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CREW MEMBER: Take 5. We're recording.
- [clears throat] I'm not ready.
[laughter]
CREW MEMBER: Wait a minute.
Stand by, please. Shh. Quiet.
BARBARA: When I'm on camera...
Okay? PERSON: Everybody got roll?
- Which way do you want me to look--in you or in you?
I am fully confident.
I don't want to have to stop in the middle of a sentence.
And I have a kind of courage...
that I may not have in real life.
- What do I call you during this interview?
- Barbara. - Barbara? Is that all right?
- I hope so.
[dramatic music]
PERSON 1: Both sets, be quiet, please.
PERSON 2: Barbara, we are rolling.
BARBARA: Have speed?
Is everybody in position?
We all ready?
Are you ready to be interrogated?
- She asked the question that nobody else had asked.
- Are you sorry you didn't burn the tapes?
Why didn't you have your nose fixed?
Are you bisexual?
Did you ever order anyone killed?
- And asked it in a way that always hit a nerve.
- Why the tears now, Oprah?
CYNTHIA: Sitting down with Barbara Walters,
no one ever got out totally unscathed.
BARBARA: Okay.
KATIE: She could talk to anyone...
- Will you ever shave off that beard?
- [chuckles]
- About anything.
- You don't really act.
You don't sing. You don't dance.
You don't have any...
KIM: Talent. - Forgive me--any talent.
- You know, you're surrounded by beautiful flowers.
The lighting is perfect.
There's maybe a gauze on the lens.
And then suddenly she would just throw
a hardball out of nowhere.
- Martha, why do so many people hate you?
- Each and every one of us has people that love us
and people that hate us.
- No, not everybody has people who hate them.
Anything you regret?
Is it ego, or is it insecurity?
KATIE: Barbara sometimes asked questions
that revealed a lot about herself.
- Is there a conflict between the working women
and the children?
Do you feel like a flop? Do you feel like a failure?
BETTE: She was fearless.
And sometimes she got under people's skin.
- Ever do drugs in front of your child?
- My God. What a question.
BARBARA: You never say, "I made mistakes."
You haven't said it. - Barbara, I make mistakes.
I make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes.
- I mean, people don't think you show any humility.
I'm not always a pussycat.
I'm sure there are times when I'm cold.
I'm sure there are times when I'm hostile.
No.
Please, do not interrupt me.
I don't care if I'm shiny.
I care more about this interview.
OPRAH: Barbara knew what she was up against.
- This studio is full of delicacies this morning,
and here's one of them.
Her name is Barbara. - Aw, that's so nice.
BOB: Whether it was her looks or her voice,
just the fact that she was a woman,
there were people who just didn't believe in her.
And she loved proving them wrong.
♪ ♪
- Nothing would stand in her way.
- Okay, let's go.
Let me know when you're all ready.
Don't cut again unless you must.
HOST: Right now, ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce to you one of America's
top news correspondents, whose provocative interviews
have riveted television viewers.
Would you welcome Barbara Walters.
[applause]
[indistinct chatter]
[steady music]
♪ ♪
- Ten seconds.
- Stand by, videotape.
- We forced our staff writer Barbara Walters to go to Paris
to cover the fashion openings.
BARBARA: When I first came to work in the Today show,
I was hired to write the women's features.
Every day I had to go and look at fashion shows.
HOST: Mm. - And then I had to have lunch
at Maxime's and drink champagne.
HOST: Huh. - And then I had to smell
all the perfume at Dior.
I mean, it was so trying
that I took absolutely the very last plane I could
to get back here today.
HOST: Well, we welcome you back.
BARBARA: I was not what they were putting
in front of the cameras.
They were looking for models, actresses,
and it was a male-dominated shop.
- Hey! [laughter]
- Barbara, are you set to go?
BARBARA: It never occurred to me
that I would be in front of the camera.
I am certainly no baby.
I wasn't beautiful, and I didn't pronounce my Rs.
And raincoats.
But they needed someone they could hire cheap.
I worked cheap.
This is my diploma.
It proves that I did indeed go to bunny school.
I became the Today reporter.
I went off and did stories.
Here they are--graduate bunnies at the Playboy Club
at the end of a hard day's work.
KATIE: Barbara did all the soft,
fluffy stories-- the women's stories.
BARBARA: Standard equipment
is the bunny cottontail.
KATIE: But she wanted to be taken seriously.
She wanted to be appreciated for her intelligence.
And so she fought really hard
to do some of the more serious interviews.
- Suppose that, for one reason or another,
you could no longer take the pill
and had to go back to another contraceptive device.
And when I went on the air, the big thing for me was,
I could write my own questions.
And when we began to do film reports, I could edit.
I'm a good editor. That's what I do best.
Those were the qualities I had--
not my looks or my great personality, I don't think.
But I could do those things. No woman had done them.
There is another side to the royal family,
a side I saw firsthand--
the human, the vulnerable, the imperfect side.
CYNTHIA: Barbara was a real fixture in our home.
We watched the Today show.
She entered the television-news business
at a time--
to say women didn't have a seat at the table--
women weren't even in the room where the table was.
- I'm Frank McGee.
Joe Garagiola has the day off.
Barbara Walters is here.
BARBARA: When Hugh Downs, the host
of the Today show, left the program...
- Welcome to the Today program.
BARBARA: A newsman named Frank McGee came in.
The hard news interviews,
he wanted to do them by himself.
This girl sitting next to me shouldn't be able to do them.
And he went to the president of the network and said,
"Barbara should not be allowed to come in on this interview
until I have asked three questions."
Well, today I would have quit.
I didn't say, "How dare you?"
There was no place to go and complain.
You swallowed, and you worked it out yourself.
- So she figured out a way around that
by doing interviews outside of the studio.
I mean, really, the reason
that she started doing interviews
and ultimately became famous for them,
it was a workaround.
BARBARA: So pushy cookie did all of those interviews
outside of the studio.
Your Highness, I must ask you the question
that most Americans want to know about you.
Are you happy?
- I've had many happy moments in my life, yes.
I don't think happiness--being happy is a perpetual state.
- Are you ever bored? And if so, what bores you?
Or do you always have this nourishing curiosity?
- No. I'm terribly curious.
I mean, it's very hard for me to get bored,
because, mm...
because even when somebody is being actively boring,
I'm interested in how they are boring me.
BARBARA: Do you think it's possible to be an actress
and be happily married?
- Well, I don't think anybody who married me thought so.
[chuckles]
KATIE: Barbara was proving to be
a very integral part of the Today show.
HOST: You say you brought the ratings up.
Do you have any idea why?
BARBARA: I think I was myself.
People felt that they knew me. I was very accessible.
And I guess...
in television terms, I was smart.
This is a sad day for us,
a sad time for the Today program.
Frank McGee died yesterday at the age of 52.
It was in my contract
that if Frank ever left, I would be cohost.
Nobody expected him to leave.
He died of cancer.
- She got it literally over Frank McGee's dead body.
[soft music]
Do you know what happened in Today show history
on April 22, 1974?
Well, it's early, so we'll give you a little break.
It's the date that Barbara Walters
became the first female cohost of the Today show.
She often told me, "Oh, we're so alike.
Neither of us is that attractive."
[laughing] I was like, "Thanks."
But I think what she meant is,
our looks were secondary.
- Growing up watching Barbara Walters,
having Barbara Walters in my head
as I am doing my first audition for television--
I mean, she was a mentor for me
before she knew that she was a mentor.
I remembered seeing you on the Today show.
And you always used to do this.
And I remember you looking up and looking down--
- I was looking at questions. - Yeah.
And so what I did was I'd look down, and then I'd look up,
and I'd talk, and then I'd look down.
Whew!
And for the longest time,
I'd watch you every morning,
and I'd go on the air, and I'd imitate you.
KATIE: Barbara was tenacious,
and she was ambitious,
which was a dirty word for women.
BARBARA: Until the casket of President Kennedy
leaves the rotunda.
KATIE: She started as the only female staff writer...
BARBARA: Dr. Kissinger, how would you describe your job?
Talking about the Watergate break-in.
KATIE: And ultimately became a household name.
- I've been working in television
for almost 20 years now,
11 of those years in front of the cameras.
And I've seen how things have changed for women
and how they haven't changed.
CREW MEMBER: Okay.
Stand by, please.
Clear, please. Okay.
- Listen, tell me about this marriage of yours,
this man whom nobody ever seems to see.
We heard that he was here.
We heard that he was in town, but none of us have seen him.
You know, you can give all kinds of reasons
why marriages don't work.
I went from my parents' house to my first marriage.
I was 23, you know?
And it was a marriage that never should have been.
Marriage number two was to a lovely man named Lee Guber.
Does he share your career?
DOLLY: Well, he--he shares it
to the point that he knows it makes me happy
and he's proud of me.
CREW MEMBER: Stand by.
DOLLY: Oh.
I was in my 30s when Jackie was born.
My daughter's a blessing.
My world came together.
I mean, I was already on the Today show,
and I'd had three miscarriages.
And now I had everything.
Today people are more accepting.
You can bring your kid to the office.
In those days,
if I had brought Jackie into the studio,
it would be as if I had brought
a dog who was not housebroken.
KATIE: This idea of a working mother
seemed like an oxymoron.
People didn't think you could take care of a child
or take care of a husband and have a full-time job.
BARBARA: I took two days off, and that was it.
HOST: We're right in the middle
of a fascinating time in your family life.
