Before social media, Barbara Walters said ‘Tell Me Everything.’ And many did

She was really a chilly cunt and elitist SNOB and a half.

Fuck her, quite honestly.

Another one of life's frauds.

She was Roy Cohn's beard and her father had some sort of relationship with the mob (he owned nightclubs, which meant the mob probably owned him). There were far better journalists who were women like Pauline Frederick, Nancy Dickerson, and Marlene Sanders--all of them deserved to have an anchor desk more than Today girl, Baba Wawa.

And THAT! Thank you R2--

What kind of tree was Katharine Hepburn, anyway?

A great Big Dyke tree!

She was Republicunt through and through. Probably supported Trump before she died.

what r2 said. Ms. Waters is at least partially responsible for the decline of American journalism.

[QUOTE]She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline.[121] In her autobiography, Walters says she also felt grateful to Cohn because of legal assistance he had provided to her father.

Cohn inspired devotion because he had piles and piles of dirt on everybody who was somebody. I wonder from where/whom Cohn stole the baby.

When Connie "High Q, Low IQ" Chung was selling her book, she never talked about anyone else other than Walters and teh dim bulbs who interviewed them, never asked about other women who had paved the way. Dickerson and Sanders had long careers doing documentaries, deciding they'd had enough of the glass ceiling.

Cohn was as enmeshed with the mob as her father.

all that hoing and lying paid off, you should see the shit she had auctioned off after her death, no greasy headboards on offer.

[QUOTE]produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries and ABC News Studios

Produced by a self-admitted Trump voter and her network which has capitulated to Trump (twice now?). Expect a whitewash and love fest.

She’s no Frost/Nixon.

Will her techniques for giving blow jobs to powerful men be shared.

youre not a journalist, you're a busted down streetwalker who reads from a teleprompter. badly.

Not much to look at, not a great figure. Not a great intellect. But somehow managed to grift a career together..how did this happen

I just found her auction.. The bitch liked JEWELS and pretty fine art.

Did we ever talk about how ugly this bitch was?

She looked like a lump.

[Quote] She created one of daytime TV’s longest-running hits with “The View,” which evolved into a major forum for the country’s political discourse.

And which has since become an absolute embarrassment

Those celebrity interviews were actually started by Rona Barrett. They were shown on daytime TV and they edited so the celebrities seemed like they were discussing the same subject. Here is an early Cher interview.

The adoption sounds slightly shady and possibly extra-legal

[QUOTE] “We had dinner one night with a couple we rarely saw,” Walters said in a 2014 interview with Oprah Winfrey. “The woman said that she had a little girl ... and they wanted to adopt a boy ... They didn’t want the girl. And we said, 'We’ll take the girl!’ ”

[QUOTE]Walters kept the adoption a secret, however. She told NBC in 2002 that the decision was “in part because I really didn’t want the biological mother to know that Jackie had been adopted by us.”

Very odd. I'm sure Roy Cohn could have handled the adoption.

Dinah Shore also was a great interviewer.

and surprising no one the adopted daughter is all fucked up but filthy rich

[quote]he owned nightclubs

Rosie was mad at Walters for not adequately supporting her during the Trump fight and said something like "no wonder your kid hates you".

R4 - Kate's tree was an oak - strong and pretty.

She was horrible. Unwatchable. Her success one of the great American mysteries. Unctuous beyond compare. Many better female interviewers and reporters before her. The View a crime against humanity.

R4, she said "oak."

She was no Lee Phillip

She’s downright abusive in interviews with Doris Day, Dolly Parton and Angela Lansbury.

Was Babwa a Wepubwican?

When I see clips like this, I can see why she made it. She had her best chemistry with Hugh Downs. Her interviews for 20/20 were SO much better than her celebrity interviews.

People get on her back, but Harry Reasoner and lot of the male anchors back then were ultra conservative sexist pigs who treated their female coworkers like absolute shit. Many of them would most likely be MAGA in todays environment.

I get the criticisms of her, but Harry Reasoner was still such an unprofessional asshole to her.

R30, add Brooke Shields to that list.

