Latest news with #TellMeEverything
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Two new documentaries show what it takes to make it to the top of the media industry
– To the top. At the Tribeca Film Festival in New York last week, two new documentaries aired that, while wildly different, had something in common. Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything and Call Her Alex, the two-part documentary about podcaster Alex Cooper now streaming on Hulu, both showed what it took to get to the top of the male-dominated media business—in two very different eras. Tell Me Everything traces the story of Barbara Walters, the first woman to co-anchor an evening news program in the U.S. She made her debut in that role on ABC in 1976, breaking the hardest glass ceiling for women in journalism and television. The film by director Jackie Jesko follows the barriers Walters continued to break, from her famous celebrity sitdown interviews to her late-in-life reinvention on The View, alongside her personal struggles. While she married, divorced, and had a child, her personal life often suffered, the documentary observes. 'Her job was the love of her life,' one talking head says on camera. 'She was an incredibly ambitious woman who loved the work, loved being on TV, she loved the thrill of the chase, she loved the competition,' says Jesko. 'She got a lot of joy out of it—and it doesn't always have to be a huge personal life that brings someone joy.' Jane Rosenthal, the cofounder and CEO of the company behind the Tribeca Film Festival, adds: 'We grew up with her—and you didn't realize what she was really doing as a woman, that she was the only woman in the room, the kind of fights that she had to have.' Still, other era-defining women in media, including Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric, reflect in the documentary about how seeing Walters' path influenced their own choices. Couric says she knew she didn't want to sacrifice her family life for her career, after seeing Walters. Which brings us to the next Tribeca documentary. Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy and media mogul behind the Unwell network, has often been called the millennial or Gen Z Oprah. In Tell Me Everything, Winfrey remembers watching Walters to learn how to succeed as an on-air journalist. Without Barbara, there would be no Oprah. And without Oprah, there would be no Alex. Cooper built Call Her Daddy within Barstool Sports, another overwhelmingly male-dominated media company. Her new documentary traces her upbringing, an experience of sexual harassment in college that she now says motivated her to never be silenced again, and the rise of her podcast. Several decades after Walters' career, Cooper doesn't have to make the same trade-offs that Walters did. Her husband is her business partner. While Walters struggled with private insecurity about her appearance, another topic of Tell Me Everything, Cooper shares her most personal experiences and challenges with her audience. 'She didn't just build an audience, she built a movement,' Rosenthal said while introducing Call Her Alex. Rather than being beholden to someone else's platform—like a television network—Cooper has been able to build her own. Despite all these obvious differences, watching the films back-to-back, it's clear Cooper and Walters have a lot in common. 'I'm a competitive mother*******,' Cooper says. 'I'm hard on myself.' As much as the media industry has changed—the drive it takes to get to the top hasn't. Emma The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune's daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today's edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on
Los Angeles Times
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Before social media, Barbara Walters said ‘Tell Me Everything.' And many did
There is no single figure in television history whose longevity and influence match Barbara Walters'. She became a star on NBC's 'Today' in the early 1960s, raising the stature of the morning franchise. She opened doors for women as a network anchor and turned newsmaker interviews into major television events — 74 million tuned into her 1999 sit-down with Monica Lewinsky. She created one of daytime TV's longest-running hits with 'The View,' which evolved into a major forum for the country's political discourse. 'The audience size that Barbara was able to capture and harness is unmatched in today's world,' said Jackie Jesko, director of the new documentary 'Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,' debuting Monday on Hulu after its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month. 'Everything she did sort of made a difference.' Jesko's feature — produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Documentaries and ABC News Studios — is the first in-depth look into Walters' storied career. The film also serves as a sweeping historical review of the decades-long dominance of network news that made figures such as Walters a gatekeeper of the culture, as Jesko describes her. Before the advent of social media and podcasts that allowed celebrities to control their messages, going through the X-ray machine of a Barbara Walters interview delivered exposure on a massive scale. David Sloan, a longtime ABC News producer who worked with Walters, recalls how the screen images of her specials flickered through the windows of Manhattan apartment towers. 'Tell Me Everything' came together not long after Walters died at the age of 93 in 2022. Sara Bernstein, president of Imagine Documentaries, approached Betsy West, executive producer and co-director of the Julia Child documentary 'Julia,' about taking on a Walters project. Sloan, who oversaw an Emmy-winning tribute after Walters' death, also wanted a deeper exploration into the impact of her career. West, also a former Walters colleague, and Sloan became executive producers on the film. 'Tell Me Everything' taps deeply into the ABC News archives, which contain thousands of hours of interviews Walters conducted over her 40 years at the network. Imagine not only gained access to program content but also outtakes that give parts of the film a cinema vérité-like look at Walters on the job. The newly unearthed footage provides some surreal moments, such as Walters — in a pink Chanel suit — exploring the damaged palace of Libya's deposed leader Moammar Kadafi. 