Joy Behar Recalls Her First Time Performing for Barbara Walters — and How She Was the Only Person 'Not Laughing'

Joy Behar didn’t stand up very well when she first met the late Barbara Walters.

Behar, 82, was one of the original panelists Viewwhich Walters created with Bill Geddie in 1997. In the January 14 episode Searching for your rootsthe television personality recalled the first impression Walters — who died in 2022 at age 93 — had of her when they met years ago.

“This friend of mine called me and said, ‘Look, we’re doing something for Milton Berle at the Waldorf Astoria, it’s his 89th birthday party. Can you come up and do 10 minutes?’ And I said okay because I got excited Milton Berle – no money,” Behar told Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Watch Joy Behar open up about her family’s ‘almost incestuous’ relationship on Searching for my roots (Exclusive)

“I got on stage and did a whole segment about how… a man can get a woman no matter what age, no matter what condition she’s in. Like, look at Milton Berle, he was 89, his wife, Like, 55 or so something, and I drew a comparison with Salman Rushdie,” Behar continued. “He was in hiding for 10 years, married three times. While he was hiding! So I said, you know, ‘Who came to [wedding]? Was it the lady from Avon? Who was that?’ Anyway, I did that part and a few other things.”

After her 10-minute window was up, Behar returned to her seat and asked her husband, Steve Janowitz, what he thought.

He said, ‘Well, everyone was laughing except for Barbara Walters,'” Behar recalled.

Joy Behar (left) and Barbara Walters on ‘The View’ in 1999.

Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy

Behar thought to herself at the time, “Who cares, I’m not going to work for Barbara Walters,” but it wasn’t until a few months later that she got a call “from the Barbara Walters people” asking her to “try with these other women and see if we can whether to do the work” that would develop into View.

“And then I got the job,” Behar said.

When Gates, 74, asked if Behar ever mentioned that to Walters after they worked together, Behar said he did — and revealed what Walters’ explanation was.

She said, ‘I’ve been studying you,'” Behar recalled.

“The View” Celebrates 4,000 Shows With Guest Co-Hosts Barbara Walters and Joy Behar March 27, 2015 Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Sherri Shepherd says Joy Behar caught Barbara Walters gossip about View Created by Richard Pryor Hookup

This is not the first time that Behar has looked back on the past recently. In a recent episode View‘s Behind the Table podcast, she recalled the advice her agent gave her when she was originally offered a spot as a panelist on View in the ’90s.

“When did I get this job — when was it? 1997? — I was one step away from getting a sitcom. I’ve been on a sitcom before and I played the pilot,” she said, recalling her stint in NBC’s short-lived 1987 TV adaptation of the film. Baby Boom in the late ’80s.

“The call comes for this job View with Barbara Walters. Do you know my agent told me not to take it?” she recalled.

Behar — who has been a panelist on the show for 25 of the 28 years it’s been on the air, except for a brief hiatus from 2013 to 2015 — said she knows View “would be a smart play with [Walters] behind it,” despite her agent’s belief that she would not be paid enough.

She told her agent: “She’s in New York with Barbara Walters. I don’t want to live in LA, I want to live in New York [and] work with Barbara Walters.'”

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Searching for your roots airs Tuesdays at 8:00 PM ET on PBS and View airs weekdays on ABC (check local listings).

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Source: HIS Education