R14 her oral skills were merely average at best.

she's no Virginia Graham

Didn’t care for her. There’s enough in her behavior - Dolly Interview, relationship with Cohn, to indicate she was a rotten person.

If Harry Reasoner hated her guts I could totally understand it.

She was a total bitch for what she did to Ricky Martin, and I haven't liked her since. She can rot.

Love how BW reads the words off a card with her Sarah Lawrence diction to make it clear she wants the world to think she doesn't talk like that in real life.

Also love how Mariah seriously shades her, after BW essentially calls her a bitch to her face. She makes it clear BW didn't know Minaj AND doesn't know the difference between singing and rap. BOOM!

If there was anyone who was quick to check a bitch if she gets out of line, it would be Barbara Walters, especially with other journalists or anyone she had to share the tv screen with at ABC.

It's a good documentary, and it isn't a puff piece. It goes into detail about what a shitty mother Barbara was and how morally lacking she was in certain areas, like her friendship with that POS Roy Cohn.

[quote]There were far better journalists who were women like Pauline Frederick, Nancy Dickerson, and Marlene Sanders

I suppose I'm chopped liver?

I don’t believe she was as much a Republican as she was a New Yorker who just wanted power. This city is filled with people like that who don’t care if it’s Roy Cohn or Bill Clinton or Scarlett Johannson. They just want to collect as many connected friends as they can. The doc makes it pretty clear that this was her true passion.

[quote]I don’t believe she was as much a Republican as she was a New Yorker who just wanted power. This city is filled with people like that who don’t care if it’s Roy Cohn or Bill Clinton or Scarlett Johannson. They just want to collect as many connected friends as they can.

That is so 100% true.

Better than I expected but still too much hagiography. First to do newsmaker and show biz interviews? Jack Paar did that. So did Dick Cavett.

No mention of the women who came before her and were real journos--Marlene Sanders, Nancy Dickerson. Even Jane Pauley would know about them.

Reasoner didn't want to share the anchor spot with anyone---he left a career at CBS to join the lesser ABC and he clearly wanted his own show. I would have barely tolerated someone like her.

Yes, interesting that Jane Pauley was not in this at all. No love lost there I assume.

Should have said Jane Pauley--vapid as she was, she would have known the history. Even Oprah.

I did like the handing of Walters' lack of a moral compass. Even Cindy Adams seemed to find that problematic.

I'd forgotten that the awful Diane Sawyer was Walters' Walters--someone with even less real substance.

Jessica Savitch and Linda Ellerbee were really good and had a lot of momentum at one time as well.

I like the old interview of Trump she did. She really called him out on his arrogant lies.

There was a time when her interviewees should have been scared but she was also star struck herself, and catered to those whose influence she craved.

Is this an honest bio or a BarWall production? I'm tired of these vanity projects.

R16, persistence and being in the right place at the right time.

It's how most people become successful in show business.

May I say how much I love Katherine’s shoes? Fuck Baba.

[quote]and her father had some sort of relationship with the mob

SORT OF???

All those nightclub owners were mob connected in those days.

Is the addict daughter in it, did she get anything in the will?

This documentary was fascinating.

Barbara seems like she was ashamed of her family. Her older sister likely had autism, and Barbara said she resented her. She considered her mother weak for being trapped in a marriage with a man she didn't love. And she was embarrassed when her dad went bankrupt. In her early 20s, she had to go to work to support her parents.

As a kid, she felt like an outsider, and her inferiority complex followed her through life. The only think that seemed to make her feel better about herself was being successful at work and being associated with powerful people. In a way, she's a lot like Donald Trump. Rosie felt slighted because Barbara refused to stand up for Rosie during Rosie's conflict with Trump. I remember Rosie saying something like, "Barbara likes to lunch." She abandoned her friend Rosie because she didn't want to disrupt her fake friendship with Trump and other socialites who didn't want to upset him.

I wondered if Barbara had a mild case of autism. She seemed to not care much about relationships. One of the commentators said that she didn't have a great love. She admitted she was a bad partner. Her daughter didn't appear in the documentary.