Your daughter's--
- Yes, it's her first day of school this week.
She's fine.
We're scared to death, you know.
She'll drink her juice and eat her cookies, and we'll cry.
You know, I can see she's gonna leave us,
and she'll say, "Don't be nervous, Mommy and Daddy.
Now don't cry," you know.
"I'll be all right."
- Do you stay for long? No, you just--
- The first time? - Yes.
- Do you really care about this?
- I'm fascinated, yes. [laughter]
BARBARA: Lee was working mostly nights.
He was in show business.
I was working in the early morning.
We didn't see that much of each other.
Little by little, we--
we just had less and less to say to each other.
This was the storybook love affair,
and we wanted it to last
and knew how hard you worked at it
and then felt really great disappointment that it didn't.
- You have to accept inevitability.
It was just the time
for that point in our lives to close.
BARBARA: That was very difficult for me,
because by that time, we had a four-year-old child.
I don't think that I was very good at marriage.
It may be that my career was just too important.
It may have been that I was a difficult person
to be married to
and I wasn't willing, perhaps, to give that much.
You know, there are those people who say
that a woman has to be twice as aggressive.
She has to be twice as hardworking
to hold the same executive position as a man.
But through it all,
there was this career that I felt I needed to have.
And I loved it.
[dynamic music]
♪ ♪
- Good evening. I'm Roger Grimsby.
Here now the news.
- Evening news, that was journalism.
Morning news, mm.
But the evening-news anchor was the face of the network.
This is where the guys played.
You know, this was all about status.
CREW MEMBER: 15.
CONNIE: The person who dominated evening news
was Walter Cronkite, who worked at CBS.
He was avuncular, as they say.
He was credible. He was honest.
He was Uncle Walter.
So the evening news was the crème de la crème.
CYNTHIA: It was a big deal when Barbara left
the official co-host of the Today show
and she goes to ABC
as the co-anchor with Harry Reasoner
of the evening news.
This was the big time.
PERSON: Ladies and gentlemen,
if we can get started, please.
OPRAH: It was such a big victory.
I think, at the time, she got a million dollars.
And we were all like,
Barbara Walters is getting a million dollars!
And as a young anchorwoman who was making $22,000,
that was hope for me that if she can get a million,
maybe I can get $50,000 one day.
BARBARA: 5 years, $5 million.
I don't feel that I'm coming here to save the news.
I'm coming here to add to the strength
that Harry has already brought to this program.
- [imitating Barbara] I want to take this opportunity
to apologize to NBC.
I don't like leaving.
Please trust me, it's not sour grapes,
but rather that another network
recognizes in me a great talent
for delivering relevant news stories
with crystal clarity to millions of Americans.
BARBARA: When I left NBC, the papers were awful to me.
I became the Million Dollar Baby.
- It just reverberated all over the country.
It was at a time when the women's movement
was really gaining steam.
And suddenly we had a woman
who was going to be delivering the news every single night.
- Her contract, for a rumored million dollars a year,
specifies that she'll co-anchor
the ABC Evening News.
- So the struggle has been to keep the packaging
from dominating the contents of the package.
But now a network has hired a lady to read the news,
plus other studio chores, for $1 million a year.
And the intramural worry is
that maybe the struggle has been lost.
- I don't feel I have to rationalize it.
I was offered that money by both ABC and NBC.
I can't imagine anyone turning it down.
VICTOR: There was all this excitement.
A star's coming to ABC.
There was a pink typewriter that was delivered.
- It's just one piece of copy, Mary?
MARY: Sorry? - One piece of copy?
MARY: That's all. - Okay.
VICTOR: And people would say, "Harry, what do you think?
"Let's go look at the new set.
They're building a set for the both of you."
And he kind of grumbled, like, oh, well, whatever, you know?
Like that kind of thing.
- Ready, three? - One.
- Take three. Cue Barbara.
- Well, tonight has finally come for me,
and I'm very pleased to be with you, Harry,
and with ABC News.
Here was my chance-- historic, they told me--
to be the first female co-anchor
of a network news program.
Well, I thought, what an opportunity.
It was a mistake.
CYNTHIA: Harry Reasoner made no bones
about the fact that he did not want her there.
He didn't want any co-anchor,
and he certainly didn't want her.
- The decision was to welcome you as I would
any respected and competent colleague of any sex
by noting that I've kept time on your stories
and mine tonight.
You owe me four minutes. - [laughs]
- I think most people had this attitude of,
who does she think she is?
We're not getting our news from some lady, some chick.
- From five seconds down? CREW MEMBER: Right. Ten...
- I'd rather have ten seconds down.
KATIE: It gave rise to so much sexism
that made it even harder for her.
BILLIE EILISH: ♪ So you're a tough guy ♪
♪ "Like it really rough" guy ♪
♪ "Just can't get enough" guy ♪
♪ "Chest always so puffed" guy ♪
♪ I'm that bad type, "make your mama sad" type ♪
♪ "Make your girlfriend mad" type ♪
- Here at 9:30 Eastern time.
BILLIE EILISH: ♪ I'm the bad guy ♪
Duh.
♪ ♪
- In 1976, I was a production assistant at ABC.
- Thank you very much, Barbara.
Good night.
BOB: There was absolutely no chemistry,
either on air or on set.
Everybody was aware of that,
and we all felt kind of uncomfortable about it.
- I have to shoot an arrow into Barbara Walters.
- Ah, You mean you're making her fall in love
with Harry Reasoner? - No.
Harry just paid me to shoot her.
- Just didn't care. - Straightaway.
- It's nice to see you.
- Can we also, by the way, one of these days,
have all the same pictures and everything?
- Oh, no.
BARBARA: I would walk into that studio,
and Harry would be sitting with the stagehands,
and they'd all crack jokes and ignore me.
And no one would talk to me.
There was not a woman on the staff.
Good evening.
VICTOR: It was awkward.
The show began. They did their small talk.
HARRY: From Barbara and me, good night.
VICTOR: It ended.
No one said anything to her.
She got up, and I escorted her back.
This memory was like yesterday.
We're walking back.
Her head was down,
and her fists were clenched by her side, looking down.
Fists so tight, I felt it walking next to her.
And she was hurt.
BARBARA: I thought it was the end of my professional career
after all these years of working.
It was the most painful period in my life.
- ABC announced today that Roone Arledge,
who is now president of ABC Sports,
will head a newly formed news and sports division,
effective June 1st.
VICTOR: Roone Arledge was the president of ABC Sports,
and he created that great
"sports as entertainment" concept--
Wide World of Sports,
multiple cameras and video replays,
stop action in the Olympics.
So he was brought to ABC News to change ABC News,
to bring it into kind of a modern,
more entertaining era.
BARBARA: Roone Arledge was my savior.
He had the vision to say,
"we can do something with her,"
and made me a roving reporter.
And he gave me free rein and said, "Go.
Go get them. Go get those interviews."
Roone bet on me. It was a big gamble.
REPORTER 1: No Arab leader has publicly visited Israel
since the Jewish state was founded in 1948,
a period during which Israel and the Arabs
have fought four major conflicts.
REPORTER 2: But now all obstacles
appear to have been removed
for peace discussions in Jerusalem
between Egyptian President Sadat
and Israeli Prime Minister Begin.
- If President Sadat wants an official formal invitation
from me, he has it.
BARBARA: Everybody said, "what?
An Egyptian president going to Israel?"
And so all hell broke loose.
This is Barbara Walters in Israel,
where the country is racing
through last-minute preparations
for the arrival tomorrow evening
of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
I arrived in Tel Aviv,
got a call from Roone Arledge saying,
"Walter Cronkite is in Cairo.
John Chancellor is on his way. Get there."
We rented a plane.
I was so exhausted, I fell asleep...
woke up, looked down, I thought it was a mirage--
I saw the pyramids.
And when I got off...
waiting there were John Chancellor
and Walter Cronkite.
And they were not very happy to see me.
CONNIE: All of a sudden,
Barbara shows up on the tarmac,
as Walter describes it,
as if she's a substitute for a game, going...
And Anwar Sadat sees Barbara and goes, "Barbara!"
- You okay, Barbara? - Yes, I am.
- You will be joining me. - Hi, how are you?
- Walter. Walter. - Good to see you.
How are you?
And good luck.
- How do you find it with Barbara?
[laughter]
- I hadn't planned it that way.
[indistinct chatter, applause]
- Mr. President, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan
and Prime Minister Begin
have said that they are willing
to talk the principles of peace with you.
They are willing to talk specifics and substance.
Are you willing to do this?
- Sure. For sure, I am willing to do this.
If they are ready, I am ready.
- Go ahead, Barbara. - Thank you, Barbara.
BARBARA: On the plane from Egypt to Israel,
I asked Anwar Sadat-- slipped him a note
and asked if he would sit and do an interview with me.
Yes, no, alone, or with Prime Minister Begin.
And he said yes, but alone.
PETER: On that plane also will be
my co-commentator and distinguished lady
who went to Egypt today from Israel, Barbara Walters.
And there is Barbara coming down the stairs--
Barbara Walters.
VICTOR: She turned out to be,
in the best possible definition of the word,
a killer.
BARBARA: Okay, we are ready.
BARBARA: I went to Jerusalem and did an interview
with Prime Minister Begin that night.
We have to do this, very quickly, okay.
Do not answer me.
I'm just going to repeat my questions.
[laughter] I'll look at you.
- I don't know how I ever manage
to get through these interviews with you.
