Audition

by Barbara Walters

  The frightening thing was that I agreed that my career might well be over. Everything I had worked for all these past years now was crashing down because of my bad judgment. I told myself that I should never have taken the chance. Was it ego? Was it too much ambition? I wondered if ABC was going to ask me to resign. I posed the question to Lee Stevens, and although he assured me that wasn’t going to happen, even he didn’t sound too convincing. If I was asked to leave the broadcast, what was going to happen to the family I was supporting, my mother and my sister in their Miami apartment, my father in the expensive nursing home, and my daughter, Jackie?

  Jackie. My solace when I came home after the broadcasts. She had no idea what was going on. To her I was the same mommy I’d always been. Zelle and Icodel were also pillars of strength. “You were wonderful tonight on the news,” they’d tell me when I opened the door to the apartment, limp with discouragement. I remember being so far down one night that I told Icodel that I couldn’t go back to work the next day. “Oh, yes, you can,” she said. “You’re going back there tomorrow. I said a prayer for you last night. You’ll see. You’ll win.”

  There were some female journalists who, bless their hearts, began to rally behind me. I was very touched when Sally Quinn, long since back at the Washington Post as a feature writer, leveled her sights at Harry in Time magazine. If anyone should be thrown off the show, she said, it should be Harry Reasoner. “He’s insulting her on the air. He’s being rude and sarcastic and putting her down.” Even Richard Salant, the president of CBS News who had questioned at first whether I was a journalist or Cher, was sobered by my negative press. “She’s taking an awful licking,” he said.

  On and on it went for months on end. There was rarely a day without some opinion, pro and con, usually con. But what set me up for quite some time was the telegram I received out of the blue from a man I had never met. It said simply, “Don’t let the bastards get you down,” and was signed “John Wayne.” I felt as if the cavalry was coming.

  But the horses weren’t fast enough.

  Thank Heaven! The Specials

  WHATEVER MADE ME THINK I could do even one interview Special a year, let alone four, for ABC’s entertainment division in addition to my other assignments for the news division, including moderating Issues and Answers at least once a month? During the contract negotiations I had been so preoccupied with the whole idea of coanchoring the news that my yes to four Specials not only went unnoticed by the press, it went unnoticed by me.

  In retrospect the whole idea was insane. No one had attempted hour-long, prime-time interview Specials before. For good reason. A one-hour Special had to have at least two and, better, three major interviews that were exclusive, otherwise, they wouldn’t be special. My agents and ABC had come up with the idea to find a way to pay me the extra $500,000 a year. We all downplayed it because the big story was my doing the news. Now I was stuck. Where would I find the time? More than that, where would I find the people to interview?

  I had no idea how hard it was going to be until I had lunch in July 1976 with Sue Mengers, the foremost movie agent at International Creative Management. To this day, although long retired, Sue Mengers is a legend in the business. Smart, tough, and funny, she is also brutally honest. Her major client then was the formidable Barbra Streisand—and that’s who I wanted on my first Special. Furthermore I wanted to do the interview in Streisand’s home.

  “It will never happen,” Sue said. “Not in a million years. No stars are going to let you and your cameras into their homes. Edward R. Murrow may have done it years ago, but it was a novelty then. Those days are over. No star is even going to sit down and do an interview with you.”

  In desperation I persisted. As it turned out, Streisand was the executive producer and star of a major film scheduled to open on December 17: the third version of the famous movie A Star Is Born. Streisand had recast the movie as a rock musical and was portraying Esther Blodgett, the movie’s central character, played twenty-two years earlier by Judy Garland, winning her an Academy Award nomination. The role of Norman Maine, Blodgett’s doomed husband, was being played by singer Kris Kristofferson. Streisand had written several new songs for the movie, and most important, her boyfriend, Jon Peters, who had formerly been her hair stylist, was the producer.

  For these reasons Sue Mengers convinced Streisand—and Peters—that a big super-duper prime-time Special would be just the ticket for her to publicize the movie. Streisand also agreed that we could do the interview from her sprawling ranch in the hills of Malibu. What could be better? Streisand was a huge attraction and rarely did interviews. Her romance with Peters was the subject of much speculation. Everybody wanted to see them together, and now they would.

  There was only one precarious condition. Streisand insisted that she have total control over what went into the final piece. Now remember, this Special was under the entertainment division. Had it been under news I would not have been able to give her permission to edit it. But ABC News didn’t seem to object back then, and I was so thankful that Streisand had agreed to let me do the interview that I wasn’t going to take the chance of losing her. I knew that Streisand was considered a control freak, but I was so sure she would be happy with the piece that I signed on. (Yup, just as I was so sure that Harry Reasoner would get to like me.)