The clip that surprised me the most was the interview with Bette Midler. She was personal friends with Bette Midler. But in the interview, it looked like she was trying to get Bette Midler to admit that she was unattractive. She asked what Bette thought about her (Bette's) appearance, and she looked disbelieving when Bette spoke confidently about her looks. She then followed up by asking Bette to rate herself on a scale of 1 to 10. Bette didn't fall into the trap, but what a horrible thing to ask your personal friend and then record it to play in front of a national office.

Wasn't Barbara a closet case JEW?

I said mean comments above and then watched this last night.

I came away liking her far more than hating her.

She was supremely flawed-

What I appreciated was that it appears that SHE KNEW that she was flawed- and that she KNEW being friends with Roy Cohn was not wise- but he helped her dad out of a massive jam-

I think that she would admit that she was a total elitist who cared about her career, power, and money.

I read many years ago that she was a COMPLETE CUNT to the help when she visited someone's home. I think this was an autobiography of another celeb- and Barbara was a guest. THAT is why I think she is a total fraud.

I cannot fucking stand Oprah but she had some doozies- Especially basically saying that Barbara's relationship with HER daughter showed Oprah that having a kid would be a mistake.

What cannot be denied is that she was a trailblazer and was initially treated like shit.

I hated reading that Peter Jennings was a bastard to her.

And I take back that she was ugly. She actually was not. She was quite pretty-

And the shit about how she felt about Diane Sawyer (who I really love) was almost heartbreaking. But because Barbara was SUCH a snob, its basic karma at work.

Very interesting and well worth a watch. I do respect her and find her fascinating because she was a flawed human like us all.

And I take back that she was one of life's frauds. I would not go that far now because she admitted alot of this herself-

Barbara loved sex like us fellas!

R57, Frankly she sounded like a gay man- or even many straight men.. She liked sex and was attracted to powerful men, and ultimately marriage was not for her.

That's what impressed me most- her self reflection- she was pretty honest about what she sucked at.

Besties Barbara Walter’s, Cindy Adams and Judge Judy.

What a fucking triumvirate of hags.

Barbara Walters was responsible for bringing the topic of trans kids to the forefront.

In 2007, she had a TV special about the topic, and she interviewed Jazz Jennings.

I remember her talking about the special on the View. She seemed really empathetic with the kids she had interviewed.

It's crazy to me that Cindy Adams is still alive. She's such a dinosaur, a relic from another time.

Cindy gave zero fucks at least.

Barbara was power hungry, shallow, and liked COCK- ALOT

R59: What's to like? She was horrible to Midler. She dated Roy Cohn. There were other women who deserved the anchor chair more than her.

Peter Jennings was a self absorbed asshole, is this new to you, R59?

No, not like the fellas, R60. She likes to be serviced like any other female of the day: orally

Barbara was the cuntiest cunt that ever cunted.

She should have married Cohn. Then they both could have enjoyed being a power couple while they both continued chasing men.

I don't think she really wanted to be a parent. It was a box that she had to check off to fit in to her social circles. After all those rude things she said to once-in-a-lifetime interview subjects, imagine what kind of things she must had said to her daughter.

Just watched it. She really sacrificed her kid for the career, and it sounds like they were on bad terms again in the later years of her life.

I remember reading her memoir, and CBS approached her directly about moving over there from ABC in the early 90s. Her agent was out of the country at his daughter’s wedding, and she was livid , years later, that he hadn’t skipped the wedding to negotiate with them.

Oprah recently said that she decided not to have kids after witnessing all the problems that Walters had with her daughter.

The documentary was really good—far better than Liza's PBS documentary. I thought it would be entirely a puff piece, but it did touch on Barbara's shadier and darker sides, which I appreciated. I also appreciated how forthcoming she was about her childhood and parents. I wasn't expecting her close friends and colleagues to be as honest about her relationship with Roy Cohen as they were in the documentary.

*Cohn

She once did a piece on ballroom dancers. A close friend was one of the featured dancers. I never asked him about her because it was mortifying seeing him fall at the end of the segment. Barbara must have loved it.

