Tuesday, April 30, 2013

This Week's Inspiring Pop Culture Moment: Kym Whitley

Photo courtesy of OWN

Each week we take a look around our pop culture world and try to find one moment that stood out as the most inspiring. It might be a celebrity who is doing charitable things, a TV shows that inspires us to be better or a philosophy that we should all strive to live by. Here is this week's most inspiring pop culture moment.

Raising Whitely, which premiered April 20 on OWN, follows the life of actress/comedienne Kym Whitley, who got a surprising phone call from a hospital one day about a year and a half ago. They had a baby for her. Only thing was, she wasn’t planning on adopting a baby. She had an hour to make the decision or the infant would be placed in the foster system. She did what any kind-hearted, self-sacrificing person would do. She took him in and got the help of her “Village” of family and friends to raise Joshua. We caught up with Kym and heard her story in her own words.

Kym was born in Cleveland, Ohio but spent her early childhood in Sudan, Khartoum with her family. They moved back to Shaker Heights, Ohio, when she was a pre-teen. She always enjoyed performing and was involved in all her school plays in both high school and college. She said, “I loved to be in front of an audience or camera all the time. Shortly after college, I came to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.”

Soon she was acting in TV shows like the UPN comedy Sparks, and doing guest spots on shows like Grey's Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Missing, That's So Raven, The Cleveland Show and Animal Practice. Her career was on a role. She stated felt like she was “walking in my dream.” She told us, “A lot of people come out to L.A. with the dream of being a paid actor. The fact that I have been a paid actor for so very many years — that truly means that I am ‘walking in my dream.’ I get to do what I LOVE everyday and I get paid for it.”

Kym didn’t take her success for granted and began giving back. She said, “I have this uncanny knack for finding people who need mentoring. I knew the brother of Joshua’s biological mother.  She was headed down the wrong path — so I took it upon myself to help her take a better direction. Currently, I participate in organizations like Jenesse Center in Los Angeles.”

Here’s what happened next:

Monday, April 29, 2013

Relive a ‘Warm Memory’ with the Toy Hunter

Courtesy of the Travel Channel

There’s nothing we appreciate more than someone who has a passion for pop culture. So it was a blast talking with Jordan Hembrough, the star of the Travel Channel Show Toy Hunter. Jordan has built a career seeking out the playthings that made our childhoods special. In a recent exclusive interview

Jordan described the most valuable find he’s ever discovered, “That probably has to be a prototype for a vintage Star Wars figure. It was an original wax sculpting for a character by the name of Boba Fett. He’s from The Empire Strikes Back and all these action figures and toys they start out as wax sculptings and prototypes. And this one I bought for $16,000 and actually sold it to a collector in France for $65,000. That was pretty valuable. And it now resides in the sci-fi museum in Paris. So it’s funny, that old cliché from Indiana Jones where he’s screaming, “This should be in a museum.” It was funny because this really did end up in a museum so everyone can enjoy it which is great.”

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Best of the Upfronts — Part 3

Photo by Matt Harbicht/HGTV/Scripps Networks

It was a very busy week in upfront land with AMC, E!, Hallmark, truTV, Spike and all the Scripps Networks (HGTV, Food, Cooking Channel, DIY and Travel) all announcing their offerings for the upcoming seasons. Here are our choices for the cream of the crop.

AMC — Meth, Berlin and Bowling
While AMC has a slew of new offerings, that may end up rivaling current hits (and some of our TV favorites) The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Mad Men, it's hard to imagine any of them surpassing these shows. And frankly, none of the descriptions have us jumping up and down. But one new offering, a take off on a current show sounds like a must see. Just like The Walking Dead has The Talking Dead, AMC is going to have Talking Bad, a live show that airs after Breaking Bad to analyze the series' final eight episodes. We're also slightly intrigued by the concept of The Wall, set in 1960s Berlin — Mad Men meets espionage. And just because it sounds too cheesy to pass up, we know we'll tune in to at least one episode of All-Star Celebrity Bowling.

Spike TV — Property Monstrosity
We all have one, the house in the neighborhood where people stop an ask, "Does someone actually live there?" Now PSike is going to tackle that problem house one neighborhood at a time. In Property Monstrosity neighbors will offer to fix up the disaster house on the block, as long as the owners leave while the renovations take place.

truTV — Panic Button
We used to hate anything remotely scary, but now that we've survived two seasons of American Horror Story, we actually crave a bit of the macabre. So we curious about truTV's new show Panic Button, which places contestants in haunted houses and challenges them not to press the panic button to get out.

