11 Stunning Revelations in ‘Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything’
Hulu’s new documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, streaming now, pays tribute to the trailblazing television journalist, showcasing the highlights of her outstanding career and the sacrifices she made to get to the top and stay there.
Like the recent biography, The Rulebreaker, there are decades worth of Barbara Walters stories that are told in the film, including her early career-making feats, her professional rivalries, her strained personal relationships, and the many, many barriers she broke to get her career start on the Today show and finish out with a bang with her original concept series The View.
The documentary features first-hand accounts from some of her colleagues, friends, and interview subjects and reveals some gripping new details about Walters that reveal her sheer tenacity. Here’s a look at some of the biggest revelations to be found in Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything.
She found a workaround to best a nay-saying colleague.
After becoming the first woman writer on the staff of Today, Walters was recruited to do some fluff pieces on air, but she wanted to do more substantial stories. However, network star Frank McGee made a deal with the president of the network that forbade her from asking interviewees any questions before he did, so she found a loophole: She started doing her interviews outside of the building altogether.
She used a contractual line item to secure her future.
When Frank McGee died unexpectedly, it triggered a clause in Walters’ contract that she would become cohost in the event of his death. “She got it, literally, over Frank’s dead body,” Katie Couric noted in the doc.
She once insulted Katie Couric to her face.
In the documentary, Couric revealed the backhanded compliment Walters gave her: “She often told me, ‘Oh, we’re so alike. Neither of us is that attractive.’ I was like, ‘Thanks!'” Couric also admitted she knew what Walters meant, that their looks were secondary to their skills.
Oprah Winfrey directly emulated Barbara Walters’ interview style.
If there’s anyone whose legacy as an interviewer might even outshine Walters, it’s Winfrey, but the TV legend admitted she copied Walters’ style — looking down at questions, holding her chin, e.g. — when she first started.
Bob Iger was a production assistant when she was paired with Harry Reasoner.
The eventual Disney CEO reported there was no chemistry on the set of the show at ABC Evening News when those two were paired together in 1976. Reasoner reportedly made it clear he did not want to share the stage with Walters. The documentary also revealed that there were no other women on the set, and she was ignored and isolated from the staffers during her time.
Roone Arledge stepped in to save the day.
The executive entered the scene to modernize ABC and decided to give Walters the freedom to conduct her interviews on the ground, correspondent-style, which included her infamous race to interview both the Egyptian president and Israel prime minister together, wherein she beat out both Walter Kronkite and John Chancellor.
Her third coanchor Peter Jennings was also reportedly loathe to work with her.
Following the pushback from both McGee and Reasoner, she also faced resistance from Peter Jennings when she was set to work with him on ABC’s primetime show.
Her own biographer hated her romantic relationship with Roy Cohn.
The infamous “fixer,” who was the right hand of Donald Trump, Roy Cohn was a polarizing figure, but Walters had a longtime relationship with him. Her biographer, Peter Gethers, revealed that was the hardest thing for him to get over when writing for her.
Oprah decided not to have children because of Walters’ own motherhood experience.
The documentary also explored the very strained relationship Walters had with her adopted daughter, Jacqueline Guber, and how open she was about her regrets and guilt over being an absentee mother to her child, who eventually lashed out by running away and resorting to recreational pharmaceutical use. Her difficulties with parenting inspired Winfrey not to have children, as she admitted in her interview, “She had a charged complex relationship with her daughter, and I can see why. It’s one of the reasons why I never had children. 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, ‘Okay, but I’m looking at you, so no.”
She once pressured Katherine Hepburn not to sit for a Diane Sawyer interview.
Another big point of friction that emerged during Walters’ career was her feud with fellow ABC star Diane Sawyer. Commenters on the doc explained that she may have been jealous of Sawyer, as she called her the “blonde goddess” and complained she “couldn’t compete with that.” Her attempts to avoid Sawyer becoming bigger than her even went so far as to (unsuccessfully) demand Katherine Hepburn not sit for her agreed-upon interview with Sawyer.
She chewed out on Andy Cohen for insulting her on The View.
The Watch What Happens Live star was one of the featured guests of the doc and remembered a time when he said something to Walters about her being of a “certain age,” and as the show cut, Walters took him to task right then and there, saying, “How dare you insult me on my own show.” Cohen took it in stride, though, and concluded, “I got my ass handed to me by Barbara Walters. Few can say that… or maybe a handful… or more!”
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, Hulu
From TV Guide Magazine
How 'Countdown' Recruited Jensen Ackles to Go Full 'Die Hard'
Countdown boss Derek Haas talks creating the character around Ackles, and the cast teases the “Avengers”-like team of the crime thriller. Read the story now on TV Insider.
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services