  On September 25, less than ten days before my debut on the news—and, coincidentally, my birthday—I was in California taping the interview with Streisand and Peters. It would not be aired until December 14, at which point I would be officially at ABC. It was a long, long day but I felt that things were going well. Streisand, as much of a perfectionist about her home as she was about her career, took us all through the house, much of it decorated in the art nouveau style. She showed us the pattern of the rug she had designed herself and then, picking it up, pointed out that the floor beneath had exactly the same design. We also went through her beautiful garden. Streisand knew the Latin name of every blossom and shrub. She was particularly proud of her camellias—Camellia japonica.

  The interviews themselves, with Streisand and Peters sitting side-by-side, were revealing. She spoke honestly of how cruel people could be to her. “People come up to me and say, ‘Hey, your nose is not that big.’ They treat performers sometimes as if they’re not alive. It’s a painful feeling because it’s like I’m not a human being.” (I could certainly relate to that.)

  Peters, too, spoke candidly. When I said that many people felt he was only a hairdresser who had never produced a film before and that he was just a hustler who latched on to a star (I really did say that), he admitted it was true. “I was a hairdresser, and I’ve been a hairdresser for seventeen years. And I’m also a hustler. I hustled my whole life to get what I want. And as far as latching on to a star, it’s true that from the professional side, I could never have produced this movie without Barbra.”

  The two also professed their devotion to each other. Streisand said she loved Peters because “he deals out of positive vibrations…and I’m very negative.” Then she sang the theme song she’d written for the movie, “Evergreen,” which would win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. All in all I thought the interview came off just fine.

  But then, as the old-time comedians used to say, “Folks, you ain’t heard nothing yet.”

  After we finished taping we all sat down together to review the entire unedited interview—Streisand, Peters, me, Marty Erlichman, Sue Mengers, two representatives from the Warner Bros. movie studio (one from production, one from publicity), and my producer, Lucy Jarvis, and associate producer, Joanne Goldberg, both of whom I’d worked with at NBC on the Royal Lovers Special. It was then that I realized what torture I was in for. Each person in the room had a different opinion about what should be left in or taken out. Lucy, Joanne, and I sat in Streisand’s living room looking at each other in growing despair. This was not going to work.

  So I tried a different tack. During the interview I had asked Streisand about her reputa
tion as a perfectionist and prima donna. She’d responded: “It’s because I am a woman that they say those things about me. Everybody sets me up to be a target.” I reminded her of those words and asked that Lucy and I be allowed to start the editing on our own, promising all the others that we would discuss what we were doing as things went along.

  From that time on there was rarely a day or night without a phone call from California. When it wasn’t Barbra it was Marty Erlichman, and when it wasn’t Marty it was Sue Mengers. What lines was I using? What was in? What was out? Did I get the right close-up of the camellias? When was I going to show them a rough edit?

  There is a three-hour time difference between Los Angeles and New York, but nobody in the Streisand camp worried about that. I got phone calls at midnight, at 1:00, at 2:00 in the morning. I argued, debated, cajoled, and finally agreed to whatever I could without hurting the interview. I had to. If Streisand did not approve of the changes we made, she could refuse to let the piece run.

  I am a very hands-on editor myself, and I oversaw each line and picture being used. I continued to make the changes Streisand was demanding until the day it went on the air—literally. I would have been frantic had I not already been frantic over the evening news.

  Since that time I have done four more interviews with Streisand and had more or less the same experience with the phone calls. She is so talented and so great a star (and besides, I like her personally when we are not working together) that I was happy to do them. But—and this is a huge but—after that first Streisand interview, I learned an extremely important all-time lesson: Never again would I allow her, or anyone else I was interviewing, to have control over anything I was putting on the air. Some would try, citing the Streisand example. Too bad, I’d say. Never, ever, again.

  The concept I had of the Specials was a format that would feature at least one celebrity and one political figure, a formula similar to some future newsmagazines. So I was very pleased that President-elect Jimmy Carter agreed to sit for an in-depth interview for that first Special. After the torture with Streisand the interview with Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, was a romp in the park, or rather, a romp in Plains, Georgia.

  I had first talked with Carter back in 1974 on the Today show when he was unknown to most Americans but had nevertheless decided to throw his hat in the ring and run for president. He was the governor of Georgia then, a former peanut farmer and naval officer who had risen up the political ranks through state politics.

  At first people really did say, “Jimmy who?”—especially since he never used his full name, James Earl Carter. This, too, was rather refreshing. The Today interview was brief—most morning-show interviews were and are—but I was impressed. He was a small man who radiated a quiet confidence. He had a friendly smile, although his eyes bulged a bit. After the darkness of Richard Nixon and the awkwardness of Gerald Ford, Carter had an air of simplicity and authenticity. I thought to myself that he might even make it all the way to the presidency.

  I followed his race carefully and once, when he was campaigning in Florida, I went there to report on his progress. I tied this to a visit with my parents and brought my daughter with me. I have a sweet photograph of Carter, sitting on the floor with eight-year-old Jackie, talking in a very serious way with her. Jackie promised to vote for him.

