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Summary
Author Notes
Barbara Walters was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 25, 1929. She earned a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College in 1951 and began her television career in the publicity department of an NBC affiliate in New York City. She went on to produce women's programs for an independent television station and later wrote and produced news and public affairs programs for CBS.
In 1961 Walters became a writer and reporter for the NBC television show Today. She was a regular panel member on the show from 1963 to 1974, when she became co-host. In 1976 Walters signed a then-record $1 million contract and moved to the rival ABC network as correspondent and the first female co-anchor of network evening news. In 1979 she began her 25 years as co-host of the television news magazine 20/20. She is also known for the Barbara Walters Specials, an irregularly scheduled celebrity interview series, as well as her participation and patronage of the daytime women's talk show, The View. She was a contributor to the magazines Good Housekeeping, Family Weekly, and Reader's Digest, and in 1970 her popular book "How to Talk to Practically Anybody about Practically Anything" was published. She has also written the autobiography "Audition."
In 1975 Walters was named broadcaster of the year by the International Radio and TV Society. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards and the GLAAD Excellence in Media award. Walters received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2007 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women's Agenda in 2008. In 2009 she was honored at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. Although Walters writes, It was not in my nature to be courageous, to be the first, her compulsively readable memoir proves otherwise. No one lasts on TV for more than 45 years without the ability to make viewers feel comfortable, and Walters's amiable persona perfectly translates to the page. She gives us an entertaining panorama of a full life lived and recounted with humor and bracing honesty. Walters is surprisingly candid: about her older sister's retardation, her father's suicide attempt, her midlife affairs (including ones with John Warner--before and after his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor--and a very married Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction), her daughter's troubled teen years and her acrimonious relationships with coanchors Frank McGee and Harry Reasoner. She vividly recounts her decision to leave NBC's TodayShow after 14 years to become the first female nightly news coanchor, and tells of the firestorm of criticism she endured for accepting that pioneering position and its million-dollar salary. Alternating between tales of her personal struggles, professional achievements and insider anecdotes about the celebrities and world leaders she's interviewed, this mammoth memoir's energy never flags. 32 pages of photos. (One-day laydown May 6) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Audition might seem an odd title for this long-awaited autobiography. After all, who is more established in the public's mind than the iconic Walters? But that's what is so terrific about this book. Walters really does let readers see what's behind her TV persona, and in many ways, what she reveals is an insecure woman whose life has been one audtion after another. The daughter of a night-club impresario and a mother who wanted a more stable life, Walters moved a lot, ever the new kid. But the greatest influence on her young life was her mildly retarded sister, who evoked in Walters both love and guilt. Her family's ups and downs led her to believe that one day she would be financially responsible for them, and that eventually happened. But as Walters makes clear, this insecurity is also what propelled her forward; her strong work ethic and some good timing also helped to shape her amazing career. However, all that success came at a price. It affected her marriages and her daughter, and it engendered amazing hostility from male colleagues unwilling to give this pioneer a break. For readers of a certain age, much of the pleasure of the book comes in remembering along with Walters: her star interviews, her trip to the Bay of Pigs with Castro, her talks with kings, queens, and presidents. Then there's dish on what really happened behind the scenes at The View. A smart, funny, fascinating book in which Walters captures possibly her most elusive subject: herself.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN 1980, Barbara Walters was about to report that Ronald Reagan had selected George H. W. Bush as his running mate when another reporter at another network beat her to it. Walters says she "nearly went crazy" after losing "the scoop of the whole convention." Her colleague George Will simply looked at her "with disdain" and declared, "It's only television, Barbara." Heresy. "Audition" tells of a life lived on, in and never far from TV. This bulky memoir weighs in at more than 600 pages, falling midway, bulkwise, between "Oblomov" and "Ulysses." Unlike Marion (Molly) Bloom and Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, however, Barbara Jill Walters has never been content to lie around in bed all day. She's a woman of action who doesn't let anyone push her around - not Harry Reasoner, not Omar Torrijos, not Rosie O'Donnell (well, maybe Rosie). The book is so chock-full of news and quasi entertainment that it's tempting just to start quoting some of it, even if out of context (kind of like running attention-grabbing promos for a prime-time magazine show): "I developed the bladder of a camel." "All I could think of was Nietzsche's belief in a superior being." "The swami was sitting on the floor in the lotus position, playing with his toes." "The Bay of Pigs was a pick-me-up for everyone." "I sometimes said, 'Enough with the penises.'" "Mrs. Clinton is quite small on top but rather large in the hips." The last one was not lifted out of context. "Audition" could just as easily have been called "Ambition" or, if the title hadn't already been taken, "My Struggle." Life has not been kind to Barbara Walters. Wait a second - is that true? Hasn't it been generous to a fault? You be the decider: Her father, Lou Walters, was a vaudeville impresario and later the owner of the Latin Quarter, the well-known nightclub. "By the time I was born in Boston (I am now in my 70s and that is as specific as I will get)," Walters writes, "my father had lost his first fortune." He was rarely at home. Her mother, on the other hand, was always there, caring for Barbara's older sister, who was developmentally disabled. "But the cancan girls changed our lives forever," as the Latin Quarter made her father "rich and famous." They lived in a mansion in Miami Beach (Al Capone was a neighbor), later moving into "a magnificent penthouse on Central Park West" ("We would live in a series of penthouses over the years"). The family attended the opening nights