"Becoming Katharine Graham": New film salutes Washington Post pioneer
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Katharine Graham with Washington Post editors in 1971. Photo courtesy of the Katharine Graham Estate
The role of trailblazing Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham was inexplicably cut from the 1976 Watergate movie, "All the President's Men," which had a splashy D.C. premiere at the Kennedy Center.
- Forty-nine years later, Graham got her Kennedy Center honors with Sunday night's Washington premiere of "Becoming Katharine Graham," a documentary now streaming on Prime Video.
Why it matters: The filmmakers — George, Teddy and Peter Kunhardt — say they wanted to tell "the story of a painfully shy woman's accidental rise to power and how it changed history."
- After her husband's death in 1963, "Kay evolved from a 'doormat wife' into a legendary newspaper publisher. Nixon's nemesis during Watergate, she fought for truth, broke barriers in a sexist world, and won a Pulitzer Prize, inspiring generations with her courage and resilience."
Graham, who died in 2001 at age 84, in 1972 became the first woman who was CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
- "Becoming Katharine Graham" had the support of Don Graham, who succeeded his mother as publisher of The Post, and investor Warren Buffett, who was a longtime board member of The Washington Post Co.
Behind the scenes: Among those at the Kennedy Center bash Sunday night were Warren Buffett ... Washington Post icons Bob Woodward, Don Graham, Lally Weymouth and Sally Quinn ... Elsa Walsh ... actor Bill Murray ... Bill Gates ... David Rubenstein ... Bobby Kotick ... former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Evan Ryan ... former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao ... Devon Spurgeon ... Becky Quick of CNBC's Squawk Box ... and Judy Woodruff of "PBS News Hour."
Life lesson: In a rare interview, Warren Buffett — the "Oracle of Omaha," 94, who was one of Graham's closest friends — told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell on "Sunday Morning": "If I was a young girl, I'd want to hear [Graham's] story. It would change my self-image."
- "She was one of a kind, and she was terrified of the job," Buffett said. "She knew she could do things. But she'd been told all her life that she wasn't [allowed] ... [H]er mother told her: 'Nobody's interested in listening to you.' And so, all of a sudden, here she is, and she had an all-male board that was waiting for her, and all they wanted was her to stay home and cash the dividend checks."
Buffett, who's a character in the film, added: "Nixon didn't scare her at all."
- Buffett told O'Donnell that once, attending one of Graham's famous dinner parties, he was served a lobster from her French chef. "Well, I unfortunately attacked it from the wrong side," Buffett recalled. "Of course, she was very reluctant to criticize me. Finally, at some point, she said: 'You know, it might be helpful …' What did I know about lobsters?"