Angela Lansbury's children had drug problems. She moved her family to Ireland to get away from Hollywood's drug culture. It remained a sensitive issue for many years. When Walters interviewed Lansbury, she grilled her about her children's problems and made Lansbury cry.

Barbara may have adopted her daughter because of her then husband, Lee Guber. Either because he wanted children she was not willing to have, or to keep the marriage together. A very common scenario. Plus the kid was not her real offspring being adopted. She had all sorts of genetic issues regardless of how she grew up.

Barbara was an addict too; she was a workaholic. She's lucky her addiction was work instead of alcohol or other drugs. It's still an addiction though.

In a home with two-parents, if one parent is a workaholic, it isn't so bad as long as the other parent is around to provide love and guidance. If the father was more of a homebody, then maybe he should have been given primary custody of the daughter after the divorce. But...that would have looked bad for Barbara.

Jackie was quite pretty in that footage. Gorgeous smile and eyes-

OP's photo must be of the infamous occasion where Barbara Walters asked Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would be if she were a tree.

(The answer, if you care, was an oak tree.)

Barbara hammered Hepburn on why she didn't wear a dress. Hepburn said. "I'll wear a dress to your funeral."

[quote] She liked sex and was attracted to powerful men, and ultimately marriage was not for her.

Which is why I KNEW Walters lied when she denied fucking Fidel Castro.

Even she knew that if she disclosed she had a fling with Castro, it would put her place in The Establishment pecking order at risk.

This two-minute clip has Hepburn's "funeral" remark. Then Barbara defends herself regarding the "tree" discussion. Barbara makes an awesome transition between the two topics.

Walters made many people cry with tacky, invasive questions. SNL did a parody with Kevin Nealon back in the day. She HATED Gilda Radner's impression of her.

It was Linda Ronstadt who once said that if she saw Barbara Walters coming towards her on the street, she'd run the other way.

R83, Gilda Radner's Baba Wawa was arguably the longest lived SNL parody. Walters said that even though it was 40 years ago, people still said "there goes Baba Wawa". It really irritated her and she even told Lorne Michaels on air that he ruined her life.

The documentary had me looking up old skits to Gilda Radner on SNL and I was reminded of what an incredibly talented comedic actress she was.

In 2015, Barbara appeared as herself on SNL.

Barbara was not nice to Gilda when they met and I will never forgive her for that.

A book written about Hepburn’s housekeeper mentions Miss Wawa not thanking the help after an emergency ironing job.

After Gilda died, Barbara sent a sympathy note to Gene Wilder signed Barbara Wawa.

Never liked her or her interviews- because she was the star. She never revealed much about her subjects. Her talent was that she landed the interviews and they did little to reveal much that you did not know. She was ambitious and went far in cc a mans world. . Think JLo in entertainment. Big celebrity without much aside from ambition.

Look, for decades Barbara Walters WAS tv interviews. She owned it, like it or hate it.

Kate looks like she left her rollers in.

R90 That was one of America's great cultural/journalistic tragedies of the 20th Century.

"Oprah recently said that she decided not to have kids after..."

Discovering she was a dyke?

it was interesting to hear Oprah say that everyone gives out their own news on social

I work as a reporter and social is decimated what I do/did.

I also liked that Oprah said she didn’t like that Barbara stole the Monica Lewinsky interview from her.

One huge interview she never got (solo)- Madonna. Madonna hated her. Barbara tried and tried but Madonna was always a no to be interviewed by her.

Madonna always preferred male interviewers, and when she did allow a female to interview her from ABC it was usually Diane Sawyer or Cynthia McFadden.

Because she hated BW. BW desperately wanted her as she was the only huge star she didn’t land. But Madonna didn’t like her at all.

R90: Not really. We also had the rise of Charlie Rose, who was awful and the decline of Mike Wallace who occasionally was interesting despite doing schtick.

Charlie Rose was not 1000th the level of Barbara Walters.

Loved the doc but couldn't help but think of the missing talking heads: Rosie (not even in clips!), Diane, Whoopi and her daughter Jackie.

