Latest news with #BarbaraWaltersTellMeEverything
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
Barbara Walters biggest interviews revisited, from Monica Lewinsky to the Menendez brothers
Barbara Walters had a trailblazing, decades-long broadcast journalism career that was most defined by the interviews she did with newsmakers and celebrities alike. Over her 50-year television career, Walters, who died in 2022 at the age of 93, interviewed thousands of people, including everyone from Fidel Castro and Barbra Streisand to the Kardashian sisters, Vladimir Putin, Lady Gaga, Saddam Hussein, Monica Lewinsky, Robin Givens and Mike Tyson, Bashar Al-Assad and the Menendez brothers. A new documentary looks at Walters' life and career and shows the impact those interviews had on the world. "She asked the question that nobody else had asked, and asked it in a way that always hit a nerve," Oprah Winfrey says of Walters in the documentary, "Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything," streaming June 23 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. "No one ever got out totally unscathed," journalist and friend Cynthia McFadden says in the documentary of Walters' interviews. Bette Midler, herself the subject of Walters' interviews over the years, says of Walters' style, "She was fearless, and sometimes she got under people's skin." In the documentary, Victor Neufeld, a senior executive producer who worked with Walters for years on ABC News' "20/20," details how diligently Walters prepared for each interview. "When she prepared for an interview, the whole world stopped when you were in this session with her. Nothing could interrupt," Neufeld said. "She went through hundreds of questions and then she, in a moment, said, 'That's enough. We're ready.'" Take a look back at some of the most memorable interviews of Walters' career. Fidel Castro In 1977, Walters traveled to Cuba to interview Fidel Castro, then the country's Communist leader. The nearly five-hour session became one of the most memorable moments in Walters' career, and in broadcast journalism history. "It took us many years to actually get it," Walters told ABC News' Byron Pitts in 2016 of the interview. "For a man who likes to talk, he does very few interviews. When he finally sat down, it was, for me, memorable, and to a large degree because we crossed the Bay of Pigs together." Nearly 30 years later, in 2002, Walters interviewed Castro for a second time. "It wasn't as important an interview, I didn't think, or as exciting an interview because a lot had happened and we'd learned a great about him that we hadn't known," Walters told Pitts of the second interview. Monica Lewinsky In 1998, Walters sat down for an hours-long interview with Monica Lewinsky about her relationship with then-President Bill Clinton while she was a White House intern. After Walters' death in 2022, Lewinsky posted a tribute on social media, writing, in part, "I remarked that this was the first time I'd ever been in serious trouble. I'd basically been a good kid – got good grades, didn't do drugs, never shoplifted etc. Without missing a beat, Barbara said: Monica, next time shoplift." Katharine Hepburn Walters' interview with actress Katharine Hepburn in 1981 became famous for a single question. After Hepburn told Walters she felt like a strong tree at her age, Walters replied, "What kind of tree are you?' The question became fodder for late-night show jokes for years. In 2006, Walters herself described it as one of her biggest mistakes in the special, "The Barbara Walters Special: 30 Mistakes in 30 Years." "Starting out at number 30 in our countdown, and it's a big one, never ask anyone what kind of tree they want to be," Walters said in the special, which aired on ABC News to mark the 30th anniversary of Walters' career. Erik and Lyle Menendez Walters traveled to California in 1996 for the biggest interview get at the time, an exclusive jailhouse interview with Erik and Lyle Menendez after they were found guilty of murdering their parents. In the interview, the brothers discussed with Walters the closeness of their relationship, and how that may have played a role in their parents' murder. Lyle Menendez said the killing of his parents 'happened, in part, because Erik Menendez wanted, needed my help' and blames himself 'for not protecting him earlier.' In another moment, Walters pressed Erik Menendez when he described himself as "just a normal kid." "I'm just a normal - I'm just a normal kid," he said, to which Walters replied, "Oh Eric, you're a normal kid who killed your parents." "I know," Erik Menendez said. Clint Eastwood In 1982, Walters interviewed actor Clint Eastwood. The two shared a flirtatious moment that caused Walters to jokingly call for a break in the interview. After Eastwood told Walters he is not one to share emotions easily, Walters responded to the Hollywood superstar by saying, "You would drive me nuts and I would drive you crazy because I would be saying, 'But, you know.'" Eastwood, sitting close to Walters at a picnic table in a field of wild flowers, then told her, "Well we could try it and see if it worked out." After a quick laugh and a second of silence, Walters looked off-camera and said, "I think we'll stop and reload." Discussing the interview clip on " Good Morning America" in May, co-anchor George Stephanopoulos noted, "That's the only time I've ever seen Barbara Walters blush." Bashar al-Assad In 2011, at the age of 82, Walters traveled to Syria to interview Bashar al-Assad, the then-president of Syria. The interview took place during an escalating civil war in Syria and al-Assad's first American interview. Walters pressed al-Assad on the uprising and whether he felt "guilty" for the deaths in his country. "You don't feel guilty when you don't kill people," he told Walters.