He said, "Barbara, I forgot to tell you.
"I said to Anwar Sadat,
"for the sake of our friend Barbara,
"would you do an interview together?
And, Barbara, he said yes."
I said, "Mr. Prime Minister,
you're the best agent I've ever had."
- Both leaders sat down together
with ABC's Barbara Walters for an exclusive interview.
And it was a fascinating, in my judgment, look
at history being made in front of us.
- President Sadat, you said that your people,
the Arab people, would not concede one inch
of occupied land.
Is that negotiable?
- Not at all. BARBARA: Not at all.
- Yes, frankly, not at all,
but it doesn't mean at all that we should not try.
BARBARA: So there might be a ray of light.
There might be a somewhat different position
down the road.
- [laughs]
You are always like this, Barbara.
[laughter]
- I try to be. - On everything.
Well--
- This is what people are going to be asking of you.
- Politics can't be conducted like this, like--
- I have to keep trying.
KATIE: It was history making,
but it also showed Walter Cronkite
and John Chancellor who was boss.
She totally edged them out,
which must have been so sweet for her.
WALTER: But if I could just press you one more moment...
KATIE: Walter Cronkite later interviewed the two of them.
But, honestly, if you're not first, you're not anything.
VICTOR: And then...
the real Barbara Walters career began.
CREW MEMBER: All right, everybody, quiet.
Take 201.
NARRATOR: The Barbara Walters Special.
- Good evening. I'm Barbara Walters.
The million-dollar contract
was not just for me to do the news,
but for me to do a series of one-hour prime-time specials.
You're not embarrassed. I am. JIMMY: I'm not.
- Well, then, okay, if you're not, I'll go on.
Do you sleep in a double bed or twin bed?
- Double bed. - Double bed.
When I was growing up in St. Louis,
I was obsessed with TV.
And Barbara Walters, to me, just always represented
event television.
- If you were a man, you would not marry
a woman with a career. - No.
I wouldn't be that big a fool.
- This was a day when big stars--
you didn't get to see them being interviewed anywhere.
- Stick around for a while longer, will you?
- I sure want to.
BARBARA: I was criticized for doing specials
that had people in the news
along with celebrities.
You can't do both.
Well, you can, and I did.
And today we see it all the time.
You are a man of secrecy and mystery.
Are you married?
- [speaking Spanish] - [speaking Spanish]
- In a personal conversation between us two,
we can talk about that, but why do we have to talk
about this for the large public?
- You don't have to talk about it.
But there are people who are very curious about you.
And it is interesting that a simple question like,
are you married, not very complicated,
causes such an uproar.
- [speaking Spanish] - Formally, no.
CYNTHIA: Interviews were always a staple, right?
But interviews tended to be about issues.
This was a profile of the person.
- I know you don't like personal questions.
- Uh-huh.
- So I will start by asking you something very simple
and easy for you to answer. - Okay.
- Will you tell me all about your first sexual experience?
- My first sexual experi-- [laughter]
ANDY: Have all of her clips aged great?
No, but at the time,
she was very representative
of where the line was in the culture,
and she knew how to dance just on the line.
- Sure.
BARBARA: What's it like to be a homosexual?
Are you happy with your weight?
Do you drink too much?
- And I wanted to know, by the way.
- This is only a small mansion on the hill, Barbara.
KATIE: Barbara did Cribs before Cribs was Cribs.
- This is where I sleep. - Yes.
- This is where I'm going to make my children.
- We have 85,000 feet of home movies.
- She went into people's new homes.
She went into people's closets.
She went into people's kitchens.
- Oh, God, that's enough, Barbara.
KATIE: I remember she sat on the floor
with Eddie Murphy when she profiled him.
- [laughs]
KATIE: At the time, it was a very different approach.
It wasn't a chair across from a chair.
- I don't want to hurt your feelings,
but this is the scroungiest Jeep I have ever--
The upholstery is coming out.
CYNTHIA: In the beginning,
it was very controversial to put hard-news interviews...
- It's been eight months since that assassination attempt.
CYNTHIA: Next to celebrity interviews.
And there were many who felt
that she was just lowering standards.
- Do you believe in fidelity when you're married?
- What's fidelity? - Staying with one woman only.
Nobody's listening. - [laughs]
BOB: She had a vision back then
that celebrities are news.
She was criticized in that regard,
because she actually believed,
and I think she turned out to be right,
that they were news makers...
CREW MEMBER: And action.
BOB: She was practicing
the art of journalism when she was interviewing them.
- Are we doing this for real?
- Yeah. Yeah. - Oh. [chuckles]
BARBARA: Okay.
- She asked me to be a guest on her show.
And, of course, I was very flattered,
because it was a big deal.
And I had a lot of fun with her when she interviewed me.
I can be so boring.
- Not now, please. - No.
- The next interview.
BETTE: It wasn't as stiff as it usually was.
It was a lot more fun. You'd laugh. She'd laugh.
Okay.
She was infamous for asking questions
that just came out of the blue.
- What do you think of the way you look?
- I think I look great. - No, no kidding.
- No kidding. - Why do I say "no kidding"?
- Yeah, hey. - Because...
- Hey, hey, get out of my house.
She actually had a lot of spunk.
She was fearless.
- Do you think you're sexy? - I know I'm sexy.
- On the scale of one to ten, what are you?
- What am I, on a scale of one to ten?
Oh, I think I'm about a 55. I don't know.
[laughter] I think I'm a happening girl.
I think what made Barbara Walters different
from most of the other interviewers
was that she always found a way in.
She always did her homework.
And she always put you at ease
and then would sort of go in for the zinger.
- What about drugs?
BETTE: I don't really like them.
I can't do them. I've done them.
- See, I think there are people who'll see you onstage
and think, that's where it comes from,
that enormous energy. BETTE: Oh, no.
Oh, no. No, that's totally natural.
I considered her a friend,
but I also considered her a journalist.
So, as much as I liked her,
I felt that I had to be careful.
She knew a lot.
- I know that you were seeing a great deal of someone...
- Peter. - And you just broke up--
Peter Rieger. - "Just broke up"?
- You didn't? That's what I read.
- Who told you that?
I didn't even know it myself! - I read it in the--
- Well, this is embarrassing. - Oh, that's just fine.
Stop now because we have to reload.
- Could I have a glass of water?
- You can have anything you want.
BETTE: She had poise and a presentation
that was really elegant.
She was very beautiful.
She was very beautiful,
except that I would say that she didn't feel beautiful
or that she didn't feel--
with her upbringing, she didn't feel
like she belonged--
you know, some little bit of insecurity.
But she'd never let you see her sweat,
which is a kind of a courageousness that is,
you know, really sublime, really hard.
There are fronts behind fronts,
façades behind façades.
And inside is usually, you know, the kid.
Her father was a showman,
and he had a club in the Times Square district
called the Latin Quarter.
ANNOUNCER: Lou Walters' fabulous Latin Quarter revue!
[fanfare playing]
[applause]
- ♪ You're walking down the street ♪
♪ Suddenly you meet a pair of lovers dancing along ♪
- I have lived, I don't mind telling you,
on sex ever since I've been in show business.
BARBARA: My father would have been
called an entrepreneur today.
He opened his first nightclub in Boston.
LOU: The first impact
that my shows have is glamour.
BARBARA: The Latin Quarter in Boston
was a huge success.
And it went on from there to Florida to New York.
I mean, he did these gorgeous, glorious shows.
I knew every celebrity--
Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle and Sophie Tucker.
[applause]
On the surface, it was wonderful.
But, you know, he came home at 3:00 in the morning.
He slept until 1:00 in the afternoon.
It was a show-business life.
I would sit in the lighting booth,
because I was too young to sit downstairs,
and watch the lavish numbers
of beautiful girls and beautiful costumes.
And then I'd see them backstage without the makeup.
I'd hear their problems.
I learned that celebrities were human beings,
and I have never been in awe...
So that years later, when I began to do interviews,
I knew that underneath sometimes the façade
of security or beauty, so forth,
there was a bleeding heart.
[device beeps]
Okay, we all set?
When you think about it,
if I say, what's the quickest childhood memory
that comes into your mind, what does?
Tell me about your childhood.
Tell me the story of your life in two minutes, you know,
starting with "I was born," and then and then and then.
Okay? - Okay.
I remember my childhood very, very distinctly,
as if it was like a Super 8 movie
that gets played back in my own head.
[file reel whirring]
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
BARBARA: I was shy, introverted.
My father said I had an inferiority complex.
He probably was right.
I guess the word that comes to my mind
is "lonely."
My sister was 3 1/2 years older,
but from the time she was born,
they knew there was something wrong.
♪ ♪
Today they would talk about it as a disability.
And it may even be that my sister was autistic
and we didn't know it.
My first memory is of our going outside in the street
and a bunch of little boys chasing us and ridiculing her,
and we ran into the house in tears.
Well, I loved her. She was my sister.
But I hated her.
♪ ♪
My mother was never enraptured by show business.
The glamour of it frightened her.
She was a very lonely woman.
I don't know that she loved my father.
My mother had no means of having a livelihood.
And my nightmare was that my father
was going to lose it all.
He was a gambler by nature.
He gambled on cards,
and eventually he gambled on the Latin Quarter.
And after years of success, he had nothing.
Nothing.
- The lights on Broadway are no longer
the shining gay Broadway.
BARBARA: And my father was in great despair,
and he attempted suicide
from an overdose of sleeping pills.