Actually, most of Barbara's celebrity interviews sucked and I always thought Diane Sawyer had her beat in that regard. Diane seemed to have no fear of celebrity, no matter who was sitting in front of her. She was the queen of the 'Gotcha' questions and knew how to set up a public figure so that even if they didn't give her a verbal answer, a lot was still being said. Barbara could have never pulled off a Whitney Houston interview like this. Diane got the tea and a classic pop culture moment that's still talked about 23 years later.

Diane was vapid and benefited from being married to Mike Nicols.

A lavender marriage if there ever was one.....

[quote] Diane was vapid and benefited from being married to Mike Nicols.

She benefited from her ability to put celebrities in a vulnerable state, which got her the views and the pop culture moments. The "Crack Is Whack" interview is classic TV as well as this moment when Diane made Britney Spears cry. Again, Barbara was never able to penetrate through celebrity armor in the same way.

I saw in that Babs special interview subjects making themselves look important. Andy Cohen talked about how Barbara yelled at him. Oprah counts herself among the people Babs made cry.

You expect those two NOT to make it about themselves, r106?

Miss Ross was NOT the one!

I don't have HULU so I won't watch the documentary, but I don't believe everything she says about defending Cohn because she helped with an adoption or some other legal matter.

There are hundreds of thousands of attorneys in the NYC metro area. She just wanted to both sides and have a defense over what is an indefensible position.

She was always defending the GOP on The View under the guise of 'well others feel x'. Even though 99% of the time it wasn't based on a real fear or truth.

I had an adoration for her when I was young - but as I grew older, I saw her for what she was. Not a good human being.

It’s about social circles, R109, social circles. Ever wonder why Bill Cosby and Rosie O’Donnell went to Martha Stewart’s trial? Because they were such good buddies? No, but they might have wanted IN to her circle.

FWIW we never hear Barbara talk about Roy Cohn in this doc. Though there are clips of her with him (all silent, I think), we only hear people like Cindy Adams speculate what that relationship was about....and much is made of Cohn getting her father out of his massive tax issues and bankruptcy and accomplishing it VERY quickly with no fuss.

I don't remember there being any talk about Cohn facilitating the adoption and, anyway, don't seen why someone like Barbara would need help with an adoption.

Madonna instead chose Tim Curry to interview her.

Roy C word taught the President everything he knows

Compared to Roy Cohn, Trump is a nice guy.

Roy Cohn when he was dying said Trump had ice water in his veins as opposed to Roy who had the milk of human kindness in his.

I have no doubt Cohn was the only one who could get Walter's father out of the miserable trouble he was in. God he was a nightclub owner in NY. Cohn was as ruthless as any capo and smarter. It's a wonder he never disappeared. Deny deny deny. Except you could not deny AIDS. You could lie but not deny it.

There was a documentary on Roy Cohn that came out several years ago and holy shit that man was evil.

I wouldn't trust any documentary that relies on Barbara's own biography as a source. Supposedly her dad had an arrest warrant because during his bankruptcy he couldn't afford to fly to NYC for court apperances and Cohn got that case dismissed. I'm pretty sure a lot of other attorneys could have done the same.

As far as she needed to go work to support her family - her dad's financial problems didn't come up until Barbara was in her later 20s and already working in television for several years. Her dad was able to bounce back in a couple of years after the clubs closed.

I'm not saying she wasn't talented and wasn't a pioneer and had to fight a lot to get where she was and had a lot of awful men to work with. But she used every connection and every person she could, regardless of their politics or ethics, to get ahead.

Some say as a journalist, it's pragmatic and you have to work with both. That's true and it's not unique to her. Truly successful people know that you have to rub shoulders with people you hate or don't agree with in order to rise up.

But there's quite a bit of myth making around her history- again, like many successful people. I still don't think she was a very good person.

I never knew she was associated with Roy Cohn. Yikes.

r117, sounds like you haven't watched the doc? You should. It's very even-handed, very fair-minded. BW hardly comes off as a saint.

I wanted to hear more from the book editor. It was clear he had a lot to say about this old cunt.

R119 - correct, I haven't as I don't have HULU. But I'm just replying about what was said on this thread - how she had to go to work to support her parents, that wasn't true. She did have to help them at some point I'm sure - but they recovered.