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
Bette Midler reflects on Barbara Walters friendship
"GMA" has an exclusive clip from the documentary, "Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything," premiering Monday, June 23 on Hulu. Lara Spencer reports on the buzziest stories of the day in 'GMA' Pop News. June 20, 2025
New York Post
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Why Barbara Walters was 'threatened' by Diane Sawyer: doc director
The interviewer is now the subject. Legendary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, who died in 2022 at age 93, takes center stage in the new documentary 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything (premiering Monday, June 23 on Hulu and Disney+). Directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Jackie Jesko, the program offers a comprehensive look at Walters' trailblazing career, and her life from her early years until her retirement. Advertisement 'This isn't a hagiography, and it was never intended to be,' Jesko exclusively told The Post. She added, 'I think with someone like Barbara, people know that she was a difficult person and a complicated person, and it would be ridiculous to make something about her that didn't include that.' 9 The 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything' documentary poster. Hulu Advertisement 9 Jackie Jesko attends the 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything' premiere during the 2025 Tribeca Festival at SVA Theater on June 12, 2025 in New York City. Getty Images for Tribeca Festival 9 Barbara Walters says farewell to live daily television in May 2014 on 'The View.' ABC The doc covers Walters' career beginnings as the first woman to co-anchor a national news show on prime time television, her early struggles in the boys' club environment in the 1970s, her rise to 'Today,' '20/20' and 'The View,' her famous interviews, her friendship with controversial figures like Roy Cohn, and her tumultuous personal life, including her rocky relationship with her daughter, Jackie Guber. It also covers her contradictory attitudes of embracing her position as a mentor to women – but viewing Diane Sawyer as a rival. Advertisement 'I thought it revealed a lot about Barbara and sort of what made her tick and what she was insecure about,' Jesko told the Post, referring to her tension with Sawyer, 79. 9 Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer at the annual gala of the Museum of Television & Radio at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1996. 2.11.96 9 Barbara Walters at the beginning of her career in the 70s. HULU 'I do understand that it makes sense that Barbara would have been extremely threatened by Diane Sawyer,' she said, adding that Sawyer had as much talent as Walters, but was also 'beautiful' in the way that 'Barbara wished she had been.' Advertisement The film includes numerous voice covers from archival footage of Walters. 'You probably catch in the film that she talks about herself as ugly kind of a lot, which is really quite shocking when you see the photos and videos of her or so when she was much younger. You're like, 'Wow, you were absolutely beautiful. What are you talking about?'' 9 Barbara Walters interviews Monica Lewinsky on 20/20 in 1999. ABC 'But I think that she didn't match the beauty standard of the 60s, which was much more Diane Sawyer than it was Barbara Walters,' Jesko explained. 'Her whole life, she always felt lesser than in some way. And for a mix of reasons, Diane brought that out in her.' Interviews include Oprah Winfrey, Connie Chung, Katie Couric, Joy Behar, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Bette Midler and Monica Lewinski (who was one of Walters' major 'gets' for a sit-down). 'I hadn't realized exactly how much Barbara had impacted her life – Oprah saw [Walters] as a roadmap for herself. I found it touching, and I found that really interesting,' said Jesko. 9 Barbara Walters sitting with Oprah Winfrey in 1999. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images 9 Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner on ABC news in 1976. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Advertisement The director wasn't shocked by any information she found, but she was fascinated by Walters' friendship with controversial lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn – who was most recently dramatized by Jeremy Strong in the 2024 movie 'The Apprentice.' 'It was very revealing that she was so close to this man, and that she didn't seem to mind a lot of the things he did, which were terrible in his life… she stood by him even at the time when it was very disadvantageous for her to do so.' She added, 'So, theirs must have been a true friendship on some level.' 9 Barbara Walters on 'The View' in 2014. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Advertisement The film, however, doesn't cover Walters' declining health, such as her reported dementia before her death. The reports were never confirmed. 'When you do celebrity films about someone who's passed away, it's always like, okay, are you doing cradle to grave? Where do you want to end the story? And we weren't sure at the outset where we wanted to end the story,' Jesko explained to The Post. Capping it with Walters' onscreen retirement from 'The View' in 2014 – when two dozen women in journalism came to pay tribute to her – made the most sense. 'I didn't really see a strong reason to keep the story going at that point in time,' Jesko explained. 'It felt like an ending.'