Scripps — Hidden Camera Employees, Donuts, Amish and Cousin Balki
We are admitted HGTV, Cooking Channel and Food Network junkies so it's no wonder the Scripps Upfronts yielded our most anticipated shows so far this season. In Giving You the Business owners of well-known food chains will watch employees undercover and award someone a franchise opportunity of their business. The Cooking Channel is bringing us Donut Showdown. It's pretty self explanatory and do we need a reason, really? DIY is bringing Vanilla Ice to the land of the Pennsylvania Dutch in Vanilla Ice Goes Amish.

HGTV — Property Brothers Again
And our most exciting news from the Scripps Upfront was that the Property Brothers, Drew and Jonathan Scott, and back with yet another show, Brother vs. Brother. This time they go head-to-head metering teams on home improvement experts going after a $50,000 grand prize.

Stay tuned for more from the Upfronts as the season progresses.

For related stories check out:
The Best of the Upfronts to Date — Part 2
The Best of the Upfronts to Date

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

This week's Inspiring Pop Culture Moment: Wilmer Valderrama


  Photo by Tech. Sgt. Adam M. Stump, U.S. Air Force

Each week we take a look around our pop culture world and try to find one moment that stood out as the most inspiring. It might be a celebrity who is doing charitable things; a TV shows that inspires us to be better. Here is this week's most inspiring pop culture moment.

Wilmer Valderrama has made a name for himself in comedies. Rising to fame at the age of 18 on That ‘70s Show, the Miami native has found success making people laugh — most recently in his return trip to Suburgatory.

But the actor, who spent many of his formative years growing up in Venezuela, has a serious side. In a recent exclusive interview, he shared some very deep thoughts. Wilmer revealed, “What I’m really passionate about is finding multiple ways to use my entertainment platform to really not just raise awareness but to somehow create civil engagement within a number of communities that have yet to embrace the national community when it comes to the big picture.”

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Jim Rash Talks About Writing for Community

Photo by Vivian Zink/NBC

We all know and love him as the well-intentioned but floundering Dean Pelton on the NBC show Community. What some people may not know is that Jim Rash is also an Academy Award winning writer. He Nat Faxon penned the script for the 2011 feature film The Descendants. They also have a new movie coming out this summer called The Way, Way Back. So it is only fitting that Community tapped into his talent to write an episode of the show. His episode, “Basic Human Anatomy” airs this Thursday, April 25. In it, Annie and Shirley try to take down the school valedictorian and Abed and Troy swap bodies a la Freaky Friday. In a recent conference call he talked about how the script came about, which character is the most fun to write for and writing for himself.

On How Writing the Episode Came About
“The discussion to possibly write was actually before this season. It came up in talks during our hiatus. They just were curious if I had any interest. And I absolutely did if it worked out and there was a slot... So they end up having this open area where they were looking for another episode. And I went up and ended up pitching a couple of different ideas and then we obviously landed on the one that we did.”

On Being at the Table Read for His Script
“I mean it's weird because whenever you're at a table read… you're trying to also be an actor at the same time that you're listening to the script and trying to do both at the same time. It was such a dream come true to be able to write on a show that obviously I've been a part of but more importantly have been a fan of [creator] Dan [Harmon's] vision, a fan of our writers from beginning to end, jealous of our writers from beginning to end and of how their brains have worked and guided Dan's initial vision and what the show has evolved from year to year. So all those things that was like a scary challenge to be able to have the opportunity but also not want to let the show down by any means. And then from table read to getting to shoot and working with our director at the time Beth McCarthy-Miller and sitting side by side with her. And she was so giving as a director to allow me to chime in and then also such a great guide for the script that had a lot of heart in it. An important thing Community has always done is balance the absurd and fun with real emotion for the characters and what they're going through. So it really was a dream come true.”

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Alexis Bledel and Zachary Levi Remember Sunday

It was a call of epic proportions for the Passionistas. After talking with Lauren Graham last year about Parenthood, we still had one Gilmore Girl on our Pop Culture Bucket List. Last week it happened — a one on one (or should we say two on two) with Rory herself (aka Alexis Bledel) and Chuck (Zachary Levi that is).