And as far as Roy Cohn - I think we all know the truth. She would cozy up to anyone that had power in NYC and the media and really didn't care about ethics.

People are always more complicated than we know - but she did not seem like a very good person. But she was pragmatic - and back then, reporters and TV people didn't let their political beliefs intrude on things and nobody wanted to know what they were.

One fascinating thing about the Garland interview is you can see Walters hadn't quite become so ruthless about going in for the kill yet. Judy's got her handled though: "addicted to carpets" and keeping it light while still telling a version of the truth, if not totally factual, the emotional truth of how she felt.

Garland was such a well known train wreck that there was no need for Walters to jump on her. That Judy showed up, was coherent and looked reasonably good for the interview was the win.

The Judy Garland interview was in 1967, and of course by that time Judy was completely off the wall bonkers. As r123 said the fact that she even showed up and was lucid and presentable was all that anyone could hope for by then.

Barbara tried that grilling shit with Gloria Swanson over the latter's affair with Joseph Kennedy. But Gloria had had enough of Barbara's badgering and snapped back at her.

R125. The last sentence of the statement, written by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, that Barbara read at the end of the segment, made me flinch.

"Gloria Swanson's autobiography, written at 80, may make her a popular figure, but what lasting value has her life left us?"

I was surprised by how much she was jealous of Diane Sawyer. I guess it was a given because they worked at the same network, but from the outtakes of their joint interview together, Barbara didn't even hide her contempt.

Not much talk of The View either. And there was A LOT they could have gone into. But that definitely could get its own documentary.

A friend of mine in college interned at ABC News in the late 90s. He said Diane Sawyer was awesome and Barbara Walters was a cunt who everybody hated.

Diane had deep political connections. She had worked as a White House and 60 Minutes correspondent., so she was considered a more “serious “ journalist than Barbara Walters.

Her marriage to Mike Nichols gave her a connection to his ex-girlfriend/longtime friend Jackie Onassis, the ultimate interview “get” of the day (I believe Diane and Mike Nichols were among the few guests invited to Jackie’s apartment for Lee Radziwill’s wedding to Herb Ross).

And-Diane was younger and arguably more attractive than Barbara.

Of course she was jealous of her.

[quote] And-Diane was younger and arguably more attractive than Barbara.

Definitely more WASPy.

Why shouldn’t she be competitive with a younger anchor/interviewer? Don’t you think Lester Holt would like to rip Tom Llamos a new one?

All true R129, but Barbara had her own well of connections that never really went away. Plus, Barbara still got a majority of the big gets of the 90's. The only competition with the coveted Lewinsky interview was with Oprah (whom she deliberately screwed over to get Monica) But they came to Barbara.

Sawyer really wasn't in the picture that much until the Whitney interview. That's where she truly came into her own.

"What is it Diane? Tell me. Do YOU know?"

Diane was an ex-beauty queen and was well-known in GOP circles. Those advantages Walters lacked. I don't know that Sawyer was any more serious.

Has anyone considered Barbara’s Jewish persecution complex? Guilt complex? Everything Jewish complex for someone in her age group?

I just watched it.

Missing:

Rosie O’Donnell and her feud with Barbara and telling Barbara to her face “this is why Jackie hates you”

Whoopi as a voice on the View (interestingly only Joy Behar was interviewed. I’m shocked Meredith said no)

You can tell she was a conniving, obnoxious cunt full of herself.

I’m glad they didn’t delve into the View beyond acknowledging it was her transitional project en route to retirement.

I mean, the View is a tabloid spectacle. Everyone bickers, occasionally toss viewers a Major Event such as a heated fight or a walk-off.

I think they gave it the exact right amount of time. This doc was better than that. Sure, there could be a fun special on all the backstage and onstage drama. That wasn’t this movie.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was angry about about Gloria revealing her affair with Joe. Gloria gave us one of the greatest film performances of all time even according to young people who love classic films. Joe Kennedy gave so much misery to individuals and the world the man was fucking evil. Eunice had absolutely no self awareness and Wawa going along with it shows you what garbage she was. Even Franklin Roosevelt said to Eleanor with such anger I never want to see that man again. Which is probably one of the reasons why she did not support John's campaign for president. Running against Nixon? Six of one half dozen of the other.