a day ago
- Entertainment
Barbara Walters' success was fueled by personal struggles, documentary director says
Barbara Walters had a legendary 50-year broadcast career fueled in large part by the private struggles she faced behind the scenes, according to the director of a new documentary on her life. In the documentary, "Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything," the late journalist herself describes the struggles her family faced, particularly her father, Lou Walters, a nightclub impresario who owned the Latin Quarter, a club in New York City's Times Square. "My mother had no means of having a livelihood and my nightmare was that my father was going to lose it all," Barbara Walters, who died in 2022 at the age of 93, says in archival footage shown in the documentary. "He was a gambler by nature. He gambled on cards, and eventually he gambled on the Latin Quarter. And after years of success, he had nothing, nothing." She continued, "My father was in great despair, and he attempted suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills. I was in my 20s, and I had to support my whole family. I had to work at a time when many women of my generation were not working." Barbara Walters' forced responsibility of having to provide for her family -- which included an older sister with a disability -- was a pressure that led her to great professional success, according to Jackie Jesko, who directed "Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything." "Her dad goes riches to rags story, and then Barbara -- and this is at a time few women worked at all -- she becomes the breadwinner for the family, and I think that pressure really propels her for the rest of her life," Jesko said Wednesday on " Good Morning America." Jesko said she had 50 years of archival footage of Barbara Walters to draw from for the documentary, which begins streaming June 23 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. To begin to tell the story of the life of the trailblazing journalist, Jesko said she looked to Barbara Walters' own memoir, "Audition," as a blueprint. "Her own book, 'Audition,' was kind of our guide. I wanted to know what was important to her. What were the career highlights that really stood out to her?" Jesko said. "That was really, really helpful." Barbara Walters joined ABC News in 1976, becoming the first female anchor on an evening news program. Three years later, she became a co-host of "20/20," and in 1997, she launched "The View." In a career that spanned five decades, Walters won 12 Emmy Awards, 11 of those while at ABC News. She made her final appearance as a co-host of "The View" in 2014, but remained an executive producer of the show and continued to do some interviews and specials for ABC News.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oprah Says Barbara Walters' Struggles With Motherhood Made Her Never Want Kids
Oprah Winfrey is opening up about the many ways her 'mentor' Barbara Walters impacted her life, both personally and professionally. In the documentary 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything,' due out later this month on Hulu, Winfrey recalls witnessing Walters' 'charged, complex relationship' with her daughter, Jacqueline Guber. 'It's one of the reasons why I never had children,' Winfrey, who has been in a relationship with partner Stedman Graham since 1986, explains in the film. 'I remember her telling me once that 'there's nothing more fulfilling than having children, and you should really think about it.' And I was like, 'OK, but I'm looking at you. So, no.'' Walters, who died in 2022 at age 93, adopted her daughter with then-husband Lee Guber after several miscarriages. But as 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything' shows, Walters had a difficult time balancing parenting with her high-profile career in television. Growing up, Jacqueline Guber often butted heads with Walters, and experienced drug and alcohol addiction. As a teenager and young adult, her relationship with her famous mother often was strained. In an interview with People published this week, former NBC correspondent Cynthia McFadden recalls Walters being 'very regretful about her family life.' 'She couldn't understand someone like Jackie, who wasn't racing to the top. They were just so dispositionally and physically unlike each other,' McFadden explained. 'It was a struggle. That's not to say they didn't love each other, but it wasn't what she'd hoped for, and probably not what Jackie had hoped for either.' In the documentary, Walters acknowledges that 'people are more accepting' of working parents these days compared to when she was raising a young child. 'You can bring your kid to the office. In those days, if I had brought Jackie into the studio, it would be as if I had bought a dog who was not housebroken,' she said. Though Jacqueline Guber mostly avoids the spotlight, she operated New Horizons for Young Women, a Maine-based therapy program for at-risk female teens, from 2001 to 2008. In 2008, she told Glamour she and Walters 'have come to appreciate each other's quirks.' 'If my mom wasn't my mom, I would still want to be her friend. That says a lot,' she said. 'We believe 100% in each other, and I think that that's what love is all about.' Directed by Jackie Jesko, 'Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything' premiered Thursday at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. Early reviews of the film have been positive. 'It's a documentary a lot like its subject,' Variety wrote, 'sharp and inquiring in a playful way, and enthralled by fame, money, and power.' Oprah Appears To Diss Absent Broadway Legend At The Tony Awards Oprah Winfrey Responds To Claims She Was Paid 'Personal Fee' To Endorse Kamala Harris New Book Reveals Stunning Misconduct And Dysfunction At ABC's 'The View'