'The archive gave us a the perfect canvas to relive her scenes and her moments,' Bernstein said. Walters' story also gives a guided tour of the obstacle-ridden path women faced in the early days of TV news when it was dominated by patriarchy and self-importance. Female reporters were relegated to writing soft features and kept at a distance from hard news. But Walters shattered those barriers through her grit and wits. She toiled as a writer in local TV and a failed CBS morning program before landing at NBC's 'Today' in 1961. ('They needed someone they could hire cheap,' she said.) Walters went from churning out copy for the program's 'Today Girl' to doing her own on-air segments, including a famously beguiling report on a Paris fashion show and a day-in-the-life look at being a Playboy bunny. More serious assignments came her way. The morning viewing audience loved Walters even though she didn't believe she was attractive enough to be on camera. Her career trajectory was slowed down only by male executives unwilling to embrace the idea that a woman could be the face of a network news operation. By 1971, Walters was the main attraction on 'Today' when she sat alongside host Frank McGee every morning. But she was denied equal status. A respected journalist with the demeanor of an undertaker, McGee insisted to management that he ask the first three questions of any hard news subject who appeared on 'Today' before Walters could have a chance. The restriction led to Walters going outside the NBC studios to conduct interviews where her subjects lived or worked. The approach not only gave her control of the conversations but added a level of intimacy that audiences were not getting elsewhere on television. Walters also had written into her contract that if McGee ever left 'Today,' she would be promoted to the title of co-host. NBC brass agreed to the provision, believing McGee was not going anywhere. But McGee was suffering from bone cancer, which he had kept secret. He died in 1974 and Walters was elevated to co-host, making her the first woman to lead a daily network news program. (Or as Katie Couric candidly puts it in the film, 'She got it literally over Frank McGee's dead body.') Walters made history again when she was poached by ABC News in 1976. She was given a record-high $1-million annual salary to be the first woman co-anchor of a network evening newscast, paired with Harry Reasoner, a crusty and unwelcoming veteran. Walters was mistreated by her colleague and roasted by critics and competitors such as CBS News commentator Eric Sevareid, who, with disgust in his voice, described her as 'a lady reading the news.' The evening news experiment with Reasoner was a short-lived disaster, but Walters found a supporter in Roone Arledge, the ABC Sports impresario who took over the news division and had an appreciation for showmanship. He recognized Walters' strengths and made her a roving correspondent. Walters scored a major coup in 1977 when she was the first TV journalist to speak jointly with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. 'She was a household name in the Mideast,' Sloan said. Over time, Walters would become known for her prime-time specials, where lengthy interviews with world leaders aired adjacent to conversations with movie stars. She could be a blunt questioner in both realms, asking Barbra Streisand why she chose not to get her nose fixed and former President Richard M. Nixon if he wished he had burned the White House tapes that undid his presidency ('I probably should have'). News purists clutched their pearls, but the audience welcomed it. 'She had a vision back then that celebrities are news,' said Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger in the film. 'She was practicing the art of journalism when she was interviewing them.' The film explains how Walters developed an understanding of celebrities after growing up around her father's nightclub, the Latin Quarter, a hot spot in Boston. Sitting in the rafters above the floor show, she observed how audiences responded as well. Even though Walters' programs earned significant revenue for ABC News, she still had detractors, including the network's star anchor Peter Jennings. A clip from the network's political convention coverage in 1992 shows Jennings surreptitiously flipping his middle finger at her following an on-air exchange. But Walters was unstoppable, and as the 1980s and 1990s progressed, she became a mother confessor for perpetrators and victims of scandal. During a memorable jailhouse meeting with the Menendez brothers in which Eric describes himself and Lyle as 'normal kids,' a stunned Walters replies, 'Eric, you're a normal kid who murdered his parents!' As always, she was speaking for the person watching at home. 'She always wanted to ask the question that was percolating in the brain of someone who didn't have the opportunity or was too afraid to ask,' said Meredith Kaulfers, an executive vice president at Imagine Documentaries. Walters became a pioneer for women broadcasters out of necessity. While in her 20s, her father's nightclub business collapsed and she became the sole source of financial support for her family, which included her mentally disabled older sister. The terror of the insecurity she felt during that period never left. 'There was a survival instinct in her that drove her,' said Marcella Steingart, a producer on the film. 'Not necessarily on purpose, but in her wake, she opened doors for people.' 'Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything' is not a hagiography. The film explores her fraught relationship with her adopted daughter Jacqueline, who did not sit for an interview. Walters' unhealthy obsession with colleague and rival Diane Sawyer is covered, too, as is her willingness to use the social connections she developed through her career, and not just to land big interviews. Walters had a friendship with unsavory lawyer Roy Cohn, who pulled strings to make her father's tax problems go away. She carried on a secret romance in the 1970s with a married U.S. senator — Edward Brooke — while she was a fixture in national political coverage. While the film draws on interviews where Walters laments not being able to have both a successful career and a family life, Jesko sensed no regrets. 'I think if she could live her life over again, she wouldn't change anything,' Jesko said.