I was in my 20s,
and I had to support my whole family.
I had to work
at a time when many women of my generation
were not working.
CONNIE: Barbara was the breadwinner in her family,
because her father's nightclubs had tanked.
I supported my parents, too,
and I think that caused us, both of us,
to feel as if we had to have our jobs.
So both Barbara and I took on the role of a guy.
We became men.
- Can you hear His Majesty well?
Is his microphone too low?
CONNIE: And we had the responsibilities of men,
and we conducted our careers like men.
- In a man's life, women count
only if they are beautiful, graceful,
and know how to stay feminine.
You may be equal in the eyes of the law but not in ability.
You have never produced a Michelangelo or a Bach
or even a great cook.
Oh, Your Majesty, you said all these things.
So you don't feel that women are, in that sense, equal,
that they have the same intelligence or ability?
- Not so far.
Maybe you will become in the future.
You can always have some exceptions.
- Here and there. SHAH: Yes.
But on the average, when have you produced a top scientist?
- Madame Curie.
SHAH: That's one.
PERSON: You've been successful in getting a great many people
to come on your shows.
What makes them decide,
I'm going to go on Barbara Walters' program,
and I'm not going to go on anybody else's?
- Well, first of all, I had heard sometimes,
oh, she gets this or that interview
because of her contacts.
I wasn't born with contacts. PERSON: Mm-hmm.
BARBARA: I would pick up the phone myself.
I would write letters. I would call.
I would...
I didn't just nag. I nudged.
VICTOR: Barbara's strategy was to prepare the whole world
to be interviewed by her
in terms of her social connections.
She had a Rolodex-- millions of names.
She nurtured those relationships.
DAVID: Hollywood, senators, statesmen, dictators--
they came to her
because she got people's attention
in ways that the Cronkites of the world would not.
MARTIN: Barbara had wide-ranging acquaintances
and friendships.
That was part of her process.
You know, I think Barbara would be friends
with the devil if we'd get the interview.
- His agent said to us, "He won't do it."
I said, "Ask him."
He said, "I tell you, he won't do it."
I said, "Ask him."
VICTOR: Often, I would hear her on the phone
with various celebrities, agents.
She worked it.
- Then I have my tricks, and so that--
DAVID LETTERMAN: What would-- [laughter]
This is what we need to know, Barbara.
What...
VICTOR: And she always said,
no one prepares as much as she does.
No one worries about the work as much as she does.
- Now, where were your cards? - My cards were down here.
VICTOR: When she prepared for an interview,
the whole world stopped
when you were in this session with her.
Nothing could interrupt.
- What did I do with my pen? Oh, damn it.
You got that? Okay.
VICTOR: And she went through hundreds of questions,
and then she, in a moment, said, "That's enough.
We're ready."
- This is 20/20.
[grand music]
VICTOR: ABC launched 20/20
and suggested that Barbara bring her big interviews.
That was really the best place for her,
because it combined news
and pop culture and entertainment.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on 20/20,
a Barbara Walters exclusive.
- Why did you kill John Lennon?
CONNIE: She got all of these incredible exclusives...
BARBARA: You felt sometimes the need
to justify your own existence.
- Ranging from world leaders to movie stars
to a person in the news.
BARBARA: What do you say to people who say,
Dr. Kevorkian, you are playing God?
- A doctor always plays God, even when he gives you a pill.
VICTOR: The ratings were very big with 20/20
because it was the only show like that.
It was really competing with all the big dramas.
On any given night,
10 million, 12 million people would watch.
CYNTHIA: She knew she was in a business.
She wanted to know, as soon as they came out,
what the ratings were, how many people had watched,
because she knew that that kept her at the top.
BARBARA: This adorable baby is two years old.
He has AIDS.
So great is the fear these days
that many people will be concerned
that I am even holding this baby.
CYNTHIA: She tackled some tough issues
in a way that the public never thought about before.
- Does he hit you?
- He shakes. He pushes.
He, um...
he swings.
REPORTER: Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson
reportedly threw chairs through the windows
of his $4.5 million mansion.
Apparently, it was this nationwide interview
with Tyson and his wife that triggered the champ's anger.
- You're sitting here and listening to this.
How do you feel? What do you have to say?
- This is a situation in which I'm dealing with my illness.
And, like, basically, like I said, this is my wife,
and we're dealing with it.
- I think many people went
into every Barbara Walters interview saying,
I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry,
and then, bam,
you end up doing the thing
that you thought you most didn't want to do.
- Why the tears now, Oprah? OPRAH: Well...
She had an intention and...
a reason for the interview.
She was looking to find a vulnerability
that you had not offered to the rest of the world.
At the time you're being sexually abused, you don't know
that's what's happening. - That's what I was gonna say.
I mean when you're a kid-- - Oh, you don't say,
"I'm sexually abused."
This is just something that's happening.
That was the first time that I spoke openly
about being sexually abused.
This was 1988 when that interview was done.
Nobody was talking about abuse.
I was prepared.
I wasn't prepared to go into the ugly cry,
but I knew that if anybody was going to have the nerve
to go there, it was going to be Barbara Walters.
- You were not raped, were you?
- Mm-hmm, I was. - You were actually raped.
- I was raped. - Did you know?
- No, I had no idea.
- What did you think was happening?
- I'll tell you.
I remember being at a relative's house,
and I'd been left with...
a 19-year-old cousin.
And...
He raped me.
He told me that if I ever told,
we would both get in trouble, so I never did.
- You make me want to cry. - Yeah.
For me, it was the...
cracking the shell...
of sexual abuse
and feeling comfortable enough with her
to share that story on national television
with, at the time, 20 million people.
It made it easier to talk about it on my own show
after sharing that with Barbara Walters.
- Thank you, my dear. - Thank you.
MARTIN: Barbara felt that people
looked down on her a bit
because she dealt with celebrities.
Well, those celebrity interviews
brought in terrific ratings and a lot of money for ABC.
- But it really made a lot of more, let's say,
big-J journalists angry.
- And she never believed
that she was accepted in this "fraternity,"
as a "journalist."
- We're going to delete Shell from the second segment.
We'll talk you through this.
VICTOR: There were the anchors, male anchors.
Peter Jennings was the lead anchor
for the evening news for many of those years.
- Good evening.
It was 5:42 in the morning outside...
BARBARA: Peter Jennings always put me down.
I had a very difficult time working with Peter...
very difficult.
I don't think that's why he left, but it played a part.
- Forgive me for interrupting. What about his relationship--
BARBARA: He would interrupt
without any regard for what I said,
and he never took me serious.
Once in a while, he said to me, "That was a good report."
Like, oh, what a surprise.
I was used to working with bullies.
When I stop to think of it as we talk,
he was the third bully that I've worked with--
Frank McGee, Harry Reasoner, Peter Jennings.
It's the way it was thought of then.
The so-called "hard news"...
a woman couldn't do it.
The audience wouldn't accept her voice.
She couldn't ask the tough questions.
She couldn't go into the war zones.
REPORTER: Muammar Gaddafi is
one of the most frightening names in the world today--
the mysterious strongman of Libya.
BARBARA: He's accused of complicity
in terrorist attacks,
including this bombing of a Berlin discotheque in 1986.
An American serviceman was killed.
In retaliation,
President Reagan ordered Libya bombed.
Gaddafi's own home was severely damaged.
PERSON: Okay.
BARBARA: Here I come.
PERSON: Straight through to the corner room
on your left, Barbara.
Stand there, look around, walk out.
DAVID: She was walking with some trepidation
through the ruins of his headquarters
in a Chanel suit that was Barbie pink.
I thought she was embarrassing herself--
too New York, too hot for the desert.
Like, what are you doing?
- Here we go.
DAVID: And then the producer said,
no, she knows exactly what she's doing.
BARBARA: General Gaddafi, I'm happy to meet you.
DAVID: That was her battle armor.
That was saying, "I'm sophisticated,
"I'm culturally important,
"and when the cameras go on,
I'm in charge in this tent, not you."
- You let me know when you are ready, Martin.
I am ready. Roll tape. Let's do speed.
So I will ask questions-- political and about your life.
VICTOR: She was proving
that she should be respected
like one of the guys,
and I think that turned her into a real fierce warrior.
- In our country, we read that you are unstable.
We read that you are mad. - [chuckles]
BARBARA: You know that those things have been printed.
What do you say to that?
MARTIN: She asked tough questions,
but she would be demure about it.
- I would like to be fair with you.
This is a recent report that says
that you are using surrogates to commit terrorist acts.
Would you like to see it? GADDAFI: This is not true.
This is one of the lies.
- Well, we're trying to clear up the lies.
MARTIN: And she was very adept
at folding the personal into the interview itself.
Can you tell us about your childhood,
what you hoped to be when you were a little boy?
- [speaking native language]
- It is so fascinating that she asked
these incredibly powerful men
the simplest of questions,
pressing Gaddafi about his childhood dreams.
You know, those are the kinds of questions
that were so criticized by male journalists--
ugh, frivolous.
I would respectfully disagree.
CONNIE: That's a great way to get to an interviewee.
Make them human, because they are.
- Can I take a picture to give to you of the two of you?
Where's my camera?
Okay, look at me. Right.
No, no, closer to your wife.
There we go. Great.
[camera shutter clicks, film whirs]
CREW MEMBER: Stand by, please.
- So you think you're going to get married again?
DIANA: I'd love to.
- Really? DIANA: Yes.
