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

Joy Behar didn't exactly get off on the right foot the first time she met the late Barbara Walters.

Behar, 82, was one of the original panelists on The View, which Walters created with Bill Geddie in 1997. On the Jan. 14 episode of Finding Your Roots, the television personality recalled the first impression that Walters — who died in 2022 at age 93 — had of her when they met years ago.

"So this friend of mine called me up and he said, 'Look, we're doing something for Milton Berle at the Waldorf Astoria, it's his 89th birthday party. Could you come up and do 10 minutes?' And I said okay. Cause Milton Berle! I got excited — no money involved here," Behar told Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Related: Watch Joy Behar Discover Her Family's 'Almost Incestuous' Connection on Finding My Roots (Exclusive)

"I got on stage and I did this whole bit about how... a man can get a woman no matter what age he is, no matter what condition he's in. Like, look at Milton Berle, he was 89, the wife's, like, 55 or something. And I made the comparison to Salman Rushdie," Behar continued. "He was in hiding for 10 years, he got married three times. While he was in hiding! So I said, you know, 'Who came to the [wedding]? Was it an Avon lady? Who was it?' Anyway, I did that bit and a couple of 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 Barbara Walters,'" Behar recalled.

At the time, Behar thought to herself, "Oh well, who cares, I'm not gonna work for Barbara Walters," but it was only a few months later that she got a call "from Barbara Walters' people" asking her to "try out with these other women to see if we can do the job" that would evolve into The View.

"And then I got the job," Behar said.

When Gates, 74, asked if Behar ever brought it up to Walters once they worked together, Behar said she did — and revealed what Walters' explanation was.

"She said, 'I was studying you,'" Behar recalled.

Related: Sherri Shepherd Says Joy Behar Snitched Gossip to Barbara Walters About The View Creator's Richard Pryor Hookup

This isn't the first time Behar has reflected on the past as of late. On a recent episode of The View's Behind the Table podcast, she recalled the advice her agent had given her when she was initially offered a spot as a panelist on The View in the '90s.

“When I got this job — when was it? 1997? — I was sort of on the cusp of getting a sitcom. I had been in a sitcom already, and I'd done a pilot," she said, recalling her stint on NBC’s short-lived TV adaptation of the 1987 film Baby Boom in the late ’80s.

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

Behar — who has been a panelist on the show for 25 of its 28 years on-air, barring a brief break from 2013 to 2015 — said she knew The View "would be a smart show with [Walters] behind it," despite her agent's belief that she wouldn't be paid enough.

She told her agent, "‘It's in New York City with Barbara Walters. I don't wanna live in L.A. I wanna live in New York City [and] work with Barbara Walters.'"

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Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on PBS and The View airs weekdays on ABC (check local listings).

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