The two actors star in tonight's TV movie Remember Sunday on ABC. He plays a guy named Gus who has to start each day anew due to memory issues. She's the girl of his dreams who can't quite grasp why he seems so forgetful. 

Tune in to Remember Sunday tonight at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. Central on ABC.


Here are some clips from our chat. 


Alexis Bledel and Zachary Levi on what attracted them to Remember Sunday



Alexis Bledel and Zachary Levi on the challenges of their roles in Remember Sunday



Alexis Bledel and Zachary Levi on filming Remember Sunday in New Orleans  

Friday, April 19, 2013

Sara Paxton Talks About Lovestruck: The Musical

Photo by Bob D'Amico

The plot of ABC Family's new original movie Lovestruck: The Musical, which premieres on April 21, sounds like a combination of Dallas meets Back to the Future.

Mirabella (Sara Paxton) is a  Broadway singer and dancer who quits show biz to get married. Her mom, Harper (Jane Seymour), a former dancer turned choreographer, gets angry when her daughter, the star of her next big Broadway show, quits and runs off to Italy to marry a womanizer (Alexander DiPersia). When Harper arrives at the wedding site, she swigs a strange potion and is transformed to her former self from 30 years ago (Chelsea Kane). Harper's ex (Tom Wopat) also drinks the potion and he, too, turns back the clock (Drew Seeley) and the two work together to mend the ill-fated mother-daughter relationship.

In a recent one-on-one interview we spoke with Sara about making the film and some of the pop hits she sang on screen. Her resume does not include a lot of singing or dancing, but she did grow up performing in musicals and is a big fan of movie musicals. Although she took tap and ballet as a kid and considers herself more of a singer than a dancer. She said, "We had this amazing choreographer, Michael Rooney and he made me look like a professional dancer."

As for the songs Sara explained, "Every generation will get something out of this movie because there's Madonna 'Like a Virgin.' And there's an Usher song and Lady Gaga." Sara sings "Like a Virgin" and also the big "Everlasting Love" grand finale. Plus she sends several of the original song penned specifically for the movie.

The actress said she can relate to Mirabella's rebellion against her mom, because she went through that herself, trying to establish her independence. But she differs from her character when it comes to the idea that you would have to give up your career for a man. She states, "I'm very career driven and it always comes first me… Maybe I just haven't met that person that makes me want to slow down."

We asked Sara our standard Passionistas question of who she would choose if she could be one pop culture icon for one day. She picked Britney Spears. She explained, "I grew up loving classic rock music — The Beatles, The Rolling Stones — and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What it this?" I was eight and it changed my life. I loved her dancing. I taped, yes kids, I taped these special on HBO and I would rewind and replay them and try to do the dance moves. If I could just be in her body for one of the concert and try to do those dance moves I don't now what I would do."

Watch Sara pull off her own dance moves in Lovestruck: The Musical, premieres April 21 at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on ABC Family.

For related stories check out:
Sutton Foster Talks Pop Culture and Family on Bunheads
Gilles Marini and Vanessa Marano Discuss Switched at Birth

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A New Way for David Cassidy Fans to ‘Get Happy’


Photo by Allan Warren

David Cassidy didn't raise a lot of money for his charity of choice when he was a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice considering he was the first star to go on his season. But now he seems to have what sounds like a much more solid plan for bringing in some bucks for the Alzheimer’s Association — he's putting some of his personal belongings up on the auction block. And it's all in honor of his mother, Eveyln Ward, who recently passed away after suffering from severe dementia for seven years.
 

Partridge Family fans will definitely "Get Happy" when they hear what they can get their hands on. There are some eye-popping sequined jumpsuits (think fat Elvis style but a whole lot skinnier). Of course, he was about 120 pounds when they were made, so if you want to wear one out for Halloween, you might want to start your diet now.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Best of the Upfronts to Date — Part 2


Photo by Noelle Neu via WikimediaCmmons

The Upfronts, the yearly event where networks pitch their upcoming seasons to ad buyers, continued this week with presentations by Discovery, Game Show Network SyFy and IFC. Here's our picks for what they have to offer.