I don't know where he's at yet, but I would.
- What would you look for?
- Oh, someone that would understand my kind of life.
You know, it's very difficult for a woman in show business,
I think.
BARBARA: Is that what broke the marriage up?
- Um, I think, yes.
- I know you don't want to talk about guys in your life,
and I won't push it.
But you are young. You are beautiful.
You are successful. You are rich.
How are you going to find anybody?
- Uh, anybody like a guy to date?
BARBARA: Yeah.
When I was in my 20s and 30s,
when I should have been dating,
I was working day and night.
I didn't have those kinds of years.
I didn't have those years until I was in my 30s and 40s.
Mine was a very delayed...
[laughs] Romantic period.
- Barbara had her fill...
[chuckling] Of romance.
- [chuckles]
CINDY: She thought a lot of guys were very sexy.
She was interested in the possibility...
- [laughs]
- [laughing] Of sex.
She liked it. She liked men.
- But are you afraid of showing emotions?
CLINT: I don't think so.
There's certain things I just don't enjoy sharing
with everybody else.
What's there to know?
- You would drive me nuts, and I would drive you crazy,
because I would be saying, but, you know, but didn't you
or haven't you or have you?
- Well, we could try it and see if it worked out.
[laughter]
We'll start with this interview.
If this is okay, we get somewhere,
maybe we'll do another interview.
I think we'll stop and reload. [laughter]
LORI: She was never cynical about love,
and she definitely was
a romantic kind of person,
but romance just never worked
in her life for long.
CINDY: She loved being important to a man.
She didn't have patience for somebody who was stupid.
She didn't love you if you were nobody either.
You had to be somebody.
PERSON: Alan Greenspan--attraction?
BARBARA: Because he likes strong women,
and we both love politics.
- What kind of man appeals to you?
- What was beginning to depress me last year is
that I found that I was only getting to like dictators.
[laughter]
There is a certain charm about a dictator.
I think that there are strong women
who are most comfortable with a man who is weaker.
I've never felt that.
- She was obsessed with three things.
She was obsessed with money, fame, and power.
And when I would have conversations with her
about her father--
Her father was a scoundrel.
He was irresponsible with money.
He was not a perfect family man.
A "scoundrel" is actually the right word.
And I think she was both horrified by that
and attracted to that.
One of the things I had the most trouble dealing with
as her editor was her relationship with Roy Cohn.
REPORTER: Roy Cohn may be one of the most feared
attorneys in New York.
Super builder Donald Trump has said,
"If you need somebody to get vicious, hire Roy Cohn."
DAVID: Roy Cohn was McCarthy's fixer.
He was universally disliked.
PETER: I said to her, I would put Cohn in my top 10
of horrible people of the 20th century.
But she loved him.
CINDY: Roy Cohn was famous,
so it was worthwhile for Barbara.
Barbara was famous, so it was worthwhile for Roy.
They were two people who loved PR.
- They talked about getting married.
I have no idea how serious it was, you know.
I would say to her, but, you know, he was gay.
- Did they really do anything together?
I don't think so.
BARBARA: Roy was very well known
and had a great deal of power.
He would take me to the Stork Club,
to some of the great restaurants.
He had fascinating friends.
PETER: She did not have the strongest moral compass.
A lot of the relationships she developed
were career moves,
and she was a pretty transactional person.
BARBARA: When my father lost everything,
he also had not paid his taxes in New York.
And Roy Cohn said, "Don't worry about it.
I will take care of it."
- What we want to do is just chip away at them
little by little.
BARBARA: I don't know how he did it.
I don't know what judges he talked to.
I forgot about ethics.
And I have been severely criticized by my friends,
and I can understand, because Roy did some terrible things.
But this was my father,
and he saved him.
PETER: She didn't see things
in that kind of moral light.
That stuff was always in the shadows.
She could forgive anyone who was really good to her,
no matter what they did in the other parts of their lives.
- The man I was going out with--
is my microphone off?
Is the sound off? I don't want to hear this.
Is the sound off?
The man whom I was going out with last night
is quite well known in the community.
And...
PERSON: John Warner.
BARBARA: John Warner was in and out of my life
since the early 1970s.
We went out a great deal,
then he married Elizabeth Taylor.
CREW MEMBER: Stand by, please.
BARBARA: And I did an interview with both of them.
It was bizarre.
DAVID: Her relationship with John Warner,
one of the great power brokers of Washington--
did that help her land political interviews?
Probably.
I think she cared for him a great deal, too,
but it didn't hurt.
You can never know
about what's transactional and what's not,
but you can wonder.
PERSON: Senator Ed Brooke. BARBARA: Yeah.
PERSON: Massachusetts. BARBARA: Yeah.
PERSON: Married. BARBARA: Yeah.
PERSON: African American. BARBARA: Yeah.
- I just think there should be no ambiguity.
PERSON: Very distinguished. BARBARA: Yeah.
Anything we left out?
- We all said, "Barbara, what are you doing?
This is not quite right."
And she says, "I know,
but he's so exciting, and he's so great."
- Much easier.
- I don't think you could see it from where you're sitting--
It was a very different time.
Had this become public, it would have been something
that a lot of people would not have understood.
It had to be kept secret.
Silent? Okay.
That's very hard for me.
He had a bad marriage.
But I felt that when it began to become public,
it hurt his chances for re-election.
And he was a very good senator.
Okay?
You said, "I know that this marriage will always last.
This man gives me everything I need."
How do you know?
- Well, I need freedom. The man gives me freedom.
- So why get married?
DOLLY: Well, why not?
BARBARA: I was single more than I was married--
0 for 3.
I think I always felt trapped.
I didn't have a very good example of marriage
from my mother and father.
And as soon as I got in it,
I wanted to get out of it.
PERSON: You are married? BARBARA: I am.
PERSON: Your husband, Merv Adelson,
is one of the true powers of television
and the whole show-business industry.
You're in New York. He's here.
- But he comes there a lot. PERSON: But here's a scenario.
- And I come here a little. - Oh.
- Well, it's the price you pay to be with Barbara, but...
- [laughs] - He's not feeling well.
His spirits are down.
You're in New York.
You got three hot interviews you're doing for 20/20.
You have to be on Good Morning America.
The president of some country that's suddenly in the news
will talk only to you.
You got to get on a plane and go over there,
and he's here, and he's saying,
"Honey, I don't feel real good."
What happens to you then?
BARBARA: I feel as guilty as can be.
- With Merv, I mean, she was living in two places
LA and New York.
And the work always took over.
And if it didn't fulfill her completely,
it wasn't worth her time.
- One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
Okay? - Speeding, and any time.
BARBARA: I talk to you as a working mother
who was away a lot, as you were, I guess.
- Yes. - Do you feel guilty?
- Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
You know, this was my lifelong dream.
I wanted to be in movies
and do the things that I've gotten to do.
A lot of people paid the price for it,
but nobody more than my kid.
When they're looking around,
waiting for you to show up on their birthday
and you don't come and you said you would--
you promised, you swore... - Yeah.
[soft music]
I didn't realize how tough it was
because she had a mother who was a celebrity.
We struggled through schools.
And then, finally, at one point,
when she was 16, I guess,
she ran away.
And, finally, when I found out...
Where she was...
I had someone pick her up...
and take her to an emotional-growth school,
which is what it was called.
She was there for three years.
OPRAH: She had a charged, complex relationship
with her daughter.
And, you know, I can see why.
It's one of the reasons why I never had children.
I remember her telling me once that there's nothing
more fulfilling than having children,
and you should really think about it.
And I was like, okay, but I'm looking at you,
so, no.
CYNTHIA: It's important to say Jackie had a father,
and Jackie had a governess.
So it wasn't that Jackie was left alone in a playpen.
Barbara articulated many times
that she had made mistakes as a mother,
that she had made choices for herself, for her work.
PERSON: She'd been running across the country,
hitchhiking with guys you didn't know.
Drugs?
- Almost any pill she could swallow.
Not cocaine and not heroin.
Thank heaven.
LORI: It was a different time.
People wouldn't understand if you said,
something was going on with my child, I can't be there.
And Barbara needed to do what she needed to do
to become Barbara Walters.
OPRAH: You are a pioneer in your field,
and you are trying to break the mold
for yourself and for women who are going to follow you.
Then something's going to have to give for that.
And that is why I did not have children.
I knew I could not do both well.
Both are sacrifices-- sacrifice to do the work,
and there's also a sacrifice to be the mother
and to say, no, let somebody else have that.
And at no time have I ever heard a story, read a story--
and based on what I know of Barbara Walters,
at no time has Barbara Walters ever said,
"No, let someone else take that story."
[chuckles] No.
- Are you a competitive person?
- Yes, I think so. - Is it important to you
to be, say, number one in what you do?
- If somebody gets the interview before me
and I didn't try, I'll be mad at myself.
I'll think, why didn't I?
Why didn't I make that one more phone call?
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News in New York,
this is Primetime.
- Well, good evening,
and welcome to the first Primetime Live
REPORTER: Diane Sawyer is now leaving 60 Minutes
and the CBS network
for a new deal with ABC that will team her
with Sam Donaldson in prime time.
VICTOR: Barbara did not know why Diane was hired
to start a new news magazine within our home of ABC
to compete with 20/20.
There was a lot of talk about that being
a different 20/20, a better 20/20,
a more live 20/20, more energetic 20/20.
Barbara was unhappy.
