"The View" co-host Joy Behar called into "Good Morning America" on Saturday to pay tribute to Barbara Walters, a pioneer for women in broadcasting who died last week at age 93.
Walters, a journalism icon who created "The View" in 1997, wanted to bring women from different backgrounds and perspectives together to discuss the hot topics of the day. "The View" was born from that idea, and Behar has been a mainstay for much of the show’s 26-year run. After a montage of their time sharing the screen, Behar explained that the press wasn’t always privy to the more playful side of Walters.
"She could have a laugh, have fun, told a good dirty joke, you know she was a lot of fun," Behar said.
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"I went to her house a lot of times for dinner, she always had an array of the brilliant people of our time at the table, and she would always include me and my husband as if we were part of that particular group of people, which we were not," Behar continued. "We were not friends with them, we were friends with her. She was always very cordial and lovely to me."
Behar, an original cast member of "The View," said she and Walters were "pals" and used to share endless laughs both on and off-camera. The fiery redhead never thought she’d involve herself with a daytime talk show until Walters, who discovered Behar by catching one of her comedy acts, came along.
"I took the job at a time when my career could have gone in the direction of acting and the sitcom world, because I was doing a lot of years of standup and there are certain ways that you can go from that and a talk show came along and I said, ‘Daytime talk show? I don’t know about that, it doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea,’" Behar said. "This was different and it had Barbara at the helm, and that’s when I decided I’ll take the job because if she was in charge of it, it would be a smart show."
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Behar said Walters wouldn’t have done a "dumb show," so the daytime gabfest was sure to be a success. Along the way, the former standup comic learned the TV broadcasting business by watching Walters lead by example.
"She’s very much the role model for a lot of people in showbiz and the news world for sure," Behar said. "She had a work ethic you couldn’t deny. She was always prepared, she was always working on her material. She never went out there and didn’t know what she was doing. That was an important thing to learn."
Fox News’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