New York Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
New Barbara Walters documentary tells the story of my dear friend
Up close 'View' on Barbara Barbara Walters left us at age 93. Her Tribeca Festival and Imagine Entertainment documentary 'Tell Me Everything' is on Hulu June 23. As teenagers, we'd meet steadily in her father Lou Walters' B'way nightclub the Latin Quarter. Me dating his club's star. She in college. Both of us nobody. In larger life, we lived near one another. We traveled together. I have her Bulgari wristwatch and two mink jackets. Together we sold her diamond jewelry. Her housekeeper now works for me. Once I had her favorite Chinese restaurant charge $1,000 takeout to me. Another birthday, $1,000 in pantyhose. Advertisement I had dinners, lunches with her. My driver Jose drove her. We shared the same doctor. People magazine quotes me: 'She didn't love you if you were nobody. You had to be somebody.' Visiting me was always in hat and dark glasses. Her Havanese dog was named Cha Cha. Summers we'd visit her Hamptons rental. We did Iran, Israel, Argentina, Italy and another dozen countries together. Taking one Italian steamship trip. She to make a speech. Me her Plus One. On our way, a doctor gave me Ambien to sleep. Five milligrams. Airborne, I took a second pill. Forget it. My head fell inside our scrambled egg breakfast. The crew had to tie me to a wheelchair. Up the ramp as the ship's captain saluted Barbara, the crew needed to strap me in and push me. Thrilled Barbara was not. Advertisement Our dining table was in a protected area so nobody'd bother us. Know that a nearby table of 10 shouters were knocking Barbara. We heard. I didn't know what to do. Barbara knew. Finishing dinner she walked over and told them she'd heard every word they said. Three of us friends were buying contiguous homes together in the Plaza Hotel's newly renovated apartment wing — Barbara, Joan Rivers, me. We'd have each other's keys. Always be together, safe, never alone. One by one that idea would not work. Sara Bernstein — behind my own Imagine Entertainment doc and always knows what she's doing — was involved in this one. Advertisement Vocab lessons Forgotten words: I never forgot them because I never knew them. Now they're yours — lotsa luck. Hoddypeak: A fool or simpleton. Cockalorum: Boastful person. Advertisement Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Jobbernowl: Ignorant person. Twattle: Idle gossip. Ill-willie: Meanie. Peregrinate: Wander around. Cacafuego: Talks big but doesn't listen. Bletheration: Foolish talk. Advertisement Opsimath: One who learns late in life. Gobemouche: One believing anything they hear. MSNBC anchor: 'We knew the show was in trouble when we found 50% of the studio audience wasn't even listening.' Only in the USA, kids, only in the USA.
