The Barbara Walters Special

Barbara Walters interviewed Elizabeth for The Barbara Walters Special, which aired on Oscar night, March 30, 1987. (Elizabeth would hand out the Academy Award for Best Director at that year’s ceremony).

“On this Academy Award night, we are proud to present three women who are unique, controversial, and exceptional,” Walters said from the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the location of the first Academy Awards dinner in 1929. “Three women who have done it their way.” One, of course, was Elizabeth. The other two were Bette Davis and Debra Winger.

The interview took place during a break in filming on the Old Tucson, Arizona set of the 1987 TV film Poker Alice (Elizabeth was resplendent in one of her spectacular Nolan Miller costumes). It was Elizabeth’s first interview with Walters since their 1977 sit down with John Warner in the kitchen of the Warners’ Virginia farm, where one of the main topics of conversation was Elizabeth’s weight gain.

“I didn't enjoy being fat,” Elizabeth now admitted. “I hated it, and I hated all the fat jokes. I probably laughed as loud or louder than anyone, but they hurt. They hurt me a lot, and there was a kind of defiance, I think, that made me get even fatter. Like, it’s my business, it’s my body.”

As the special was in honour of the Academy Awards, the two looked back at a handful of Elizabeth’s films and some of the talented people she made them with. The veteran journalist also asked about her memories of Mike Todd and Richard Burton. “Fate has played such a part in your life,” said Walters. “In Cleopatra, Mark Antony was supposed to have been [played by] an actor named Stephen Boyd. He had other commitments and another actor named Richard Burton was brought in. [On] the life of Richard Burton, so much has been written about it, talked about it, that I couldn't possibly start to ask you about it, except to ask what your memories are now.”

Elizabeth considered a moment, and replied: “They’re wonderful memories, they’re warm memories, and they’re my memories.”