Avenue - May 2009

I’ve had more than I ever expected. There’s almost nobody who has it all and I’ve had more than most people. But I sound as if I’m closing the door and walking into the mist.

LS: Do you think women spend too much time on collecting, marrying and keeping the men in their lives? BW: I don’t think so. I think today women still want a relationship, perhaps more than men do, but there are many women whose lives are full without marriage and without children. I do think that women have more choices today. Katharine Hepburn used to say that you have to choose between career and marriage or marriage and children and she said, “I

Barbara Walters sits down with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

ABC/STEVE FENN

don’t know what the hell women are going to do.” Well, today women may not have to choose, but it’s a balancing act. I’m amazed at the number of women on The View who work, have full-time jobs and nannies and babies and marriage. I’m just in awe.

said, “I may not be alive next year.” And I said, “Barbara, just because we’re in the Temple of Karnak— BW: Just because we’re in the valley of the dead doesn’t mean anything.

LS: I’ll never forget the time when you
and I were walking through the
Temple of Karnak in Egypt and you

LS: Egypt is all about the dead; it isn’t about the living at all. BW: That’s right. It’s about the dead and about the afterlife. I do not believe

in an afterlife. One does not know. But even though I say I don’t believe in an afterlife, I have made funeral arrangements so that my daughter in Maine doesn’t have to worry. And I decided not to be cremated, so a little part of me must think that my body perhaps goes on. I don’t want to be dust.

LS: Are you often disappointed in
people?

BW: No, no, no. I’ve had very good experiences. My friends—like you—I’ve had them for years and years. I treasure them. They do not disappoint me. On the other hand, there’s no one I talk to every single day. I know there are people who say they talk to someone three times a day, every day—I don’t. But my friends are my family, after my daughter.

ABC/HEIDI GUTMAN

Barbara Walters draws Paul McCartney to the set of The View for an interview in January 2009.

LS: Looking back, considering your active romantic life, I’m surprised that there has never really been any scandal about you or about how you’ve lived your private life. You haven’t been involved in any money scandals either.