New York Post
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
What ‘insecure' Barbara Walters was really like off-camera — and how she convinced Oprah Winfrey not to have kids
Barbara Walters was the first million-dollar woman on TV. But behind the scenes, the legendary interviewer and 'The View' founder was a difficult and calculating star who did not have 'the strongest moral compass,' according to her book editor Peter Ethers. 'She was obsessed with three things: She was obsessed with money, fame and power,' he reveals in a new documentary 'Tell Me Everything,' streaming June 23 on Hulu. 15 Barbara Walters worked tirelessly to become the first million-dollar woman on TV. Bettmann Archive 'A lot of the relationships she developed were career moves, and she was a pretty transactional person,' Ethers added of Walters, who passed away in 2022 at age 92. This included striking up a relationship with Donald Trump's mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, who helped get her father's tax evasion charges dropped. Even though Cohn was gay, the pair considered getting married. 'Roy Cohn was famous, so he was worthwhile to Barbara,' Post columnist Cindy Adams, one of Walters' closest friends, says in the documentary. 'Barbara was famous so it was worthwhile for Roy. They were two people who loved PR. 'Did they really do anything together? I don't think so,' Adams says with a chuckle. The film unites colleagues and friends to speak about the woman who made it her business to talk to everyone from Taylor Swift to Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon to Monica Lewinsky — subjects who were not always happy with the turns Walters's interviews could take. 15 Walters and notorious lawyer Roy Cohn considered marraige — even though he was gay — a new documentary reveals. Penske Media via Getty Images 15 Oprah Winfrey reveals in 'Tell Me Everything' how Walters' life made her not want children. Harpo Productions But her fame came at a price, as she sacrificed much of her personal life for her career. 'I used to say to her all the time, 'I wish you could enjoy your success as much as the rest of us.' I don't think she ever did,' former 'Nightline' co-host Cynthia McFadden, a longtime friend of Walters, told The Post. 'Like many people who rise to the top, Barbara really had two competing drives,' McFadden added. 'She was unbelievably self confident. She had nerves of steel — she could not have done what she did otherwise. But she was also deeply insecure about what she should wear, where she should eat, where she should go. 15 Walters adopted Jackie with her former husband Lee Guber in 1968. 15 The pair had a fraught relationship through the years, but friends said they loved each other. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images 'That combination kept her in a highly competitive state and sometimes she was not able to enjoy her success. That's, to me, so sad. I was certainly proud of her, but I don't think she ever felt she'd arrived.' Oprah Winfrey, who followed in Walters' footsteps by elevating the celebrity interview to an art form, reveals that watching Walters with her adopted daughter, Jackie, helped her decide not to have children. 'She had a charged, complex relationship with her daughter and I could see why. It's one of the reasons why I never had children,' Winfrey says in the film. 15 Walters started her TV career as a 'Today Girl' at NBC, where she was not allowed to ask one question until her male co-host had asked three. Bettmann Archive 'I remember her telling me once that 'There's nothing more fulfilling than having children' and 'You should really think about it,' Winfrey recalls. 'And I was like, 'OK, but I'm looking at you -— so, no!'' McFadden told People it was Walters's own relentless ambition that complicated the relationship with Jackie, now 56: 'She couldn't understand someone like Jackie, who wasn't racing to the top. They were just so dispositionally and physically unlike each other. It was a struggle.' The 2024 biography 'The Rulebreaker: The Life & Times of Barbara Walters,' by Susan Page, claimed that, as teenager, Jackie was 'drinking booze, popping Quaaludes and smoking pot' and that 'at thirteen, she would sneak out of the apartment in fishnet stockings and a miniskirt to party at Studio 54 and return home at four in the morning.' 15 Walters' second husband was theater impresario Lee Guber. 15 Walters and Merv Adelson, seen here in 1988, were married twice. Getty Images After Jackie ran away from home at 16, Walters hired a Green Beret soldier to track her down in New Mexico and deliver her to an 'emotional growth school' in Idaho. Jackie was 8 years old when Walters signed a deal worth $1 million a year to co-host ABC's evening news program with Harry Reasoner — who reportedly created a hostile work environment for her. The documentary includes footage that takes viewers back to Walters' first days on TV. In 1961, she joined NBC's 'Today' show as a 'Today Girl' after a short-lived stint in advertising which she quit after, Walter said, her boss became 'overly amorous.' 