"The View" co-host Joy Behar worked alongside legendary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters for over two decades, a working relationship she said she never imagined would happen.
Behar recalled Monday on "Good Morning America" that she was first seen by Walters when she performed stand-up at a birthday party for actor Milton Berle in the late 1990s.
"After the thing, I said to my husband, 'How was it?' And he said, 'Well, everyone was laughing except Barbara,'" Behar recalled. "And I said, 'Oh, well, I'm not going to work with her ... I'll never work with Barbara Walters, so what if she wasn't laughing?'"
Not long after the party, Behar said she got a call to become a co-host on "The View," a role Behar has held for nearly 30 years.
Walters' creation of "The View" is just one of her many career milestones, all examined in the new documentary "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything," streaming now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
The documentary features the voices of those who worked closest to Walters in her groundbreaking 50-year career, including Behar and her executive producer at "20/20," David Sloan.
Sloan said Monday on "GMA" that he thinks what made Walters stand out among journalists was her willingness to go there with her interview subjects.
"I think it was on her ability to ask cringey questions other people might avoid, like asking [former New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie if he was too overweight to be president, or asking [Barbra] Streisand, 'Why didn't you get a nose job?'" Sloan said. "And you kind of were cringing, but people wanted to know that kind of thing. She knew that it would be grabby, and she went there."
He added of Walters' lasting impact, "She kind of taught me how to ask questions, and all of America to ask questions and be fearless about it ... with dignity."
Sloan noted that many of the hard-hitting questions Walters posed to celebrities and newsmakers were a window into her own insecurities.
Barbara Walters biggest interviews revisited, from Monica Lewinsky to the Menendez brothersHe cited as an example the time Walters asked music superstar Taylor Swift how she would find a man as someone who is rich and famous.
"That was one of her worries, 'How am I going to find someone?'" Sloan said of Walters, who married three different men in her lifetime.
Walters died at age 93 in 2022.
She joined ABC News in 1976, becoming the first female anchor on an evening news program. Three years later, she became a co-host of "20/20," and in 1997, she launched "The View."
Her career spanned five decades, during which she earned 11 Emmy Award nominations, winning three.
Barbara Walters' success was fueled by personal struggles, documentary director saysShe made her final appearance as a co-host of "The View" in 2014, but remained an executive producer of the show and continued to do some interviews and specials for ABC News.
The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News and Hulu.
