Audition (102 page)

Not only did I feel I owed her these interviews because of our long-term relationship, I also felt, as I haven’t told you before, that I owed her my life. Well, not exactly. This is what happened. In 1995 I was at a luncheon honoring top women in communications. The lunch was supposed to be over by 2:00 so we could all get back to work, but the event went long, and Oprah was forced to go overtime in her presentation to author Toni Morrison. It was close to 3:00 when I got back to my office, where I was startled to be greeted by my terrified assistants in tears, by the then president and COO of ABC, Robert Iger, and by the police. Seems that while I was listening to Oprah, a freak windstorm had blown a beam off a construction site across the street from my office and sent it crashing through my windows. My desk, which was glass, was shattered by the beam, and my whole office was covered in shards. I don’t want to think what would have happened if I’d been at my desk at the time.

For my television interview with Oprah, her producers asked if my daughter would appear. Jackie, who almost always chose to stay out of the limelight, said yes. She actually has stage fright, so this appearance was an act of love. I laughed when Oprah asked Jackie how she felt about my leaving
20/20.
Jackie responded that she had wanted me to leave so I could have more time for myself. “But the bad thing is,” she said, “she’s going to call me all the time now.”

I especially wanted to do the interview for Oprah’s magazine. I subscribe to
O
and always find many articles I want to read. Oprah flew to New York in August and came to my apartment to do the interview. Everyone in my home loved her—Cha Cha, Icodel, and wonderful George. (George Pineda, who had worked for Merv, became my treasured chief of staff a few years after my divorce. He handles many of my business affairs as well as taking care of almost every aspect of my life.) Oprah was so warm and gracious. We all had our photographs taken with her, and later she signed them individually, placed them in silver frames, and sent them to us. We are true fans.

She and I talked about a variety of things for the magazine, but what affected me the most is the last question and answer. I reprint it here:

O
PRAH:
What does being “Barbara Walters” mean?

M
E:
I’m not sure. I realize how blessed I have been but sometimes I still feel inadequate. I don’t cook. I can’t drive. Most of the time, when I look back on what I’ve done, I think:
Did I do that? Why didn’t I enjoy it more? Was I working too hard to see?

As I said this, I looked up at Oprah and saw that she had tears in her eyes. I had touched a chord. Without any more words, we both knew what we had achieved and perhaps what we had given up. Most hardworking women would understand what we felt.

One of those hardworking women is Connie Chung, who gave a lovely luncheon for me soon after I left
20/20.
Connie invited almost every female television journalist from New York and Washington. Most I knew. There was also a whole new and younger group. During the toasts I heard over and over how I had “paved the way,” “opened the doors,” and “fought the wars” for them. I felt proud and happy…and a hundred years old.

Then ABC gave an official party for me on September 22, two days before I was to leave
20/20.
I thought it would be a smallish affair with publicists and publishers invited because, after all, I was going to continue to do
Specials
and would need to keep up my contacts. I decided, therefore, not to invite any of my own friends who were not in the business. I figured it would be a routine party with a lot of industry people and would bore them. I also told Jackie, who was living in Maine, not to come in for it. “It’s no big deal,” I told her.

The party was held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in one of the cavernous floors of ABC’s Times Square studio, where
GMA
originated every weekday morning. I didn’t want to be the first to arrive, so I came shortly before 6:30 to find the entrance lined with dozens of paparazzi. Were they all there for me? Was anybody else coming? I entered to find the room jammed. People laughing, talking, greeting one another. There were people from every network, and many, it appeared, hadn’t seen each other in years. David Westin, who had been so sensitive to my needs those last months, was at the door, greeting everyone.