MARTIN: Barbara saw herself as someone who had helped Roone
elevate ABC News to a pinnacle.
And that had her feeling betrayed
by the Diane arrival.
KATIE: In the '90s, news magazines were all the rage.
They were popping up like crazy.
- Move out of my way! Excuse me!
[upbeat music]
- Did you do it?
KATIE: And big interviews were pursued ruthlessly.
PERSON: You guys, will you go away?
KATIE: Lorena Bobbitt...
REPORTER: She cut off her husband's penis
with a kitchen knife.
KATIE: Tonya Harding...
- I would like to begin by saying how sorry I am
about what happened to Nancy Kerrigan.
KATIE: There were all these big, sensational stories.
JUROR: We, the jury, find the defendant,
Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder.
REPORTER: Two brothers accused of
gunning down their parents...
- That was the period where TV put news into prime time--
tabloid stories that dealt with emotion, controversy.
REPORTER: New details are emerging
about the police investigation of pop star Michael Jackson.
- Her name is Heidi Fleiss,
and she is accused of being the madam
of a high-priced call-girl ring.
- I never, ever abused my daughter.
KATIE: It was a way
to get a lot of attention for a network.
And attention led to ratings, ratings led to dollars,
and dollars led to happy executives.
Diane Sawyer...
- And these were people that you had talked
about helter skelter.
You had told them-- - Sure.
- You told them that to kill others...
- Yes, sir. - Was to give them life.
- Yeah. - Barbara...
- How do you feel when they call you--
- Yeah, Wacko Jacko. Where'd that come from?
I'm not a wacko.
KATIE: Connie Chung...
- Is it true that he threatened to break your legs
and end your career?
- I did one called Now with Tom Brokaw.
We were all in there,
fighting like hell to get these "big gets."
MARTIN: A good get is someone
that everybody else is after, from a movie star...
BARBARA: Hello, Eric. - Hello.
BARBARA: Hello, Lyle.
MARTIN: To a murderer.
BARBARA: He doesn't need powder on his nose?
CREW MEMBER: They say he looks fine.
- The first real big tabloid story
that I think everyone was fighting for
were the Menendez brothers.
- You aren't guilty because they found you spoiled.
- Mm-hmm. Or evil.
- Or evil.
- Just a normal-- I'm just a normal kid.
- Oh, Eric, you're a normal kid
who killed your parents!
- I know.
MARTIN: Barbara had a small team of bookers...
day and night on the phone, in and out of her office.
- I always hated the term "booker"--rhymes with "hooker."
But...
So we went by "editorial producer,"
which sounds much nicer.
[line trilling, telephone ringing]
When a story breaks,
everyone's trying to call these people at the same time.
And the most important thing was to get it first.
We spent a lot of time on the phone, redialing.
Speed dial was a thing back then,
because you could just, like-- [dial tones beeping rapidly]
- You'd get on the phone and schmooze with people.
And a lot of it involved handwritten notes,
sucking up to the assistants.
There probably were fruit baskets involved,
wining and dining.
It was a real courtship.
CHRIS: It was a mad dash
of the bookers trying to go get these interviews,
with millions of dollars at stake.
I remember Primetime and 20/20,
I think at the time,
were making profit of about $100 million each.
- I still sort of have PTSD
when I see a "breaking news" logo.
I hated writing letters to criminals
and murderers especially.
DAVID: Barbara understood like nobody else
how to build rapport.
She would dial the phone.
$5,000 Van Cleef, Arpels earring
would come off the earlobe.
She would put the receiver there,
and then the magic would start.
KATIE: There's something unsettling
about going after people
in their worst possible moment.
I've always tried to do it in a way that's respectful.
I think Barbara was that way, too.
- The thought did go through my mind.
BARBARA: That you wanted to die?
- Yeah, I suggested maybe I should just check out.
And then Dana said to me,
"you're still you, and I love you."
- And the pitch for Barbara was that she'll be fair.
- I've never seen press reporting
as I have with regard to me.
I mean, I wish the public could understand
how inherently dishonest the press is.
- As a member of the press, let me try to clear up
some of the things which you say are untrue.
VICTOR: When that person agrees to do Barbara,
there's a celebration.
And it happened often.
Barbara would run into my office
like a little girl with a new toy.
"Oh, my God, I have to talk to you."
You know, knock on the door.
[knocking on table] We got this!
You know, jumping up and down, giggling.
BARBARA: This is a story
about crime and punishment.
MARTIN: Well, Barbara watched Diane warily,
because she was really in the same altitude as Barbara.
Other correspondents were not a threat.
I think Barbara secretly resented Diane
for being younger.
VICTOR: Roone pitted them against each other...
- Yeah.
- Which was either great management or diabolical.
PERSON: Tell me about the feud with Diane Sawyer.
BARBARA: I don't think Diane Sawyer and I had a feud.
I think people know that we were after the same gets.
ANNOUNCER: The depth and wisdom of Barbara Walters
and Diane Sawyer's warmth and intelligence...
VICTOR: They were on different floors.
Their edit rooms were put aside
to another part of the floor--
you know, North Korea, South Korea.
No members of our staffs talk to each other
about what they were working on.
- It was just a competitive space to live in.
CREW MEMBER: Texas cheerleader...
DAVID: Barbara could be very wily,
and she wasn't above dirty tricks and tactics
that were, in my experience,
beneath some of her competitors,
in particular Diane Sawyer.
- And now the one and only Katharine Hepburn.
CYNTHIA: Diane had booked,
fair and square, Katharine Hepburn.
And Barbara, who knew Katharine Hepburn,
put a lot of pressure on Kate to unbook and go with her.
You know, and Kate said, "No, no..."
[imitating Katharine Hepburn] "I promised Diane,
and I will do it with her."
- How's that for a statement?
- [normal voice] And she did.
- If I showed up on Mars, she would have a note there
with the Barbara Walters stationery...
[laughing] Just requesting an interview
with anybody who might happen to show.
- It's the worst.
- And you see, with us, we're competing with Primetime.
It's not just that we're competing with you.
- It's me, and then-- BARBARA: Diane.
- And then it's you and Diane.
When Roone Arledge came to me and said,
"I'd really like you to come to ABC News,"
I said, "Let me think about that.
Yes."
And I went, thinking,
well, this is very cool.
Barbara Walters is there.
Diane Sawyer is there.
We will be a triumvirate of strong women.
How stupid am I?
Because Diane and Barbara were in this
monstrous battle to win stories,
and I was caught in the middle.
CREW MEMBER: Quiet, please.
CYNTHIA: I never had a conversation
with Diane Sawyer
about her feelings about Barbara.
But I had plenty with Barbara
about her feelings about Diane,
because she was certainly--
[sighs]
Dogged by Diane's very existence.
She often said
Diane was the perfect woman.
DIANE: Yes, I'm ready.
CYNTHIA: She used the word, "a blonde goddess,"
this ideal woman,
and that she, Barbara, couldn't compete with that.
She could work harder, she could know more people,
but she couldn't compete with that...
"the blonde goddess."
VICTOR: She would say, you know,
"Diane is married to Mike Nichols.
I'm not married to Mike Nichols."
I said, "Barbara, you can marry anybody you want."
Her insecurities were really nightmarish.
- What inspired you to go into television?
I mean, did you think, this is what I want to do?
- I was a weather girl. - I know.
- Yes, a very bad weather girl.
CYNTHIA: This has been interpreted, I think,
by a lot of people to say that
Barbara was not good to other women,
and I think that is a canard.
Not at all.
She couldn't tolerate having Diane Sawyer rise
in what she saw as a direct challenge
to what she had accomplished.
What a sadness.
Talk about the death of joy.
PERSON: See you tomorrow, Barbara.
BARBARA: Bye!
CYNTHIA: I think it tore into all of those parts of herself
where she felt as a child she...
was an outsider.
In some bizarre way,
Diane made her feel
all of those insecurities all over again.
If Barbara Walters couldn't see
what she brought to the party,
wow...
let's learn from that, ladies.
[scoffs]
But that drive that had gotten her there, that--
it wasn't a switch she could flip.
She was gonna show them that she was the better woman,
that she was the better booker to get bigger numbers.
[dramatic music]
REPORTER 1: She has never spoken to the public.
REPORTER 2: She is a target in this criminal investigation.
She is under pressures that we probably can't even imagine.
REPORTER 3: No one involved in this scandal
will emerge unscarred.
It begins with a young woman named Monica Lewinsky.
CREW MEMBER: We do have speed. - I'm not ready.
[laughter]
- Sitting down with Barbara Walters
was not on my bingo card for my 20s
for an interview.
So it was the first time
that people heard my voice consensually.
PERSON 1: How you doing, Monica? Monica!
PERSON 2: Monica! PERSON 3: Monica!
You have sexual relations with the president?
BILL: Indeed, I did have a relationship
with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.
MONICA: It's understandable,
with how our news world is set up--
you and your story is a commodity.
PERSON: Back. Move back. [indistinct chatter]
It's interesting to see inside one of these stories
now that I'm out of it and older.
One of the ways
that someone can really lose their narrative
is when you don't engage with the press.
- Relax, people! Relax, come on!
MONICA: Feed the beast--
you know, you have to give them something.
Otherwise, they're starving,
and they're going to say whatever they want.
- Hey, pal, get your arms off her!
Get your arms off her!
- Leave her alone!
BARBARA: It took a full year to get the interview.
- I want some space, God damn it! Back!