  So I was looking forward to our interview. It took place a month after the election, in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. The entire phone book for Plains and its neighboring towns was only forty-five pages long, and the listings for Plains itself were just a page and a half. Plains didn’t even have a restaurant until the presidential race brought so many journalists to town that one simple eatery opened.

  The interview was held in the Carters’ unpretentious four-bedroom brick house, surrounded by a wooded grove. Carter said he had constructed much of the living room furniture himself. As we sat on the couch he had built, he told me, “I never have had a doubt that I would be elected. I never have reached a single day in my life when I felt that I would lose.” An interesting statement of confidence from a one-term governor of Georgia who had come from such inauspicious roots.

  Then I stuck my foot in my mouth. The outgoing president, Gerald Ford, had talked publicly about bringing his own bed to the White House for him and his wife, Betty, and I asked Jimmy Carter if he’d be bringing his own bed. Sounds cheeky, but it didn’t seem that way at the time. And neither Jimmy nor Rosalynn Carter seemed the least bit taken aback by the question. So, with some embarrassment, I pressed on. “Do you sleep in a double bed or twin beds?” I asked. “Double bed,” Carter replied with a smile, looking at his wife. “Always have. Sometimes we sleep in a single bed…but it’s much more comfortable in a double bed.”

  I cringe now at this exchange with President-elect and Mrs. Carter, but it made them very human. It also painted an accurate picture of their close relationship, which would become apparent to everyone over the next four years.

  But I was roundly criticized for my Carter bedroom revelation. John O’Connor, the respected television critic for the New York Times, called it an “exploitation of personal and intimate details” and pronounced it “pointless, if not ludicrous.” But that criticism paled before the wrath that greeted the way I ended the interview.

  Carter would shortly be leading this country, which had been so torn apart by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, and I said: “Be wise with us, Governor. Be good to us.” “I’ll try,” he replied.

  Photo Insert 1

  My maternal grandparents, John and Celia Seletsky with their daughters Dena (standing) and Lena

  Typical Latin Quarter finale

  Mom, Dad, and the Duchess of Windsor when the Latin Quarter played in Nassau

  Mother, father, and sister Jackie, around the age of twenty

  My sister Jackie

  My adored cousin Shirley and her husband, Irving Budd

  My sister Jackie, my father, me, my then husband Lee Guber, and my mother, late 1960s

  With Lee and baby Jackie

  Jackie and I—sweet memories

  Merv Adelson and I on our wedding day, May 10, 1986

  With Mademoiselle Therese de la Chappelle (“Zelle”), my daughter’s beloved governess and then mine

  With Icodel Tomlinson. What would I do without her?

  Jackie today

  With President Nixon in China in February 1972

  Dancing with President Ford at the White House, 1976

  Interview with President-elect and Mrs. Carter, December 1976

  On President Reagan’s ranch in 1981

  With President Reagan and his wife Nancy in 1986

  With President and Mrs. George H. W. Bush, 1989

  On Air Force One with President Bill Clinton, 1996

  With President-elect George W. Bush at his Texas ranch two days before he left for his inauguration, January 15, 2001

  With Prime Minister Golda Meir on the Today show, 1973

  My friends Raquel and Moshe Dyan in 1974

  First joint interview with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel in Jerusalem, November 1977

  The shah of Iran in his opulent palace, 1977

  With King Hussein and Queen Noor in 1978

  With Yasir Arafat in Lebanon, 1996

  In Mu‘ammar Qaddafi’s tent in Libya, January 23, 1989. I was in pink and he was in green and white.

  Crossing the Bay of Pigs with Fidel Castro, May 19, 1977

  Fidel Castro signed the Cuban Constitution for me the night of our interview.

  Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom I admired, at 10 Downing Street, 1987

  China’s leader Jiang Zemin in 1990

  With President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in March 2007

  Henry Kissinger and me when I was not interviewing him

  In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with General Norman Schwarzkopf for the first interview he did after the First Gulf War, 1991

  The note from President Ge
orge H. W. Bush to General Schwarzkopf on the eve of my visit to Saudi Arabia

  One of many notes from Princess Diana

  Rubbing noses with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in 2005

  Interview with Truman Capote, December 1967

  My mother, Bing Crosby, and I, May 1977

  Having a chat with John Warner and Elizabeth Taylor at their farm in 1977

  To this day I don’t know what possessed me to say that. Why didn’t I just ask him to read us a story each night when he tucked us into bed? Now, in my faltering defense, if Walter Cronkite had said the same thing in his baronial Uncle Walter tones, people might have said, “What a nice ending.” But if I was in trouble before, you can imagine what the reaction to that exchange was. I was killed by the critics. How dare I say something so corny, so stupid, so personal, and, of course, so female?