All of my colleagues (producers, editors, writers, on and on) were there—must have been a hundred of them—as well as all the ABC correspondents: Peter Jennings, now very warm and gracious, along with Diane Sawyer, Charlie Gibson, Robin Roberts, Elizabeth Vargas, and John Stossel, and all my colleagues from ABC News. Ted Koppel and Sam Donaldson, my old buddies from my earliest days at ABC, flew in from Washington and then flew back the same night. The then secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was there, as were New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Donald and Melania Trump (in happier days for the Trumps and me), and, most touching to me, Christopher Reeve, who came in his specialized wheelchair with his wife, Dana. And there was the mix of Geraldo Rivera, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes (head of the Fox News Channel), Paula Zahn, Connie Chung, Maury Povich, Judge Judy, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, and, of course, all the ladies of
The View.
Henry Kissinger, one of the rare guests not in the business, arrived to join the mix.

Peter Jennings took the microphone and talked about some of the stories we had covered together over the years, starting with Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem in 1977. Peter had been at ABC when I arrived there thirty years earlier. He now saw working with me in a happier light, and with his lovely wife, Kayce, was in great form that night. Who could ever have imagined that the following year Peter would die of lung cancer? His death devastated all of us.

Michael Eisner sent sentimental greetings via tape. Anne Sweeney, the very smart president of ABC, told of being a page at the company years earlier and how she had been told not to approach the “talent,” which was me. Fortunately I had evidently been very friendly to her. Hey, you never know when the page will one day turn up as the president.

Then some surprises. Dan Rather, who had just days before been excoriated by the White House and much of the press for a controversial and, it turned out, inaccurate news report on George W. Bush, braved the waiting line of paparazzi shouting questions at him. So did Martha Stewart, who had been convicted and would soon start her prison sentence. The fact that both Dan and Martha came meant a great deal to me.

Everybody kissed me and toasted me. Do I sound like an awful jerk? Should this have meant so much? I’m not sure, but it did. I felt rather like Sally Field, who famously said upon accepting an Academy Award, “You like me…you really like me.”

When the reception broke up at about 9:00 p.m.—late, as no one seemed to want to leave—I once again walked past the long line of paparazzi. Cameras snapped. Flashbulbs flashed. I laughed and posed. With me were David and Sherrie Westin, Phyllis McGrady, and David Sloan. I invited all of them to the famous restaurant Le Cirque for a two-martini dinner. Finally, thoroughly sloshed, I went home with memories that warm me to this day.

If I had second thoughts about leaving
20/20
, and sometimes in the wee small hours of the night I did, by morning they were gone. Most of what I felt was relief. No more phone calls, letters, arguments, pleas for the next “get.” No more hours and hours of homework each week, except for
The View
and my
Specials.
And then, as the song goes, “The days dwindled down to a precious few,” and it was time to go.

I was hoping that the last interview I would do on
20/20
would be with President Bush. In September, after he had won the Republican nomination for reelection, I had put in a request to interview him. I was told he would consider it. Earlier in the summer, however, I had received a whispered phone call from a woman named Mary Kay Letourneau. She had recently been released from a seven-year term in prison for her sexual relationship with an underage student named Vili Fualaau. (Later they married.) I had talked with Mary Kay years earlier before she was sent to prison, and she told me then that I had seemed sympathetic. She now said, over the phone, that she was considering telling all about her experience before and after her prison sentence and would I be interested in doing the very first interview since her release? I said yes and hoped I could do it in August or early September. But Mary Kay couldn’t make up her mind if she really did want to talk. Finally she did, just a week before my last day on the air. I would have to go to Seattle, Washington, to do the interview, as she was not allowed to leave the state. The way the timetable worked out, it meant that her interview would air Friday, September 24, 2004, my announced last day on
20/20.

While I was weighing this, a call came from President Bush’s office. He had agreed to do the interview with me. Were we ready to commit for next week?

The president of the United States or a convicted child molester? The president? The child molester? The president? The child molester? The powers that be chose Mary Kay Letourneau.

I rest my case.

To Be Continued…

J
UST FOR THE FUN OF IT
I sat down to write this final chapter on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2007. A lot of things came together for me that weekend that, as it has turned out, still hold true. Let me turn back the page.

I had just finished a telephone call with Jackie, who was bringing me up-to-date on New Horizons, her camp in Maine for troubled adolescent girls. The program has been very successful, and I believe that she has saved many a young girl’s life. I am so proud of what she has accomplished. I undoubtedly did some things wrong when she was growing up, but I tell myself that I also must have done some things right to have helped produce this very special woman. I love her dearly and admire her enormously.