I remember BW from Not For Women Only. Do they discuss it?

R127, stars are the biggest star ufckers of them all.

There's a mansion on Sycamore Ave in Los Angeles not far from the Fairfax district.

I rode past it once and a friend said Joe Kennedy had that built for Gloria Swanson.

it's ginormous

^

strike that; nothing's coming up on a google search; other homes are but not the one I was thinking of.

Joe was no worse than so many rich guys. He didn't leave a legacy like Carnegie or Rockefeller but probably caused way fewer deaths. He was bad on the run up to WWII, but not as bad as Lindberg or the Kind of England who abdicated.

Eleanor’s JFK 1960 animus, R139 - confined only to the primary, it should be noted - was also informed by her anti-Catholic bigotry. Yes, Eleanor Roosevelt, the doyenne of liberalism, but a product of a very different era, was prejudiced against Catholics.

They were all very bad. I'm not sure Lindbergh killed his own baby and allowed an innocent man to go to the death chamber. Is this nothing more than a conspiracy theory? And Charles, Joe and David were pro-Hitler. Joe was a rabid cheater and fucked his mistresses with Rose in the house. But all the Kennedys pretend that Joe was a saint. Even Rose. But karma got Joe in the worst way possible. It allowed him to live and watch helplessly as all he spent his life working for crumble horribly.

[quote] I'm not sure Lindbergh killed his own baby and allowed an innocent man to go to the death chamber. Is this nothing more than a conspiracy theory?

Of course it is. Like the Columbian drug lords who killed Nicole & Ron. Quite the cottage industry. Lindbergh was many (bad) things, but he didn't kill his own child.

Eleanor did attend JFK's inauguration though she chose to sit by herself among the hoi-polloi rather than with the celeb supporters.

Anti-Catholic prejudice was so widespread in midcentury America, that even MLK, Sr., initially refused to endorse JFK in the general election.

[quote] “I had expected to vote against Sen. Kennedy because of his religion,” Daddy King said. “Now he can be my president, Catholic or whatever he is.” Kennedy got a laugh out of the comment in noting to [Sargent] Shriver: “Imagine Martin Luther King having a bigot for a father,” he said. “Well, we all have our fathers, don’t we?” Between that incident and his assassination, Kennedy and King would formally meet five times at the White House.

R147 There is compelling, detailed evidence available online that you might read which could change your mind. If true, it wasn't a murder but a prank gone wrong--hiding the baby to scare his wife and the nanny and while doing so, there was an accident that caused the child's death It wasn't the first time Lindbergh had played that prank. After that, it was a matter of self-preservation.

Just no, R150. You can find “compelling, detailed evidence online” to support any number of wild conspiracy theories.

Lindbergh believed very strongly in eugenics on which he agreed totally with Hitler. It is believed that his child was old enough to show a certain level of brain damage. Speculation attributes this to Lindbergh taking his wife up in a very rough flight shortly before she was to give birth making her very sick. It is also said he completely took over the investigation which of course he was in no way equipped to do and he threatened with death anyone who got in his way. Who is anyone to argue with Charles Lindbergh? Whatever you believe the circumstances of the abduction are very very peculiar. Both Anne and Hauptmann's wife lived a very long time. Hauptmann's wife who was his alibi for the night of kidnapping said she would die in peace if only Anne would say Hauptmann was not the killer of the baby. Anne said nothing.

Lindbergh was a Nazi loving isolationist. That was the comparison I was trying to make with Joe's more appeasement-oriented line. The Duke of Windsor was worse than both of them. Trying to make Joe any worse than any number of rich guys is a waste of time. His affair with Swanson was widely known but never made the subject of a network tv show and probably didn't need to be. Someone should have asked some frank questions about Walters and Roy Cohn--now that would be be much more interesting than some decades old affair between a star and a mogul. A pseudo journalist and corrupt political figure have much more significance even if it wasn't one of her contemporary romances.

