Barbara Walters became an icon of the news media industry, rising through the ranks to become

one of the country's first and most successful female television journalists.

But her enormous professional success often came at great personal cost.

Her life is the focus of a revealing new book

I discussed recently with author Susan Page

called The Rule Breaker,

The Life in Times of Barbara Walters.

Susan Page, welcome back to the news hour.

Great to be here.

So Barbara Walters was a very public figure.

She even had parts of her private life covered in the tabloids. What was missing

from her narrative that you felt needed to be explored and told in this book?

You know, I think one thing that we've lost is a sense of how hard it was for her.

You know, we remember her as this enormously successful, wealthy person with lots of honors

seen as a real groundbreaker, but she got there with a process that took

unbelievable grit and determination and putting up with all kinds of grief.

Lou Walters was her father. What really struck me was how much of an impact he had on her life. He was a showbiz guy, right? How did he inform how she navigated her path forward.

So he was a great impresario.

He originally was booking vaudeville acts.

He became the founder of a famous nightclubs,

including the Latin Quarter.

But he would earn a fortune and gamble it away.

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