15 Walters interviewed Muammar el- Quaddafi from his tent in Tripoli, Libya, in 1989. í©ABC NEWS On 'Today,' she was only allowed to ask a question of a guest after her male co-host had asked three. She joined ABC's '20/20' in 1979 and stayed there for 25 years, scoring interviews with stars including the actor Christopher Reeve after he was paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident. In 1999, Walters's interview with Monica Lewinsky drew about 50 million viewers — an interview that, Winfrey unhappily admits in the film, Walters stole from her. She had an infamous feud with glamorous fellow ABC star Diane Sawyer, and the film reveals it was so bad that the two kept to different floors at work. 'Barbara felt that Diana was given advantages that she wasn't,' McFadden told The Post. 15 Walters scooped an interview with Monica Lewinsky from Oprah Winfrey, in 1999. ABC '[Sawyer] was more beautiful than [Walters] was, she was married to this fabulous man [director Mike Nichols]. [Walters] was always chasing after Diane … it was hard. 'I have never known any two women who worked any harder than those two.' McFadden said much of the angst came from Roone Arledge, who ran the news division by encouraging 'rough competition,' though the two women later became friendly. 'She was undermined and maligned by her male colleagues relentlessly,' David Sloan, Walters' longtime producer at ABC, told The Post. 15 Walters infamously quizzed a young Taylor Swift about her love life in 2014. ABC News But it instilled a 'fearlessness' that 'benefited her in the booking game,' Sloan added. 'When one of her competitors landed something that she wanted, she could be very determined — for example, calling [the interview subject] sometimes while that interview was actually being taped. 'Barbara's ambition to get the world's biggest, most famous names — for example, the Queen of England, the Pope, Jacqueline Kennedy — never came to pass, nor did they for anyone else. But her fierceness in the booking game got her the gets perhaps more than any competitor.' 'It's important that we don't denigrate her competitive side and determination,' McFadden noted. 'She never stopped. She picked up the phone and she wasn't waiting to be presented with her next interview.' 15 The interviewer had a rocky relationship with ABC News co-host Harry Reasoner that led to her leaving for '20/20.' Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Walters went on to create ABC's daytime show 'The View' in 1997 at age 67. She was still as fierce as ever — in the documentary, Bravo's Andy Cohen recalls how she 'lunged' at him when he joked about her not having watched the movie 'American Hustle' because she was old. ''How dare you insult me on my own show,'' he recalls her saying. 'I got my ass handed to me by Barbara Walters.' Walters was married three times: to businessman Robert Henry Katz from 1955 to 1957; theater impresario Lee Guber (1963-1976), with whom she adopted Jackie; and TV producer Merv Adelson twice, from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. 15 Walters with President Richard Nixon. 15 Cynthia McFadden said the person Walters was most nervous of was Katherine Hepburn. í©1991 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. 'She liked being important to a man. She didn't have patience for somebody who was stupid,' Adams says in the film. 'She didn't love it if you were nobody, either — you had to be somebody.' Her other romances included Alan Greenspan, the former Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Virginia Senator John Warner, whom she later interviewed alongside his wife Elizabeth Taylor. The film also touches upon her affair with married Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke. Of that relationship, Adams recalls, 'We all said 'Barbara, what are you doing? This is not quite right.' She said, 'Oh no, but he's so exciting and he's so great.'' 15 Walters founded 'The View' and is seen here with a plethora of the show's early co-hosts. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Walters eventually stopped the affair to prevent scandal, she later said. 'She was not a perfect person, but I had a tremendous amount of admiration for her,' McFadden said. As for her daughter, McFadden told The Post, 'They both did their best. They disappointed each other and they loved each other … I don't doubt for a second there was love between them.' Jackie does not appear in the film, and Imagine Entertainment exec Sara Bernstein told The Post, 'We know she is very private, but she didn't try to stop the film.' In the end, though, there is the axiom 'work doesn't love you back.' 'I think she felt that her greatest accomplishment — her peerless career — led to her greatest regret, because it often required her to sacrifice any semblance of a personal life. Or even a normal life outside of the glare and the fame,' Sloan said. 'In her apartment, she had a needlepoint pillow that was embroidered with this saying: 'Once upon a time, when there was time.' That was revealing, I thought,' he added. 'Barbara pretty much only had time for this storied career. Choosing one over the other was a sadness at the end of her life. She knew that.'