R151 Why do you find it unbelievable that a parent might be guilty in the death of a child and then lie about it, pointing the finger elsewhere? Don't we have plenty of modern day examples of this? Does it seem impossible that a person of wealth and fame would use their advantages and put pressure on others to frame a different narrative to avoid responsibility for a crime? Again, there are many examples of people doing that, too.

Life is filled with conspiracies. Some may be "wild" but many are actually proven true. I'm sure you could name some of those.

Q: Miss Wepbern what type of twee would woo bee?

A: Not a tree. A bush! Katharine Houghton's bush.

The interview Walters did with Mike Tyson and Robin Givens was tense.

Tyson went into a rage the night this aired and she had to flee his house so he wouldn’t kill her.

Hear here @ R146!

The Kennedy saga was a modern day karmic tale of biblical proportions - would easily fit a biblical book warning about the outcome of such behavior. Absolutely ruthless! The whole lot of them. For all the unsavory things we know, there are many more things we don't know. For example, no one ever talks about Alexander Pantages and Eunice Pringle, but that was Joe Kennedy behind the whole thing. And then Miss Pringle suddenly died...

R157 If the Kennedy family tragedies are the result of karmic justice, why are so many well-known malevolent monsters living to ripe old ages without similar consequences?

[quote] Some may be "wild" but many are actually proven true.

I take issue with the word "many." But go ahead & list all the conspiracy theories in recent(ish) history that you believe have been borne out.

I don't have the answer to everything, R158, but perhaps their always public displays of pious religious devotion was a factor. For me, personally, the name Kennedy always equates to karma. God is not mocked.

R64- Shallow , Power Hungry and likes COCK a lot

- That describes a LOT of dataloungers

This is peak 1970s with Barbra and Jon.

I think you can do your own research, R159 , or maybe others will chime in here to help you out Do you believe human behavior has changed over time so that people no longer secretly work together to plan and commit crimes, large and small? No, of course not. We're basically the same damn dirty apes we've been for thousands of years.

It often takes time for the facts of a conspiracy to be proven, only after a release of documents or other evidence and relevant people share what the facts they know with the public.

Reading the details of proven conspiracy theories, is it any wonder how distrustful and skeptical the public can be? Questioning the narratives we are fed by government. corporations, and media, instead of automatically accepting them, is important. It's not easy to learn the truth, though, and we have to be careful in choosing where we get our information and who to trust. One of the weapons often used to dismiss valid lines of questioning and speculation is to call it just crazy conspiracy theories.

----- Here's one to get you started on your list of recent proven conspiracies: Russian interference with the 2016 election and coordination with many of Trump's campaign staff -----

I'm also providing a link to another article with a list of conspiracies proven true (you can do online searches to confirm each one, to find a source you trust). Only a couple are repeats of the list in the article shared in R151 , and two are thrown in for humor (you should be able to figure out which ones).

[quote] Here's one to get you started on your list of recent proven conspiracies: Russian interference with the 2016 election and coordination with many of Trump's campaign staff

That's pretty low hanging fruit.

R164 It's a big deal, is a recent example, was repeatedly called lies by those involved and the people who support them, and it was something I knew off the top of my head.

I'd love to go down a rabbit hole to provide other examples but don't have time now to do it right. Maybe I'll start a fresh thread on the subject later, since this subject is off topic on this thread.

Not every one gets struck by karma. Duh. But Joe's was amazing. Imagine being trapped in a body of concrete and watching everything you ruthlessly sacrificed everything for struck down. Like dominoes. Starting with his daughter who he had lobotomized. And if his offspring hadn't been killed by others or killing others they were winning Darwin awards. America's family of royalty was an epic saga of religious hypocrisy, death, and full out stupidity.

Talk about your Greek tragedy!!

What happened to Barbara’s daughter? Did she inherit all her money?

Barbara's daughter Jackie appears in a relatively recent interview (IIRC with Cynthia McFadden and BW at her side) but no appearance specifically done for this doc. after BW's death. Hard to tell, of course, but she seems sane and well-adjusted. I imagine she received the bulk of BW's estate, out of BW's guilt, if nothing else.

She had probably been waiting waiting waiting for Barbara to kick the bucket.