of "Oklahoma!" and "South Pacific" and, in her Sarah Lawrence days, went on a "grand tour of Europe": "I got hit on there by the notorious playboy actor Errol Flynn, but I paid him no mind. He was way too old." During college she "definitely enjoyed the stirrings of my sexuality" (I don't want to know), but didn't lose her virginity until sometime later, with a balding, flabby boss (I said I didn't want to know). Walters with Fidel Castro, above, in 1977, and Sylvester Stallone, below, in 1988. Granted, the semi-absent father and the lecherous movie star are a little troubling, but it doesn't sound like a hard-knock life. Anyway, in 1961, at the age of something or other, she found a job as a writer on the "Today" show, eventually making it onto the air. Hugh Downs was "wonderful to work with," but Sander Vanocur was a pill. Not until 1974 did she finally receive the treasured title of "co-host," after the death of the official host, Frank McGee, an even bigger pill. There were a few bad marriages along the way, but they flit by like irritating commercials. Some nasty things were also happening in the world, but they are nicely emblematic of the rumblings at NBC: "I followed the 1973 war closely. ... On the domestic early-morning television front, I was having my own little battle." Two years later, domestic hostilities had increased: after discussing her interviews with Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, she points out that morning TV was then having "its own little war." In her early 40s, Walters began "experiencing what I had never really known before - fun and romances." She was seeing several men, including Alan Greenspan. What's that? you say. Hooking up with Alan Greenspan is fun? Apparently he's very sweet and takes care not to bore people: "He could and did listen to my worries and complaints for hours and never talked to me about his own." And, as we now know, she had an affair with Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction and a married man ("forbidden fruit and all that"). Walters with Fidel Castro, above, in 1977, and Sylvester Stallone, below, in 1988. Walters jumped to ABC in 1976, signing a contract that would make her the first female co-anchor of a network news program and, at the same time, "the million-dollar baby." But before she even got there, "the future looked very bleak." She must have sensed that Hawwy Weasoneh would be the biggest pill of all. Also, her new network was somewhat undignified: "How could I have left one of the world's greatest news divisions and my sunny office overlooking the famous skating rink at Rockefeller Center, and at Christmas-time, the giant tree, to come to this third-rate, nothing building?" Much worse, Howard Cosell worked at ABC, and he depressed her. Somehow, despite the disastrous gig on the evening news, Walters began to thrive. She was soon interviewing "the most important, charismatic and controversial leaders of the time." Amid the glamour, though, there was heartache. "The Hardest Chapter to Write" is about her relationship with her daughter, Jackie. At 14, she fell in with boys from the 84th Street Gang, which sounds tougher than the Jets but less scary than the Sharks. Jackie started taking "all kinds of pills" and ran away a few years later. Her mother wound up sending her to a school in the Midwest that "didn't stress academics": "By strict rules, many hugs, outdoor wilderness activities and a great many group experiences, it attempted to inspire in the kids a feeling of personal identity and self-esteem." Things ended happily, and the two of them got to rehash it all on "Dateline." Before we reach Page 400, Walters announces, "I think that is enough about my personal life." Already? Do we have nothing to dread but Star Jones and Elisabeth Hasselbeck? Fortunately, there are many more fascinating people to come, including Qaddafi ("absolutely stunning"), Cher (a "delight to talk to" - who knew?) and Bill Clinton: "I never experienced his renowned sex appeal. He never sparkled with me." She also once rubbed noses with the Dalai Lama, but doesn't say whether he sparkled. In the prologue, Walters recalls that during her years on the "Today" show she would leave her building at 5 a.m. every day, usually with a garment bag. Outside, the "ladies of the evening" thought she was one of them, only more successful. "I would get into this long black limousine with its uniformed driver, and we would glide off into the early-morning light. And you know what effect all this had on the ladies? I gave them hope. Perhaps this book may do that for you." On behalf of the millions of people who have been on the streets of New York at 5 in the morning and know what it's like to give hookers false hope, I'm happy to say: Mission accomplished. David Kelly is an editor at the Book Review.
Library Journal Review
Listeners have two recordings of Walters's 580-page tell-all from which to choose. The abridged version is read by the media personality herself, and other than affording listeners her authentic voice, complete with her trademark lisp, this version is not worthwhile--lasting just six hours, it omits massive amounts of information; notably, Walters's affair with former senator Edward Brooke. In the unabridged version, Bernadette Dunne does a fine job as a surrogate for Walters. The quality of both versions is excellent, and both are appropriate for audio and biography collections in all types of libraries. The unabridged version is recommended for purchase, though some collections may warrant the abridged, CliffNotes edition. [Audio clips available through www.booksontape.com and www.randomhouse.com/audio; the Knopf hc, released in May, is an LJ Best Seller, a title most borrowed in U.S. libraries.--Ed.]--Nicole A. Cooke, Montclair State Univ. Lib., NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Excerpt from the Prologue Back in the sixties, when I was appearing daily on NBC's Today show, I was living on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. My apartment was across from Carnegie Hall and on the corner of a very busy street. It was also near several large hotels that catered to businessmen. Perhaps because of this, the corner was the gathering place for some of the most attractive "ladies of the evening." Each morning at five o'clock I would emerge from my building wearing dark glasses, as I hadn't yet had my makeup done, and I was usually carrying a garment bag. It seemed obvious to the "ladies" that there was some big "number" I had just left. Now, bear in mind that, even then, I wasn't exactly a spring chicken. But I would emerge and look at the young ladies, some of whom were still teenagers. "Good morning," I would say. "Good morning," they would answer. And then I would get into this long black limousine with its uniformed driver, and we would glide off into the early morning light. And you know what effect all this had on the ladies? I gave them hope. Perhaps this book may do that for you. So here it is, the whole package, from the beginning. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