By chance I had lunch yesterday with some friends, including a nice man I went out with a long time ago, John Heimann. We used to see each other when Jackie was in her terrible teens. He reminded me of how worried I was about her and about myself back then. If I could have only looked ahead and seen her as she is today. The road has long since smoothed out.

I took a vacation over the holidays and part of it was spent with my close friends Annette and Oscar de la Renta. Oscar is, of course, the famed dress designer, but he also owns a great resort in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Annette and Oscar are the kindest hosts. I have gone to their home every Christmas for many years now.

At night the de la Rentas often invite friends from all over the area. One evening a couple brought their son who was severely mentally and physically impaired. I was used to avoiding films and plays about such children. Although this boy was far more disabled than my sister, I was afraid it might stir up old sad memories. But the point of this story is that I was not upset. My strongest emotion was the compassion I felt for the young man and his parents. I was no longer second-guessing what I might have done or not done about my sister. That road has finally smoothed out, too.

Because I have so small a family, my friends have become my family. That’s why I spend holidays with some of them and, throughout the year, try to see each of them as often as possible. I think a lot of people consider friends to be even closer than relatives. I would list all of my friends’ names, but I am bound to leave some out and that would do more harm than good. I am writing about certain of those friends now because they were the ones I happened to see over the holidays.

After I returned to New York I had a busy weekend. On December 31, I had lunch with my friend Lola Finkelstein, who, you may remember, was with me in Israel twenty-five years ago for Moshe Dayan’s funeral. She now has four married children, eleven grandchildren, and two sets of twin great-grandchildren. She is a very well read and highly intelligent woman. Her great passion these days is playing bridge. Our lives are so different that you may think we would have little in common, but we have so many memories to share and we know each other so well. I tell her how rich she is with such a large, loving family. She tells me how rich my life is with such a fascinating career. We are both right. We also know that nobody has everything. We hug each other and say so.

Earlier this week I also had a New Year’s lunch date with my oldest pal in terms of years of friendship, Joyce Ashley. She is a fine psychotherapist. We have known each other since childhood and gone through marriages, divorces, and all kinds of experiences together. We tell each other, as we often do, how extremely fortunate we are to have the other in our life.

Looking back, which is often what one does during the time of the New Year, I realize how many people have been a close part of my life and for so long. My assistant Monica Caulfield has been with me now for twenty-seven years. She is my right and left arm. I have watched her grow and blossom and marry Billy Dahlinger, such a perfect match. Monica is simply wonderful. She is patient and considerate on the phone, takes old-fashioned shorthand, and has kept my dates and appointments straight for all my different television programs and my private life for over a quarter of a century. I have never seen her ruffled. I trust her judgment in all kinds of situations. I don’t know what I would do without Monica, and I hope I never have to find out.

I have another assistant, named Monique Medina. Monique has only been with me for four years but she is as lovely and calm as Monica. The fact that one of my assistants is named Monica and the other Monique drives people crazy. Someone calls up and says, “Is this Monica?” and the answer is, “No, it is Monique.” So the next time they call, they ask, “Is this Monique?” Answer, “No, it’s Monica.” No wonder they sometimes hang up.

While I am talking about the people I live with professionally practically day in and day out, I must mention once more that beautiful brunette, Lori Klein, who has been doing my makeup now for fourteen years. My on-camera face is pretty much like my off-camera face, only for the past few years, when I am on the air, Lori has given me false eyelashes. They look great, but I can’t put them on by myself, so if Lori glues them on in the evening before I go out, I try to sleep with them in place so I’ll look good the next day. This usually doesn’t work out. I wake up looking cockeyed, with one eyelash on and one off. Anyway, the point of all this is not to discuss eyelashes but to tell you how special Lori is. She is always peaceful, always supportive. Many chapters ago, I wrote about Bobbie Armstrong, my makeup artist during my days on the
Today
show and when I first went to ABC. She was a comfort in those difficult years, just as Lori is today.