BARBARA: And it started with her lawyer,
whom I had to get on my side-- Bill Ginsburg.
- I remember William Ginsburg
would always hold up his phone.
He's like, that's Katie Couric,
or, that's Diane Sawyer.
But I always felt that they wanted Oprah
to do the interview.
OPRAH: We had an agreement with Monica Lewinsky's team,
and then Barbara swooped in
and said to Monica Lewinsky,
"I can give you a better deal.
"I can not only do
"a Barbara Walters prime-time special,
"but I can offer you Nightline.
"I can offer you Good Morning America.
I can offer you--"
And I just had The Oprah Show, so...
I didn't like that.
PERSON: Monica, over here!
BARBARA: It was Dr. Lewinsky's Los Angeles home
that Monica escaped to two weeks ago.
And then I interviewed her father.
MONICA: Barbara's talk with my dad,
it was respectful in a way that...
the foundation of our relationship
was built brick by brick very slowly.
The first time we met,
I remember feeling put at ease quite quickly.
My dad had said that I had always been such a good kid,
like, I didn't do drugs. I didn't steal.
I didn't--you know, I got good grades.
When you think about a kid who gets into trouble,
I was not that kid.
And Barbara, without missing a beat,
she was like, "Next time, shoplift."
[laughing] You know, so those little touches
are all things that made Barbara Barbara.
BARBARA: I thought that I had her trust.
But she had no money,
and she was going to sell her story.
- We were competing with international media.
We were competing with people, ultimately,
that were willing to pay a lot of money for the interview.
- I said, "Your credibility is the most important thing."
MARTIN: It would be a financial sacrifice
for Monica to say, "No, I don't want your money.
I'm going to do Barbara."
So we agreed that we would air in the United States
our broadcast once and only once,
and she was free to sell her story
to international broadcasters.
OPRAH: Because Barbara had been number one,
she had been it,
she had been the madame for so long,
that she saw that as her rightful place in the space.
And if there was something that deserved
a special one-on-one interview,
I think she felt that she was the one
that was supposed to have it.
And 9.9 times out of 10, she got it.
- I felt like, sitting down with Barbara,
it would-- that it would be legitimizing.
You know, there were a number of different layers
and levels of trust
that we had to meet in order to get to yes.
REPORTER: The first television interview
with Monica Lewinsky airs tonight.
It'll be an in-depth two-hour exclusive
with Barbara Walters on 20/20.
- She has done this interview with no payment of any kind,
and we could ask her whatever we wanted.
Monica, this is the first time
that you have really been able to speak out
and say pretty much anything you wanted to say.
- Yes.
I waited a long time
to be able to express to the country...
how very sorry I am
for my part in this past year's ordeal.
Barbara did a wonderful job
of trying to make me feel comfortable,
but I was nervous throughout.
I remember that fat stack of cards,
and I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, how many questions?
I think there were 200 questions.
- I don't want to get too personal, but...
whenever I say, "I don't want to get
too personal, but," then you know--
- [laughs]
- It was an uncomfortable situation.
It was such a delicate dance.
Are you going to be hard on her?
Is she a victim?
Is Bill Clinton a perpetrator?
- The story broke.
Everyone in the country now knew...
Monica Lewinsky. - [sighs]
Unfortunately.
- Barbara tried to walk that line
of being fair to her, being a little tough.
- You were then required to discuss
every intimate detail of your relationship
before a grand jury.
It must have been excruciating.
- It was very, very violating.
Without passing judgment
on whatever bad choices I had made,
I think that she felt that it would be unfair
for this to follow me the rest of my life.
Is this okay so far? - You are wonderful.
You are touching. You are honest. You are--
- Okay. I'm just being me, so-- - I know you are.
I know you are, but I'm telling you, it is wonderful.
CHRIS: Barbara threw a party the night it aired.
I went downstairs to go smoke a cigarette,
and I remember sitting out on Fifth Avenue
in front of her apartment,
and I looked up at all the TVs.
And every single TV
was playing the Monica Lewinsky interview.
BARBARA: It was the highest-rated
news interview of all time.
Nothing has surpassed it.
KATIE: There's a certain feeling you get
when you're watching something,
knowing that everyone is watching the same thing
at that very same moment.
And that doesn't exist anymore.
And I think that's when Barbara was the queen,
getting 70 million people to watch,
everyone processing it at the same time.
- Where do you go from here?
- I don't know.
I think I have...
I have a lot of healing to do.
I think it was important to Barbara
that the interview had been something
that was positive for me.
I just had mixed feelings.
But as terrifying and difficult
as the interview was,
I finished that day having felt seen by her.
BARBARA: Let's stop tape.
CREW MEMBER: Stop recording. Please stop recording.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Barbara, I just wanted to go over
Senator Barbara Boxer with you.
PERSON: You took on a stature
that no other woman in the business has ever had.
- Is she in? - She's not here yet.
She should be here in the next five minutes.
- Son graduated summa cum laude from Ithaca.
- Yep. - Family week.
CHARLES: Arguably,
you are one of the most important people
that have come along in television news.
And at some point, couldn't you say to yourself,
I don't have anything left to prove?
- I always felt I had something more to prove.
PERSON: Okay.
BARBARA: Quick, hurry!
CREW MEMBER: Four, three, two...
- I've always wanted to do a show
with women of different generations,
backgrounds, and views.
This is that show.
The View was my idea.
I didn't know anything about daytime television.
It was a simple idea--
different women of different generations,
sitting together.
You're not married. You're not married.
PERSON: And don't want kids.
- And don't want--all right.
And in its way, it was the first.
- The one thing that you shouldn't take
is stuff from the White House.
- If everyone stole something from the White House, Barbara--
[laughter]
BARBARA: People thought, who wants to listen
to a bunch of women?
I thought, women want to listen to a bunch of women.
I think cards are there for us to take, not silver.
PERSON: Where was it, and how did you steal it?
- I was visiting--
- Excuse me! I'd like to know!
- We talked about relationships.
We talked about pop culture.
We talked about personal stories.
If one of us had a fight with our husband, oh, great,
that's grist for the mill, you know.
- Now you're even getting dates.
You told us you never had dates before.
- I know. I'd always get dumped.
- Not wearing underwear. That's what I do.
It's much easier. What is--
ELLEN: Really? - Yeah, I'm serious.
What is next for you? [laughter]
- You share so much on the show.
[cheers and applause]
LORI: When Saturday Night Live
started spoofing The View,
they knew that they had really made it.
- Ladies, let me tell you--
I haven't felt this girlishly giddy since I was 70.
ANDY: There was absolutely nothing like The View
on television at the time.
It was all about the most controversial topics,
things that you had never seen
women talking about on television.
BARBARA: The two brides are married to each other,
and the men are married to each other.
- And it was fascinating then, and it still is.
- And as you can see, this program is live.
It's unrehearsed.
Sometimes I wish it were rehearsed.
JOY: I think it's very popular because it's spontaneous,
because they don't know what's gonna come
out of their mouths-- our mouths.
I keep forgetting I'm on the show.
Just to hear Barbara Walters say the words "oral sex"
is worth the price of admission.
I mean, you never know what we're going to say,
and I think that that's a very important part of the show.
The arguing back and forth can get out of control.
WHOOPI: What do you call this? - Muslims killed us on 9/11!
WHOOPI: No! Oh, my God!
That is such bullshit!
ANDY: I think it works because it's live, it's topical.
It features women who have very strong personalities,
and there's conflict in every episode.
- You're outraged about--
Muslims killed us on 9/11.
[cheers and applause]
BARBARA: I want to say something.
We should be able to have discussions
without washing our hands and screaming
and walking offstage.
I love my colleagues.
That should not have happened.
JOY: Well, at one point,
we were on the cover of The New York Times Magazine
as the top political show to go to.
- You really think that being on the show
with a bunch of women who never shut up
is going to be calming?
- I was trying to find a show
that Michelle actually watched.
[laughter] And so I thought--
- And this is it. - This is it, right here.
LORI: In the beginning, Barbara was...
much more like Barbara in the anchor chair.
- As you notice, I never give opinions on anything.
PERSON: Oh, no, not ever. - I really don't, but--
LORI: And then over time, she loosened up.
- Okay, I agree with you. Fine.
- Really? Okay. - All right, then.
LORI: She laughed a lot.
We all laughed a lot.
ANDY: It definitely allowed another part
of Barbara Walters' personality to show.
- How would you pick up a man
if you wanted a one-night stand, just for sex, Barbara?
PERSON: The same way you do it.
- How would I pick up a man just for sex?
- I want to know how Barbara--
I want to know how-- because, you know--
- Are you crazy?
- According to surveys, you like a lot of sex, Barbara.
- Here we go. One, two, three.
LORI: She was in her late 60s
when she started The View,
but she was just full of life and energy.
- Oh!
- I think that she wanted this show for her retirement.
She knew that her days were numbered,
and so she wanted a show as she went into her later years.
- She got older on air, and she stayed there.
She would not let anybody kick her high heels off.
ANDY: One of the last times
I guest-hosted The View,
it was the morning after the Oscars,
and Barbara said on the air
that she didn't really get American Hustle.
- You didn't get it? - I did not get it.
- I have to say, a lot of people
of a different generation didn't understand.
Is that bad to say? I mean, no--
- Well, you just said it, so, yeah.
- Soon after I said that, they went to commercial break.
As the camera was swooping around the table,
Barbara is lunging at me,
saying, "How dare you insult me on my own show?"
