Barbara Walters Opens Up On Her Disabled Sister, Rosie, And Why She's Different Than Katie Couric

Barbara Walters, who last week announced that she had an affair with Senator Edward Brooke in the 1970s (the announcement will air on Oprah tomorrow) and whose book, Audition, is published this week, has given several interviews lately to hype her book.

In an interview with the New York Times' Bill Carter, she explained what distinguished her from Katie Couric: she had a largely terrible experience at the "Today" show:

Among the worst was the high-handed disrespect of Frank McGee, the anchor of "Today" when she was emerging as a well-regarded reporter on a program that had previously designated its female contributors Today Girls. Mr. McGee went to NBC management and demanded that she not be allowed to ask any questions of serious newsmakers but be relegated to the "girlie interviews."

"I always had this policy: work hard, don't whine," Ms. Walters said. "This was one of the few times I had the gumption to say: After what I've done, you can't do this to me."

Begrudgingly NBC agreed to allow Ms. Walters to ask the fourth question after Mr. McGee had had the first three.

That restriction led her to do interviews outside the "Today" set, and she went to China with President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. (Mr. McGee's comment: "China's not far enough.") Later she memorably moved herself center stage during the Mideast peace talks between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, "the most interesting time of my career," she said.

By then she was at ABC News after a bitter parting from "Today." She said, "Unlike Katie, there were no going-away parties for me," connecting her departure to become the first woman on an evening newscast to the current situation of CBS's Katie Couric.

The Carter interview also reveals that Barbara Walters and Edward Brooke have corresponded about her announcement of their affair, and that he sent her a "very nice note."

In an interview with the AP, Barbara explained her complicated relationships with both her sister and her former co-host, Rosie O'Donnell:

Her display of equanimity includes Rosie O'Donnell, a panelist last season on Walters' weekday ABC chat show, "The View," who routinely picked fights with her fellow panelists and the world beyond.

"We had our ups and downs," Walters said, "but I have enormous affection for Rosie, and I think she's a great talent."
...

Growing up, she found her insecurity was made all the worse by her older sister, Jackie, who was mentally disabled. In that less enlightened era, Jackie's condition had a spillover effect on Barbara, stigmatizing both of them in the eyes of other kids.

"It was a lonely, isolated childhood," Walters said.

The complicated feelings that churned long after her sister's death in 1985 inspired "Audition."

Comments

[ViperVera]

You are all full of crap.
Barabara Walters got the Senator's permission before she published and he is happily married now to someone else.
I see that the misogynist rants against Ms. Walters continue on here - but she was a pioneer for women, when womwen couldn't aspire to anything but secretaries or housewives.
I am glad for my neices that someone like Barbara Walters existed.
She could easily have relied on her family reputation to just hang out and be a socialite like the conservative Pat Buckley etc.
She didn't - she went to work...and did damned well for herself.

[ObamaEdwards]

When I was a teenager I read Walters' book about interviewing--How to talk to practically anybody about practically anything. That's where I discovered the art of the open-ended question. Today I watch TV interviewers and they are dreadful! So many fall into two categories: those who only ask questions that can be answered with a "yes" or "no," and those who answer their own question while asking it (Charlie Bigmouth Rose is TV's best example of the latter). Where is the art of conversation? Read that book, if you want to know how to keep an interview fresh and lively, and get your subject to say things they would not tell anyone else.

[FastMovingCloud]

I would add that Chris Matthews gives Charlie Bigmouth Rose a run for his money in the "answering the question by asking it" category. Sometimes, Matthew's questions go on so damned long, there is no time left for the interviewee to respond!

[CapitalCat]

Maybe Babs should read the book as well. It was actually ghost written by the late Toronto journalist June Callwood, who penned many a celebrity "autobiography" in her day.

[jojojo]

actually, no. She wrote the book, then told him that it was going to be published. That's far different from "getting his permission."

And did she get the ex-wife's permission or let her know? Oops, never thought of that, I bet!

Anybody, male or female, who writes this kind of crap to sell books is pretty smarmy.

Calling Babs on it is not misogynist, any more than it would be to call Brooke on it if he wrote about it to make money.

[BarryLeonardini]

Barbara Walters! Close your legs no body cares.

Barry Leonardini

[bigironal25]

Why doesn't this dried up old witch retire?

[hjo4]

Miss Walters have proven herself to be a classless, tasteless woman who is also homewrecker.She comes from a time and place where one kept ones private affairs just that private, she knows better than to reveal this affairf .Is she that desperate for money and more fame that she's openly admit she played a part in destroying another persons marriage.Miss Walters is aged , low class trollop.

[Midnightrain]

Or at least that she'll do anything, including putting her asexual image on the line, for high book sales. Who cares if she had an "exotic" escapade. That's an old story. It's 2008 for cryin out loud! She's not the only one to ever sleep with a married black man ... it's non-story.

[jojojo]

Babs kept quiet about being a homewrecker until she could use it to sell books, then threw Brooke under the bus. Nice!

[ylpatriot]

Bingo !

[BarryLeonardini]

KIss and sell.