About her career as a television newswoman and interviewer, first lady of the news Barbara Walters has said, "I was the kind nobody thought could make it. I had a funny Boston accent. I couldn't pronounce my Rs. I wasn't a beauty." Walters did make it, even in the often superficial, looks-obsessed world of network television. Partially as a result of attempting to make it at the right time in history—the feminist movement of the early 1970s was gaining strength—Walters not only made a place for herself in television news, but also changed the way the news was presented on television.

Barbara Walters was born, however unwillingly, into show business. Her father, Lou, was a nightclub owner who ran the Latin Quarter, a chain of popular clubs in New York, Boston, and Florida. Though celebrities were a part of her everyday life...