USA Today
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Barbara Walters documentary revisits icon's 'bullies,' insecurity about Diane Sawyer
Barbara Walters documentary revisits icon's 'bullies,' insecurity about Diane Sawyer Show Caption Hide Caption Need a show to binge? These are the must watch shows this summer USA TODAY's TV critic Kelly Lawler breaks down the best TV shows you don't to want to miss this summer Without question, Barbara Walters' trailblazing career and unwavering courage in front of the camera are inimitable. A new documentary, 'Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,' commemorates the journalist's interviews with presidents and celebrities, how she overcame sexism and accomplished so many firsts. Jackie Jesko's film premiered June 12 at the Tribeca Film Festival and streams on Hulu June 23. Viewers will see how the Boston-born Walters was first exposed to the entertainment industry at her father's nightclub. They'll hear from Walters' 'The View' co-host Joy Behar and her ABC News colleague Cynthia McFadden, as well as women Walters inspired like Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric. Walters died in 2022 at 93. Jesko relies on audio from previous interviews of Walters to add her voice to the film. Whether you hung on her every word or knew very little about the icon, here's what you should know from 'Tell Me Everything.' What we know about Barbara Walters, from her notorious pal to the 'SNL' nickname she hated Barbara Walters' start: 'I was used to working with bullies' In 1961, NBC's 'Today' show hired Walters, much to her surprise. 'I wasn't beautiful, and I didn't pronounce my Rs, but they needed someone they could hire cheap,' Walters says in the documentary. That economical hire went on to earn big bucks. Walters became the first female anchor of 'Today' in 1974. Then ABC lured Walters to its evening newscast in 1976 with an annual salary of $1 million, making her the first female anchor of network evening news. The news inspired Winfrey, who was making ends meet on a paltry salary. 'As a young anchorwoman who was making $22,000, that was hope for me,' Winfrey says, 'that if she can get $1 million, maybe I can get $50,000 one day.' But Walters' ascent was not an easy one. 'I was used to working with bullies,' she says, naming 'Today' host Frank McGee, her ABC co-anchor Harry Reasoner and future anchor Peter Jennings. Katie Couric recalls Bryant Gumbel's 'sexist attitude' while co-hosting the 'Today' show Barbara Walter's marriage confession: 'As soon as I got in it, I wanted to get out of it' Walters married four times to three different men, including television producer Merv Adelson, twice. But she says in 'Tell Me Everything,' she felt she wasn't 'very good at marriage. It may be that my career was just too important, or it may have been that I was a difficult person to be married to, and I wasn't willing, perhaps, to give that much.' Walters adds that she 'felt trapped' in her unions: 'As soon as I got in it, I wanted to get out of it.' The joy Walters found in her personal life came from her daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber. Walters suffered three miscarriages and adopted Jacqueline with her second husband, Lee Guber. 'For me, it was the best thing I ever did,' Walters says. Barbara Walters' 'monstrous bout' with colleague Diane Sawyer Connie Chung says that after joining ABC News in 1997, she felt like a casualty of the simmering tension between Walters and Diane Sawyer. 'Diane and Barbara were in this monstrous bout to win stories,' Chung says, 'and I was caught in the middle.' Former ABC anchor Cynthia McFadden says Walters felt 'dogged by Diane's very existence. She often said Diane was the perfect woman. She used the word(s) 'a blonde goddess,' this ideal woman and that she, Barbara, couldn't compete with that.' Jesko, a former producer at ABC News, tells USA TODAY that addressing the feud felt important because "more than anything else, I think it's so revealing about Barbara. Diane just represented to her a lot of things that she wished she could be.' 'Barbara swooped in' on Oprah Winfrey's interview with Monica Lewinsky In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton admitted to an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and a race ensued to get Lewinsky's perspective. 'We had an agreement with Monica Lewinsky's team,' Winfrey says in the film, 'and then Barbara swooped in and said to Monica Lewinsky, 'I can give you a better deal.'' Walters had offered Lewinksy appearances on ABC's 'Nightline' and 'Good Morning America,' which Winfrey couldn't compete with. 'I didn't like that,' she says. Looking back on controversial interview questions: 'She was very representative of where the line was' The 'Tell Me Everything' trailer revisits Walters' blunt and impertinent interview questions. She asked Barbra Streisand why she didn't have a nose job and questioned Lady Gaga's sexual orientation. 'Have all of her clips aged great?' Andy Cohen, host of Bravo's 'Watch What Happens Live' asks in the documentary. 'No. But at the time she was very representative of where the line was in the culture, and she knew how to dance just on the line. And I wanted to know, by the way.' In one sitdown, Walters asked Bette Midler if she viewed herself as sexy, and how she'd rate her own looks. 'I had a lot of fun with her when she interviewed me,' Midler tells Jesko. 'I considered her a friend, but I also considered her a journalist. So as much as I liked her, I felt that I had to be careful.' Jesko understands the concern over Walters' questions. 'Nobody would ask (those) now, but I think that it's hard to take her out of the context of her own time,' the filmmaker says. 'I don't think any of us want to be judged by the standards of many decades into the future, and she herself regretted a lot of those things because in retrospect, they did seem rude or tone deaf.'
