Barbara Walters to Retire—Really

[DonViejo]

by Lloyd Grove Mar 29, 2013 4:00 AM EDT

After nearly 60 years of groundbreaking television, the ABC icon is reportedly stepping down in May 2014. A talk with Dan Rather, Mika Brzezinski, Connie Chung, and other colleagues who are in shock.

The idea that Barbara Walters would ever hang it up is so difficult to wrap one’s brain around, so far beyond the realm of human comprehension, such a grievous assault on the senses, that even people not easily shocked find it impossible to accept.

“I’m tempted to say that I really can’t imagine Barbara retiring,” Dan Rather told me on Thursday, as rumors of Walters’s impending announcement reached critical mass. “Her whole life has been a triumph of the will.”

Gossip doyenne Liz Smith, a longtime friend of the television powerhouse, recalled doing a magazine interview with Walters a couple of years ago. “She said she wanted to give it all up. And I didn’t believe her.”

“She never stops,” said veteran producer Jim Murphy, who worked with Walters on and off at ABC News and came away thinking “she is literally one of the greatest people in the history of the business.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/29/barbara-walters-to-retire-really.html

[sfpcjock]

1. I take it she's going to the Meridith Vieira Home?

Just saying, LoL