GSN — Speed Skater Turned Game Show Host
We admit, we don't watch a lot of Game Show Network fare. But starting June 25, GSN is offering an intriguing option that we at least have to check out once to see. Olympic Gold Medal Speed Skater Apolo Anton Ohno is going to step up as hot of the new version of Minute to Win It. We love ourselves some Apolo, so we'll need to take a long, hard look at how he handles his new role.


SyFy — Jamie Foxx
Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx is bringing his talent — and his scary side— to Syfy. He will be writing, directing and producing a five-part mini-series that promises to be a mixture of Tales from the Crypt and The Twilight Zone and will explore themes of th seven delay sins, like envy and superficiality. Foxx promised he'd be signing on some big names and would probably make an appearance himself. Watch for it around Halloween.


Syfy — The Jim Henson Creature Shop
Syfy, home to one of our favorite reality competition series — Face Off — is developing another reality show that has us very excited. The Jim Henson Creature Shop will pit aspiring creature makers against one another for a chance to win an apprenticeship with the Creature Shop. Here's how they described it, "Teams of amateur creators will face off to build elaborate and awe-inspiring creatures, ranging from animatronic monsters and fantastical puppets, to life-like beasts and beyond!" And the judge? Brian Henson, Jim's son and chairman of the Henson franchise.

IFC — Giving Comedy Central a Run for Their Money 
IFC is trying to capitalize on the recent success of indie comedies Portlandia and Comedy Bang Bang! with a few more new scripted series. One, which sounds intriguing to us is Comedy Timms Industrial Piping, a stop-motion animation with baby dolls playing the characters of 1980s soaps life Dynasty, voiced by Nick Kroll, Elizabeth Banks and more. Plus IFC has ordered the pilot Two Idiots, which is created and written by Megan Mullally and Tina Kapousis. You can't go wrong with Megan Mullally involved.

Stay tuned for more from the Upfronts as the season progresses.

For related stories check out:
The Best of the Upfronts to Date
Face Off's McKenzie Westmore and Ve Neill on Past Contestants

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Monday, April 15, 2013

This Week's Inspiring Pop Culture Moment: John Ratzenberger


 Courtesy of FX

Each week we take a look around our pop culture world and try to find one moment that stood out as the most inspiring. It might be a celebrity who is doing charitable things, a TV shows that inspires us to be better or a philosophy that we should all strive to live by. Here is this week's most inspiring pop culture moment.


Actor John Ratzenberger is used to getting laughs on TV shows like Cheers and Legit and Pixar films including Toy Story and Monsters Inc. But off-camera he’s attached himself to some pretty serious causes, most notably what he refers to as “the manufacturing crisis in America.”


Rather than just complain about the shortage of jobs for skilled laborers in the United States, the television icon has contributed to his star power to raise awareness for the cause. In a recent conference call interview, he explained, “M.O.S.T. is a program, it’s Mobile Outreach Skills Training.  What we do is we pull up our trailer trucks that are outfitted as classrooms with computers.  We put people to work.”

Friday, April 12, 2013

David Appel Talks About His Time on Fashion Star

Photo by Chris Haston/NBC

David Appel, a Los Angeles Based fashion designer, got his start as a soccer player, but found his passion in clothing design. Before joining the Fashion Star cast he started Blue Tattoo Denim, a men's and women's denim line sold at Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom. He also sold clothing to Kitson, Gilt, HauteLook, Atrium, Neiman Marcus Last Cal and is co-owner of Cohesive. He was eliminated in week three when none of the buyers bid on his look in the Something for Everyone challenge. In a recent conference call interview, David talked about being on the show and what he’s doing now.

On the Most Important Piece of Advice She Got from His Mentor Jessica Simpson
“She was very helpful. She basically talked a lot about not knowing too much about men but knowing what likes in her husband. And listening to her as she knows basically what sells. She’s a got a $300 million company so knows what sells as far as men go and helping me out on the show.”

On Buyer Feedback that He’ll Carry Forward in His Design Work
“For me, the buyers’ critiques would have been better if they were done before the show even started before our first episode. [If they could have] put us in place in what they’re looking for would’ve been a lot better and a lot easier from the get go. We saw them after our first show and from there it’s like now I’ve got to change everything. So if you had some perspective on what the buyers wanted beforehand. All the buyers for every store are different, every single one. Then you’re just dealing with three and three very different stores. So it’s very difficult to take from them and then and when you’re put in a frantic situation of actually designing and having to figure out what you’re going to make once you’ve actually spoken to these buyers, things change. What they told me doesn’t really translate to what I’m taking into my business, to tell you the truth.”

