Susan Page's next biography: Barbara Walters
- Mike Allen, author of Axios AM
Barbara Walters interviews former President Gerald Ford at ABC News election-night headquarters on Nov. 4, 1980. Photo: Steve Fenn/ABC via Getty Images
Susan Page, after N.Y. Times bestsellers on Barbara Bush and Speaker Pelosi, now is tackling celebrity interviewer Barbara Walters for a biography expected in early 2023.
Driving the news: A forthcoming announcement by Simon and Schuster and Javelin notes that Walters was the first woman to host a network morning show ("Today"), and to co-host one of the Big 3 evening shows (ABC).
- Walters, age 91, developed and hosted "The View," and interviewed everyone from Lucille Ball to the Obamas.
Page, the D.C. bureau chief of USA Today, says in the announcement: "She fished with Fidel Castro, dated John Warner, and grilled Monica Lewinsky. She was a groundbreaking broadcaster who cut a path for women in journalism, from Oprah Winfrey to Katie Couric and more."
- "She defined a new sort of journalism," Page added, "pivoting from political leaders to Hollywood celebs to convicted felons to the Dalai Lama. ... [S]he was ... sometimes ruthless. She also suffered disdain (some of it on the air from her male co-anchors) and pain."