The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters

by Susan Page Narrated by Susan Page

Overview

The definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time-Barbara Walters-a woman whose personal demons fueled an ambition that broke all the rules and finally gave women a permanent place on the air, written by bestselling author Susan Page.

Barbara Walters was a force from the time TV was exploding on the American scene in the 1960s to its waning dominance in a new world of competition from streaming services and social media half a century later. She was not just a groundbreaker for women (Oprah announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters), but also expanded the big TV interview and then dominated the genre. By the end of her career, she had interviewed more of the famous and infamous, from presidents to movie stars to criminals to despots, than any other journalist in history. Then at sixty-seven, past the age many female broadcasters found themselves involuntarily retired, she pioneered a new form of talk TV called The View. She is on the short list of those who have left the biggest imprints on television news and on our culture, male or female. So, who was the woman behind the legacy?

In The Rulebreaker, Susan Page conducts 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her mercurial and famous impresario father attempted suicide. But she never lost the fear of an impending catastrophe, which is what led her to ask for things no woman had ever asked for before, to ignore the rules of misogynistic culture, to outcompete her most ferocious competitors, and to protect her complicated marriages and love life from scrutiny.

Page breaks news on every front-from the daring things Walters did to become the woman who reinvented the TV interview to the secrets she kept until her death. This is the eye-opening account of the woman who knew she had to break all the rules so she could break all the rules about what viewers deserved to know.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

[A] thorough, compassionate biography... In placing the emphasis on all the rule-breaking Barbara Jill Walters had to do over her long life — she died in 2022 at 93 — the biographer pays respect to a toughness easy to undervalue today.” — The New York Times Book Review

"A compelling, deliciously readable biography of a journalist who changed the face of TV news." — The Washington Post

"[Barbara Walters'] outsize role, and often equally outsize lifestyle and tactics, come alive in The Rulebreaker, an entertaining and well-considered new biography of the pioneering broadcaster... The Rulebreaker shows that icons don’t sparkle all the time, but reminds us that’s sometimes OK, that judgments can be made on the overwhelming balance of a life’s work rather than by questioning every single move as if we’re some latter-day Barbara Walters." — The Boston Globe

"Page’s excellent new biography of Barbara Walters, is a nuanced, deeply researched history of the legendary newswoman.. The book ticks all the boxes for a compulsively readable celebrity biography, relating Walters’s improbable rise to fame, her tumultuous personal life, and plenty of juicy gossip featuring a veritable who’s who of the past 70 years." — Washington Monthly

"A smart, juicy and deeply reported book about the woman who put up with a lot of s@*# so those of us who came after wouldn’t have to—or at least as much." —Katie Couric

“I thought I knew the Barbara who valiantly paved our way and earned her divadom but Susan Page uncovered so much more.” — Connie Chung

"Page’s brilliantly written and researched biography breaks new ground in conveying a fascinating new portrait of an American icon in a book that is impossible to put down. Simply put, as a friend – and sometime competitor – of Barbara Walters, Susan Page’s biography is a triumph.” — Andrea Mitchell

"Susan Page pulls a Barbara Walters — asking all the right questions, just as personal and sharp as Barbara used to in her xray-penetrating interrogations: how did she land her "gets," how did plot out her interviews, who did she think of she thought of as her rivals (and how she dealt with them)... along with questions about her far less successful personal life." —Lesley Stahl

“A stunning account of Barbara Walters’ journey to change television – and history – as we know it.” — Norah O’Donnell

"An impeccably researched and deeply sourced biography and a
respectful and balanced portrait of this groundbreaking icon of American journalism." —Booklist (starred review)

“Incisive and evenhanded, this is a triumph.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“...Soars and shines with intriguing story after story about such a legendary life... Page expertly portrays Walters as an important figure in society, but she also shows what made her human.. A definitive and deeply researched biography, likely to be in high demand at all libraries, especially those with book clubs." — Library Journal

"A biography of a woman of rare achievement... perceptive." — Kirkus Review

Library Journal

02/01/2024

USA Today Washington Bureau chief Page (Madam Speaker) takes on the iconic life of journalist and television pioneer Barbara Walters (1929–2022). She dives deep into the family, culture, and society that made Walters the ambitious news anchor and producer she became. Page interviewed more than 120 of Walters's friends and colleagues, which creates an intimate insider's viewpoint—affectionate but honest. From Walters's father's life as an immigrant to her long career, the book soars and shines with intriguing story after story about such a legendary life. Page expertly portrays Walters as an important figure in society, but she also shows what made her human. VERDICT A definitive and deeply researched biography, likely to be in high demand at all libraries, especially those with book clubs. Perfect for future journalists and young people who may not know what women went through to break into careers that were traditionally unwelcoming to them.—Emily Kubincanek

Kirkus Reviews

2024-02-14
A biography of a woman of rare achievement.

Page, Washington bureau chief of USA Today, biographer of Barbara Bush and Nancy Pelosi, draws on abundant sources and hundreds of interviews to create a brisk, evenhanded biography of Barbara Walters (1929-2022). Beset by an abiding sense of insecurity, Walters grew up seeing that success could swiftly turn into failure. Her father, a nightclub owner, had been “a mercurial breadwinner.” When he made money, the family lived extravagantly, “but always with the risk that he might gamble it all away.” Walters began her rise in TV news as a researcher and writer on NBC’s Today show. Once she took her place on the air, Page writes, “she honed her ability to ask a hard question in a soft way and to make news, and her increasingly prominent profile made it easier for her to snare big names.” Those big names included celebrities of all stripes; world leaders such as Fidel Castro and Yasir Arafat; and even criminals. Page breaks down the elements that made a Walters interview so successful. Getting her subject to cry was a bonus. She attained coveted positions and huge salaries, rarely acknowledging the women who went before her, “as though that might somehow diminish her own achievements.” Women were competitors, rather than allies. Obsessed with her work, her personal life suffered: Three marriages failed; her adopted daughter, neglected by a mother who never was home, struggled with substance abuse. Page recounts Walters’ many affairs, including with Sen. Edward Brooke and Alan Greenspan; her bitter rivalry with Diane Sawyer; and her founding of The View at the age of 67. A former president of ABC News described Walters as “hard-charging and driving and relentless and insatiable and unquenchable and indestructible”—and, as Page reveals, restless, lonely, and only fleetingly happy.

A perceptive biography.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159548665
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	04/23/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	464,554

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