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Talking With: Barbara Walters about 'Audition'

Verne Gay

June 1, 2008

Journalist Barbara Walters (AP/Evan Agostini)

Just in case anyone doubts, the lady still has it. When Barbara Walters' memoir, "Audition" (Knopf, $29.95) hit bookstores last month, it immediately shot to the top of the bestseller lists, moving more than 250,000 copies in its first week. Her revelation of a 1970s affair with then- Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke set the Internet and the media abuzz. The memoir brings Walters to Long Island Saturday (see "This Week," left) when she will sign copies of "Audition" at Book Revue in Huntington. Newsday TV critic Verne Gay spoke with Walters by telephone about her publishing coup.

There's been quite a reaction to the book.

This is such a new experience for me, and it's very lovely. My [memoirs] are so very frank, and you don't know how it's going to be received. But the publisher has been thrilled. We've sold an unprecedented number of copies.

Why were you so frank?

I thought, if I'm going to do a book at this time in my life, I've got to be candid so people can relate. People have hard lives; they have to know that mine wasn't always [perfect]. That's why people are buying it - because they can relate.

What's the back story on the book?

I wanted to do a book on my childhood because it's such an interesting - the glamorous part, [daughter] of the most famous nightclub owner in the country [Lou Walters] - and then write about the guilt I felt about my sister [who was mentally disabled]. Then I was going to go all the way up to the big interviews and the difficulties on the evening news with Harry Reasoner and end it with my work on "20/20." They said, "No, you can't do that ... You have to tell us what happened at ABC and 'The View.'"

Why did you decide to write about your father's suicide attempt?

I had to explain why it was that I had to support my whole family, and the ups and downs of his life. I think when I realized how much I did love him, the fact was that, while I was still in my 20s, I supported my family members, and if I didn't like the job, that was too bad. I had to work, and maybe that's where the drive came from.

You got a lot of flak for revealing your affair with former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke. Why court trouble when you could have said nothing?

The woman he divorced was happily remarried and is now departed; he did know it was going to be put in ... I put it in because it was an important relationship, but also because it was 31 years ago. Had it come out then that this was an African-American, it would have ruined my career and his. It wouldn't today.

You write about the friction with Diane Sawyer over interviews and how she had boosted her ability to score high-profile interviews when she assumed her co-host role at "Good Morning America." Wasn't "The View" an effort on your part to level the playing field?

"The View" was done by the entertainment department and had nothing to do with what I was doing at "20/20." I never thought it would be so successful. But it's a daytime entertainment show and has nothing to do with ABC News. Diane and I were very unhappy with the competition we were forced into. People loved the idea of The Feud, but it made for unhappy times, this whole business of getting the next big "get." I had done 25 years on "20/20" and just didn't want to do it anymore; Diane left "Primetime" to concentrate on "GMA."

I have to ask you about Rosie because everyone else has, right? So - what happened? I wanted Rosie to come back. It was her decision to leave. We are a very effective team. We really are. ... Rosie has said that her mistake was that she wanted to control the show, and it was very difficult for Bill and for our editor and some of the other people. We went through a very hard time. All of us. But that was yesterday.