ABC's Barbara Walters: Thin-Skinned?

By Stephen M. Silverman

04/15/2002 at 01:50 AM EDT

Don't mess with Barbara Walters, The Washington Post points out, or she'll talk about you on "The View." Case in point, says The Post, the ABC news fixture, 70, was not amused at a recent New York benefit called the Inner Circle, a gathering of press people and the current city mayor. During the entertainment portion of the evening, says The Post, former NBC newswoman Mary Alice Williams sang a parody number based on a song from Broadway's "A Chorus Line" and meant to satirize Walters and Greta Van Susteren as well as their surgically enhanced TV colleagues. The lyrics that ticked off Walters: "Who am I anyway? Despite my résumé/This is a picture of a person I don't know/My face behind my ears, I'll work a thousand years/Dan, Tom and Peter had their faces lifted, too/And Barbara Walters, she's had 82." On the following week's "View," Walters told viewers that she found the line "extremely insulting" and that she was particularly annoyed because Williams -- whom Walters would never mention by name -- had once phoned Walters and asked for assistance in setting up a job interview at ABC News. Later, Walters told her viewers that Williams (again, never mentioned by name) had contacted her to apologize.