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Best of the Upfronts to Date

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Bravo

The Upfronts, the yearly event where networks pitch their upcoming seasons to ad buyers, started early this year. Oxygen kicked them off in February. The heavy hitters don't come around until May but a lot of the cable channels are diving into the pool. To us it's like when the Sears Catalog used to come around Halloween and we got to peruse the pages and make our Christmas list. But with the Upfronts, we get a sneak peek of what's coming up next TV season and begin making our lists of what to watch. Here's the best of what we've seen so far.

Bravo Goes Scripted
Bravo has become one of our favorite networks by perfecting the reality genre and bringing some of our most loved shows like Project Runway (before it moved to Lifetime), Top Chef and, yes we admit it, some of the Real Housewives series. But this season the network will dip its baby toe into the scripted waters with four original offerings. While none of them sound completely like our cup of tea, we always give Andy Cohen the benefit of the doubt as a tastemaker, so we'll check out Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce based on the book series by Vicki Iovine; Heiresses, about wealthy New York diamond families; and High and Low, an '80s period drama with two brothers working together.

Disney — Girl Meets World
Disney went full force pitching it's highly-anticipated spin-off of the '90s sitcom Boy Meets World. The Mouse house hopes this cross-generational show will appeal to young kids and older viewers who grew up watching the first series. Original stars Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel, will reprise their roles as Cory and Topnaga, but the girl in the title is their 13-year-old daughter Riley, played by Rowan Blanchard.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Bill Kripke Talks About Revealing All on Revolution


Photo by Brownie Harris/NBC

It seems like the list of post apocalyptic TV shows is never ending lately. And while Revolution might not be packed with zombies or aliens like some of it’s competitors, it delivers on the drama front. Having just started the second half of its first seasons, the series is doing what so few have done before — explaining the details of the show’s backstory before the first 22 episodes have even aired. In a recent conference call interview showrunner Eric Kripke talked about that critical decision. 

He talked about what viewers can expect as the second half of the season continues to unfold, “I really favor in a really aggressive red-blooded pace of storytelling. Endless mystery is not really my [M.O.] and anyone who's watched any of my shows will know that.

Last night’s episode was the perfect example of that according to Eric, “Rachel reveals pretty much every single thing there is to know about why the blackout happened and every time I watch that scene, and she's brilliant in it, but that scene's a hard swallow every time because you're like, ‘Wow we're just saying it.’ And it goes against many of your baked-in sure weather instincts are not to have the scene that reveals every single thing in three minutes.”

Monday, April 8, 2013

The Voice Contestants Talk About Choosing Their Coaches

Photo by Adam Taylor/NBC

The Voice is settling into its fourth season. New coaches Usher and Shakira have infused some new energy into the show, but it still has the element that sets is apart from other singing shows — the blind audition. And during that blind audition, many of the contestants have the opportunity to choose their coach, when more than one turns around their big red chair. In a recent conference call some of the contestants talked about why they made the choice they made.

Team Shakira — Monique Abbadie
Monique Abbadie got all four judges to turn around after her rendition of Shakira’s “Loca.” It was obvious to even Blake, Adam and Usher that she should choose her idol and she did. Although Adam did offer to give her $100 if she picked Blake instead.

Monique said, “Ever since I knew that Shakira was going to be a coach I inclined more towards here because of the fact that I am a fan of hers. I’ve been a fan since I was a very little girl. But, yes, there was never a doubt in my mind that I would go with her. Of course, being in front of such amazing artists, such as Usher and Adam and Blake, it does go through your mind, “what if.” But, no, I would never let my girl down, I love Shakira and I’m so glad to be on her team.

She also commented on the other coaches’ reactions to the obvious choice. “I had never seen that on the show. I’ve been a viewer of the show since Season 1 and it was very interesting to see them all point at Shakira but I’m glad they did because she really, really fought for me and she really had that amazing chemistry that I felt. So I’m excited.”

