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On the record with Barbara Walters
By Chuck Barney Contra Costa Times
May 13, 2008
IN HER CANDID new memoir, "Audition" (Knopf, $29.55), Barbara Walters dispenses the kind of intimate personal revelations she so often procures from her high-profile interview subjects.
She writes of an affair with Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, a suicide attempt in 1958 by her father, nightclub owner Lou Walters, a shaky relationship with her mentally disabled sister, the turbulent adolescence of her daughter, and her extraordinary struggles to make it in a television world dominated by men.
In advance of a promotional stop in the Bay Area this week, one of the world's most famous journalists took some time to field a few questions.
Q: You've been on a media blitz since the book came out. How does it feel to go from interviewer to interviewee?
A: I think I like it better the other way around. It's more comfortable. Now, I feel like I need to give you sound bites.
Q: What was the most challenging aspect of writing the book?
A: The fact that it's so personal. There are a lot of intimate and painful moments in those pages. It makes you feel very exposed. But they're also what makes the book so good.
Q: The book spills a lot of secrets, including the affair with Senator Brooke. Do you have any second thoughts about some of the material?
A: While writing it, some things definitely made me pause. But I decided from the start that if I was going to do this, it had to be the total package. It's hard to put this in and leave that out.
Q: What is the biggest misconception about you that the book refutes?
A: That I'm totally together. That I don't bleed. That life and career for me has been nothing but up, up, up.
Q: You're known as an interviewer who makes people cry. What does that say about you and your interviewing skills?
A: Oh, I'm sure that's what my obit will say: "She made people cry." One reason is that I very often ask people about their childhoods. "... And many aspects of a childhood can be very difficult and painful. But I don't really do it anymore. I even find myself telling (interview subjects), 'No, you can't cry!' It has gotten to be a joke.
Q: So what makes you cry?
A: When I think about my sister, Jackie (who died in 1985). And how hard it was for her and what a lonely, isolated life she had. People made fun of her and they made fun of me. I loved her, but I also resented her. There's a lot of guilt there. I think back and wonder: "Was I kind enough to her?"
"... I also cry when I think about my days as a co-anchor (on ABC with Harry Reasoner) — having a partner who didn't like me, who didn't want me there. I'd cry in the dressing room before going on. I felt like a failure and I thought my career was all but over.
Q: With that in mind, you must have some empathy for (embattled CBS anchor) Katie Couric? Have you spoken to her?
A: Yes, we've talked. I know it's a difficult time for her, but I think she'll be fine. She's a very good reporter. She's smart. I think she'll work her way back just as I did and she'll find another avenue in which to excel.
Q: Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones, your former co-hosts on "The View," have been rough on you at times. What's your relationship like with them?
A: I've obviously had my ups and downs with both. But I just sent Rosie a congratulatory telegram (for her recent decent Broadway debut in "No, No, Nanette") — a very loving note. She's a great talent. I think Star Jones is going through a very difficult time in her life right now. I have happy memories of her first years on "The View" and I'd like to keep it that way.
Q: If you couldn't have worked in television, what career path do you think you would have chosen?
A: I never really expected to do what I'm doing. I got into television quite by accident. I don't know what I would have done. After graduating from college, I probably would have tried to become a teacher.
Q: Looking back on the remarkable number of interviews you've done, do you ever wish you could have some of them back — conduct a do-over?
A: There are always interviews in which you wish you had more time, or tried something different. My version of hell is to wrap up an interview, think you've done a great job on it and then have someone come up and say, "Did you ask him this?" and I think, "Oh no!" In this job you always have a lot of coulda, woulda, shouldas.
Q: Is there anyone left out there who you would love to interview, but haven't?
A: Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, he hasn't phoned me.
Reach Chuck Barney at 925-952-2685 or cbarney@bayareanewsgroup.com . Read his blog at www.ibabuzz.com/ tvfreak.
Barbara by the Bay
Barbara Walters, pioneering TV journalist and co-host of "The View," is in the Bay Area this week to promote her new best-selling memoir, "Audition." Here's a rundown:
THURSDAY 8 p.m. speaking at San Francisco City Arts & Lectures, Information: 415-563-2463
FRIDAY 1 p.m. book signing at Book Passage, Corte Madera, 415-927-0960 6 p..m. book signing at Rakestraw Books, Danville, 925-837-7337
SATURDAY 10 a.m. book signing at Kepler's Books, Menlo Park, 650-324-4321
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