Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters

From Barnes & Noble

Barbara Walters has been called the most important woman in the history of broadcast journalism, but she refuses to retire to a marble pantheon. Indeed, she continues to interview celebrities, stoke media controversies, and inspire mimics. Oddly enough, Audition is her first real book; a grand, deeply personal, sometimes defensive memoir that covers almost eight decades of intense activity. With surprising candor, the famed View host talks about her childhood as the privileged daughter of a Broadway producer who later went broke and her early career in an environment distinctly hostile to women. Although she describes in detail her numerous headline-making interviews with world leaders, Hollywood stars, and even Monica Lewinsky, one senses the author's presence throughout as a solitary, sometimes lonely beacon of self-sufficiency.

From the Publisher

Barbara Walters, arguably the most important woman in the history of television, has had an amazingly full life. In the bestselling Audition, she describes her extraordinary public and private journey.

The Washington Post - Kathleen Matthews

Breaking news: Barbara Walters wears fake eyelashes, is afraid to drive, gave up her black married lover to save her career (while his went down the tubes). These and other true confessions provide the tabloid interest through 600 pages of the network diva's new memoir, Audition. But it's her heartfelt candor that lifts this book above mere titillation. Finally we learn why Walters is so relentless. It's a question I've often pondered watching her on television after beginning my own TV news career 30 years ago. In this engaging and chatty look back at a life largely lived in public view, Walters provides the answer.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

…[a] legitimately star-studded autobiography…the portrait of a deftly calculating woman with an impeccable sense of timing…There will never be another television news career like this one.

Publishers Weekly

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)

Nicole A. Cooke - Library Journal

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.comand www.randomhouse.com/audio; the Knopf hc, released in May, is an LJ Best Seller, a title most borrowed in U.S. libraries.-Ed.]

Product Details

• ISBN: 030726646X
  
• ISBN-13: 9780307266460
• Format: Hardcover, 448pp
• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Pub. Date: May 2008
• Sales Rank: 6,395

• Table of Contents
• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Reading Group Guide

"Suffused with an emotional intensity. . . . It belongs to a part of American culture that Walters helped invent.”
—The New Yorker

The introduction, questions, and suggestions for further reading that follow are intended to enhance your reading group's conversation about Barbara Walters's revealing and inspiring memoir, Audition.

Read an Excerpt

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.