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Get Ready to Meet the Ready for Love Coaches

Photo by Joseph Cultice/NBC

It’s hard to flip to a cable channel without stumbling across yet another reality TV show where people are looking for romance. But NBC is promising a new twist on what might seem like a tired genre in their upcoming series Ready for Love.

The show follows three men as they embark on a quest to find true love with the help of a trio of matchmakers, coaches and relationship experts — Amber Kelleher-Andrews, Matt Hussey and Tracy McMillan. In a recent conference call interview the mentors explained their personal approaches to helping Texas businessman Ben Patton, California musician Tim Lopez and Florida entrepreneur Ernesto Arguello meet their true loves.

Kelleher-Andrews is a world-famous matchmaker and relationship expert who hosts her own radio talk show, The Rules of Engagement. Helping people find romance is in her blood, as she explained, “I come from a family business of matchmaking. I like to say, ‘I'm the fly on the wall of over 40,000 dates.’  So I'm actually the CEO of company called Kelleher International. It's a professional matchmaking firm, but it's extremely personalized. It's been my mom and I for 27 years. She founded it. I haven't been working for the 27 years, but for probably 17 or 18.”

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Tori Nichel Talks About Her Time on Fashion Star

Photo by Tyler Golden/NBC

Tori Nichel, a New York based fashion designer was eliminated from Fashion Star in week two when none of the buyers purchased her one shoulder dress in the sex sells challenge. Before coming to Fashion Star Nichel was already a successful designer having worked at Kenneth Cole, Tibi and K-Mart as well as launching her own line of women’s dresses aptly named Tori Nichel. We spoke with Tori in a recent conference call about her time on the show and what’s up next for her.

On the Most Important Piece of Advice She Got from Her Mento Jessica Simpson
“The most important advice I got on the show was just to make sure I design commercial pieces and when I was eliminated she just told me make sure always stay true to myself and my brand, which was really nice.”

On Buyer Feedback that She’ll Carry Forward in Her Design Work
“The feedback I got from Terron [Schaefer, Saks Fifith Avenue buyer], I definitely disagreed with and I think the people who are following the show disagreed with — the print selection and the colors. It seemed like everyone really loved it. One of the thing that Caprice [Willard, Macy’s buyer] had mentioned to me, which I’ve always stayed true to is just continuing to do my dresses. People out there in the market, whether it’s been me working at Kenneth Cole, Tibi, my own collection Tori Nichel, people always remember my dresses, love them. So just staying true and servicing that customer, especially since dresses are so of the moment right now.”

On What Advice She Has for Aspiring Designers
“There’s so many young designers I’ve worked with, whether they’ve worked for me or if I was doing something at one of my schools. And everyone wants to get out of school or just get out of where they’re going and just start this line… There’s more to designing than just sketching and draping and pattern making. You’ve got to learn the business side, too. One of the best [pieces of] advice I got coming out of school was mess up on somebody else’s dollar first. Learn the ins and outs while it’s not costing you anything. So definitely apprenticing from someone is so important and also just staying true to whatever that vision or design esthetic is that brand DNA. Not everybody is going to love your esthetic. And if you start Buyer A or Store A wants this, Store B and C want this, Store D and C want this then all of a sudden your vision and what’s natural to you is jumbled because you’re trying to do and please everyone. So staying true and having a distinct point of view because if you’re consistent, it’ll definitely carry you throughout.”

Monday, April 1, 2013

An Early Barbara Walters Send Off


Joella Marano at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellasportfolio

We knew it was coming — the day Barbara Walters would have to put a button on one of the most legendary careers in broadcasting. But still, we were sad to hear the news last week that she’d be retiring in 2014. To be honest, our first real memory of Baba Wawa was Gilda Radner’s impression of her on Saturday Night Live when we were little kids.

But over the years we came to understand that she was way more than a late night comedy sketch joke. In fact, it’s safe to say that Walters is one of the most trailblazing female journalists of all time. And, let’s face it, she’s had some kick ass hair dos.

From her early time as a Today girl to her celebrity probing Oscar specials to creating The View, Babs has done it all. Here’s the woman in her own words talking about some of her career highlights:



On Her Work on the Today Show




On What Makes a Barbara Walter’s Question




On the Barbara Walters Specials


On Coming to Terms with Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa"

 

On Creating The View




On Paving the Way for Women in Journalism