- I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but...
I got my ass handed to me by Barbara Walters.
I mean, few can say that.
Or maybe a handful...
or more.
- Oh, oh, oh, excuse me...
JOY: Nothing was ever enough for Barbara,
but that was the secret to keep getting better
and striving all the time.
And I think that her personal life suffered because of that.
BARBARA: Young people come up to me and say,
"I wish I could be you.
I wish I could have a life like yours."
And I say, "You have to take the whole package."
I have a daughter whom I adore,
who is simply wonderful and went through--
and she talks about it-- a bad period.
You did this with your child. - Yes.
- To this day-- And my daughter is terrific.
And I adore her.
She's wonderful.
To this day, I feel guilty.
[ringing, indistinct chatter]
CREW MEMBER: Are we ready?
[indistinct chatter]
CYNTHIA: Who's your real mother?
- Barbara.
CYNTHIA: Jackie, Barbara's daughter,
was about as different from her mom
as it would have been possible to be.
Jackie never wanted the spotlight.
So when I got a phone call from Barbara
saying she wanted me to interview Jackie,
I was really stunned.
The more we can forget
that the rest of these people are here,
the more we can just talk the way we would really talk...
- Yeah. - The better this will be.
It was going to be a special on adoption.
Barbara knew I was adopted.
- Why does she look washed out?
CREW MEMBER: Because we're still correcting the pictures.
BARBARA: That's better.
CYNTHIA: It was nerve-racking,
because Barbara was the boss.
BARBARA: No, let me ask the two of you.
- All right, it's your show.
I had Barbara sitting right there
as I'm talking to Jackie right there, and...
I could feel her presence.
What was harder,
being adopted or being the child of a famous woman?
- Oh, being the child of a famous woman, hands down.
Hands down.
CYNTHIA: Because? JACKIE: Because--
and this is where I think the adoption came into play--
I mean, I could be the bum down there
on the street corner's child.
That is not unrealistic.
And here I am today,
made up, dressed up, and it's interesting,
because it's almost like I was pasted into this world.
And yet, I want to be--
I am--
I mean, I don't want to be-- I am so regular.
CYNTHIA: Part of the unarticulated issue is,
Barbara wanted to live at the top of the food chain,
and Jackie wasn't a competitive person.
Did you ever, as a child,
even in anger, say to her, "You're not my real mother"?
- Yes, once.
But I was a pretty bad child.
JACKIE: So I did once, and I felt pretty bad about it.
CYNTHIA: Have you ever said that you were sorry?
- I've said I'm sorry for so many things...
[laughs]
For putting through all that torture.
[laughs]
That's--it's part of it. It's all part of it.
I was sorry for my whole teenage years.
It was awful.
CYNTHIA: I just thought Jackie was wonderful--
very loving towards Barbara, even though...
I knew that she and her mother
had had a really rough relationship
when she was an adolescent.
Did we do what you wanted?
BARBARA: Perfect, perfect, perfect!
[soft music]
Oh, wow.
[laughter]
CYNTHIA: As she got older, I think
Barbara felt that the relationship was shaky.
She didn't tell me enough of the facts
to make me understand why she felt that way,
but it seemed to me
that she felt...
that she and Jackie had fallen out again.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
BARBARA: Look, are there times when I look at people--
I have a friend, for example,
who's got 4 children and 11 grandchildren.
She says, "Look at your life."
And I said, "Look at your life,
I mean, how rich you are."
4 children, 11 grandchildren-- that's richness.
But I don't have that. I didn't take that path.
KATIE: I felt like she neglected her personal life
and poured so much into her work life
that I'm not sure
she was a truly happy person.
And I remember thinking,
I want to make sure that I have a family,
that...
I don't just have a big job.
And I always got the sense that Barbara wishes
she had paid more attention to that.
- I never got the sense from talking to her
that there was one absolute love of her life.
Her job was the love of her life.
I mean, when she would glow,
she didn't glow talking about the men in her life.
She would glow talking about creating The View.
She was as driven a person as I've ever met.
- As a matter of fact, I talked to David Axelrod
and never would go over your head.
When the president was on in July,
I said, we'd love to do something.
OPRAH: I remember having a conversation with her
when they were canceling the prime-time specials,
and she was saying,
"Well, no, we just can't get the numbers anymore."
I think that was really hard for her.
There really is no place for a Barbara Walters...
interview now
because everybody does their own interviews.
Everybody's on Instagram.
Everybody's on social media.
- Is everybody in position?
Are we all ready?
OPRAH: Nobody needs an interviewer
to get them to tell the story anymore,
because they've already told it.
CREW MEMBER: We have some. - Thank you.
ANDY: Barbara Walters was one of the most trusted people
on television.
Times have changed.
There won't be that one person anymore.
CREW MEMBER: Okay, we're just going to roll tape.
Your mic is fine, Barbara. - Okay.
After 25 years--
Ah, blech, let me take that again.
CREW MEMBER: No problem.
- Lucy, after 25 years of doing a weekly series,
you stopped in 1974.
Then what was it like?
You got up in the morning,
and you didn't have to run to work.
- Traumatic. Very.
Well, for the first three or four months,
I was--I was in limbo.
I was just... in shock.
There wasn't anything I wanted to do but go back to work.
REPORTER: After a lifetime of groundbreaking interviews,
ABC's legendary Barbara Walters
is stepping down.
- She wasn't going to retire--
I was about to say "voluntarily," but it's not--
She had no plans to retire, ever.
- It's--it's been wonderful,
and I have very...
mixed feelings, very bittersweet feelings
because I don't know how you say goodbye
to something like 50 years in television.
I just did the David Letterman show,
and we were whispering to each other.
He said, "I don't really want to leave."
I said, "I don't really want to leave."
[laughter]
CYNTHIA: The View had extended her shelf life
for, you know, a good decade.
But, finally, with tremendous anger--
not at anyone
but at the fact that...
it was inevitably going to end--
the dimming of the light...
angry at the dimming of the light.
- Let's raise a glass--
Barbara Walters. ALL: Barbara!
[applause] - Thank you.
- Showbiz, the news was her life.
It's not like she was home, you know,
doing papier-mâché puppets.
[chuckles] You know, she really didn't have a hobby.
- People keep asking me what my hobbies are,
and I think, who has time for hobbies?
My work is my hobby. - Right. No, exactly.
If we love our work,
then perhaps we don't have to have hobbies.
CHRIS: When she got older
and was living in that apartment,
it must have been awful for her.
You know, she wanted to go out and meet a murderer.
She wanted to interview them.
She wanted the sport of it.
That's why she woke up every day.
- We're all set? CREW MEMBER: Yes.
BETTE: She spoke to the leaders of the Free World,
the unfree world-- I mean, power brokers.
I don't really know people like that.
And I think hers was one of the biggest lives
that had been lived up till that time.
CINDY: If you went into her house...
every picture was Barbara Walters with this,
Barbara Walters with that.
Probably Barbara Walters with George Washington.
I don't know.
She knew them all.
- Push down your tie.
What kept you going?
- Drive, some crazed drive, knowing I was right.
DAVID: Television news, it was Imperial Rome.
Infinite resources,
the ability to get anyone, talk to anyone.
She was the epicenter of that.
- You have everything the way you wanted it?
MARTIN: You'd be hard-pressed to find
anything close to the combination
of intelligence and grit...
- Just do a cutaway. Then just do a cut--fine.
MARTIN: And understanding of the medium and of people.
BARBARA: Whatever little success I've had,
you said, I did it myself.
I thought it out, and I listened to my instincts.
BOB: She wasn't modeled after anyone else.
- The night has finally come for me, and...
BOB: I think that's actually something
people don't realize.
She is a role model, but she created the model.
- The fact is that you are the touchstone,
and I don't know a single woman in this business
who doesn't come to you at some time or the other
and say, "Help, help."
- Well, this will be cut out, so thanks a lot.
- This will be cut out. Right. [laughter]
- I need a--an ending.
I would like a nice, warm, sympathetic ending.
[cheers and applause]
[soft music]
♪ ♪
OPRAH: We all proudly stand
on your shoulders, Barbara Walters,
as we honor you.
Please welcome Diane Sawyer,
Robin Roberts, Lara Spencer,
Elizabeth Vargas, Amy Robach,
Deborah Roberts, JuJu Chang,
Katie Couric, Savannah...
LORI: And that day when
they brought in all of those women to salute her
was the most touching, beautiful day
that I could remember.
It was bittersweet.
OPRAH: And I think she knew after a time
that what she had done helped open the door
for women like myself
and every other woman who crossed that threshold.
KATIE: Barbara went through hell getting to where she was,
and I think she wanted to be recognized for that.
And I hope she felt our appreciation,
because I think it was really there.
[cheers and applause, indistinct chatter]
- I'm so proud of you.
You're back at the anchor, and you made it.
I just want to say, this is my--
oh, this is my legacy.
These are my legacy, and I thank you, all of you.
[cheers and applause]
How do you hope to be remembered?
When women say, "Oh, you paved the way,"
I didn't do it deliberately.
I wasn't waving a flag.
I wasn't stomping my feet.
Mostly, I just worked and didn't whine.
But what a reward that is,
to look at all of the women now on television,
in front of the cameras, behind the cameras,
and to feel-- not just in television--
but to feel, maybe...
♪ ♪
Maybe I made a difference.
♪ ♪
That's my ending, folks.
I don't need anything else.
♪ ♪