Audition: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Barbara Walters
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $16.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 2
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.6
ISBN: 030726646X
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.92
EAN: 9780307266460
ASIN: 030726646X
Publication Date: May 6, 2008 (New: This Week)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Young people starting out in television sometimes say to me: “I want to be you.” My stock reply is always: “Then you have to take the whole package.”
And now, at last, the most important woman in the history of television journalism gives us that “whole package,” in her inspiring and riveting memoir. After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.
Barbara Walters’s perception of the world was formed at a very early age. Her father, Lou Walters, was the owner and creative mind behind the legendary Latin Quarter nightclub, and it was his risk-taking lifestyle that gave Barbara her first taste of glamour. It also made her aware of the ups and downs, the insecurities, and even the tragedies that can occur when someone is willing to take great risks, for Lou Walters didn’t just make several fortunes—he also lost them. Barbara learned early about the damage that such an existence can do to relationships—between husband and wife as well as between parent and child. Through her roller-coaster ride of a childhood, Barbara had a close companion, her mentally challenged sister, Jackie. True, Jackie taught her younger sister much about patience and compassion, but Barbara also writes honestly about the resentment she often felt having a sister who was so “different” and the guilt that still haunts her.
All of this—the financial responsibility for her family, the fear, the love—played a large part in the choices she made as she grew up: the friendships she developed, the relationships she had, the marriages she tried to make work. Ultimately, thanks to her drive, combined with a decent amount of luck, she began a career in television. And what a career it has been! Against great odds, Barbara has made it to the top of a male-dominated industry. She was the first woman cohost of the Today show, the first female network news coanchor, the host and producer of countless top-rated Specials, the star of 20/20, and the creator and cohost of The View. She has not just interviewed the world’s most fascinating figures, she has become a part of their world. These are just a few of the names that play a key role in Barbara’s life, career, and book: Yasir Arafat, Warren Beatty, Menachem Begin, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, the Dalai Lama, Princess Diana, Katharine Hepburn, King Hussein, Angelina Jolie, Henry Kissinger, Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Rosie O’Donnell, Christopher Reeve, Anwar Sadat, John Wayne . . . the list goes on and on.
Barbara Walters has spent a lifetime auditioning: for her bosses at the TV networks, for millions of viewers, for the most famous people in the world, and even for her own daughter, with whom she has had a difficult but ultimately quite wonderful and moving relationship. This book, in some ways, is her final audition, as she fully opens up both her private and public lives. In doing so, she has given us a story that is heartbreaking and honest, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always fascinating.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 if you saw oprah, you read the book May 13, 2008
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I was so impressed with everything she said on oprah. I thought there would be all this great gossip about fat lesbian rosie and fat ugly star jones. There was really nothing that was not discussed on Oprah. repreatedly on oprah and in the book she said that she was willing to lie for star or oprah. Heck if she was willing to lie for oprah or star, then she is willing to lie to us.
She had a sexual affair with a senator, but yet the details are sparse. She never talked about positions, she never talked about his shaft. She never had remorse about breaking up this dudes marriage and throwing him away like a piece of trash. she never mentions how old she was when she first had sex, she never told about the famous people she had sex with. She interviewed monica lewinski and she never really talked about the sex.
She talked about star and her "marriage" she never said anything about the fact athe hs is gay. What type of trash is this? If you want the book , I will sell it to you......if I don't use it as toilet paper.
Career-obsessed, needs to retire! May 12, 2008
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
Barbara Walters is trash, plain and simple. This woman spent her whole career working too hard, not taking care of her only child, and had an affair with a married politican. Walters failed at marriage three times, she explains her heart was too heavy, if she didn't want to get married then don't, what is so hard about that? She is money-hungry, she needs to retire! what is she waiting for? All she cares about is exploiting her collegues, she doesn't realize how she is coming off. Someone needs to tell this woman to stay home and enjoy life, instead of selling her life story for cash. Don't buy into the hype, she hasn't opened any doors for women, and who said she was smart? this book is not well-written and she's a journalist! give me a break.
 Really interesting insight to Barbara Walters May 12, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Very interesting biography, honest and well written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. What an extraordinary life!
A Classy Honest but Painful "Coming to Grips with Life" May 12, 2008
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
Befitting the classy lady that she is, Mrs. Walters has penned an extremely honest, revealing and often painful summary of an interesting and fulfilling life.
Not being able to drive, cook, or athletic in any way, including being unable to even ride a horse, makes Barbara seem almost normal: Her humanity comes through in so many ways that she now feels like a member of the family, the family of humanity: and not the calculating, hyper-testosterone, driven pseudo-masculine "ball-busting" "kill-or-be-killed witch" persona that she is often accused of projecting.
If having to care for her entire family after her father's "ups and downs," and then finally "down and out" business life was not enough, then her relationship with her "less than normal sister," troubles with her adopted daughter, her social isolation, and her struggles against a male dominated world, brings her humanity clearly into focus in a way that no other aspects of her life ever could have done.
After reading so much pabulum masquerading as autobiography (Hilary Clinton's "Living History" for instance), it is refreshing to read one that actually reveals a life actually lived and one, worth living.
Five Stars
Barbara Walters Memoir May 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fast read because it is sad, funny, exciting and you can hear Barbara speak like she was reading it to you. This book Audition: A Memoir makes you realize just what a sense of humor Barbara really has. She is a lovely lady and I loved reading her book.
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