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 would regularly meet at her father Lou Walters’ Broadway nightclub, the Latin Quarter. I was dating his club’s star, while she was in college. We were both just ordinary people at the time.
In our broader lives, we lived close to one another and often traveled together. I still have her Bulgari wristwatch and two mink jackets. Together, we once sold her diamond jewelry. Her housekeeper now works for me. On one occasion, I had our favorite Chinese restaurant bill me $1,000 for takeout. For another birthday, I spent $1,000 on pantyhose for her.
I often had dinners and lunches with her, and my driver, Jose, would drive her around. We also shared the same doctor. People magazine once quoted me saying: “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.
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.
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.
Jobbernowl: Ignorant person.
Twattle: Idle gossip.
Ill-willie: Meanie.
Peregrinate: Wander around.
Cacafuego: Talks big but doesn’t listen.
Bletheration: Foolish talk.
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.
