman goes on the air. "Good morning," he says, "I'm David Hartman with Joan Lunden. It's Tuesday, the 18th of November." After a few more introductory words, Bell takes over and tells viewers what happened in the world while they were asleep. At 7:13 Hartman comes back to moderate a sharp debate on school busing between Senators Lowell Weicker and Jesse Helms, the pro and the con. Ten minutes later the show breaks, and some 200 stations give five minutes of local news and weather.

Good Morning returns at 7:30 with another look at the headlines, and at 7:40, while Lunden is admiring the diamond--all 107 carats and $22 million of it--Hartman slips away to greet Begin. Hartman makes a rather weak joke about an ABC executive ordering him not to ask any tough questions, but Begin fails to understand. At 7:45 the two men sit down in front of the cameras. They talk for seven minutes, a near eternity by TV standards, and Hartman asks about the wounded Arab students. A regrettable incident, Begin replies. During a commercial break, Hartman escorts Begin out and jovially says goodbye to his phalanx of security men, several of whom ask for Hartman's autograph.

The second hour, 8 to 9, is less eventful. There is an interview with a Hollywood couple who lost their home in a brushfire and a taped 2 1/2-minute segment in which Julia Child shows how to cook johnnycakes. After the show, Hartman tapes an eleven-minute interview with former Basketball Star Bill Russell for a future show and then heads to his office down the street.

The remainder of the day is spent on paper work and planning for tomorrow. In the afternoon Hartman goes over the draft of Wednesday's script, which has been prepared by the show's seven writers. He suggests changes and emphasizes points he would like to make. He is driven home again at 5:30, but telephone conversations with writers continue until after 8. At 9:30 he finally turns off the light, so that he will be rested when the alarm rings at 3:45.

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