She snapped at a defense lawyer, nearly cried over a photograph and cordially braved an icy stare from the dreaded Charlene.
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Barbara Walters had an emotion-packed afternoon yesterday in a Manhattan courtroom, where she had come — looking fabulous in a vintage Bill Blass dress suit — to the monthlong Astor swindle trial to tell jurors about her dear friend Brooke.
Walters was, in turns, gracious, warm, combative and near-weepy, but always in charge — like on her TV show, “The View,” only under oath and in less comfortable seating — as she helped build the prosecution’s case against Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall.
Prosecutors say that as Astor hit age 100 in 2002, Marshall began taking advantage of her rampaging Alzheimer’s, strong-arming her out of more than $60 million in paintings and bequests for him and his greedy younger wife, Charlene — a woman Astor referred to among friends as “that bitch.”
Walter’s purpose on the stand was to discredit defense claims that Astor was mentally competent when she signed away her fortune.
“I haven’t seen this until today,” the ABC News correspondent and talk-show host told jurors, getting choked up as prosecutors showed jurors a photo from Dec. 29, 2002. The picture showed Walters embracing a frail and weakened Astor.
“So I’m a little affected by it,” Walters said, struggling to keep her composure.
The date is significant. A week before, Astor signed changes in her will giving Marshall control over $30 million in charitable funds — money she had slated for the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum and other city charities close to her heart. Then, not two weeks later, Astor signed another set of will changes, these granting Marshall — and, after his death, Charlene — outright control of $60 million in money she had slated for charity.
But Astor was on that very date so in the throes of dementia, she didn’t even recognize Walters, whom she had known, dined with and vacationed with since the 1960s, the TV star told jurors.
“I know Brooke didn’t know me,” Walters recounted in devastating testimony. “I said, ‘Brooke? It’s Barbara.’ ” Asked what Astor responded, Walters said: “I didn’t understand what she said. It was garbled . . . I just knew she had no idea who I was.”
Defense lawyers tried to hammer Walters hard on that point. Marshall defense lawyer Frederick Hafetz asked if Walters knew for a fact whether Astor was experiencing dementia or merely feeling out of sorts. “I don’t know,” Walters conceded.
Then another defense lawyer — Thomas Puccio, who represents Marshall’s co-defendant, estates lawyer Francis Morrissey — tried to portray Walters as a fair-weather friend.
“And for whatever reason, you didn’t see her again until she died?” nearly five years later, he goaded.
“I wasn’t bringing her any pleasure. And it was painful,” Walters replied.
That lawyer had gotten off on the wrong foot with Walters anyway — asking her, first question out of the box, “Any chance Ms. Loewy is going to be on ‘The View’ next week?” — that being prosecutor Elizabeth Loewy, who had conducted the direct examination.
“Did you ask me if she is going to be on ‘The View?’ ” Walters said, angrily. “Are we serious? No.”
On the sidewalk outside court, Walters ran smack into both Anthony and Charlene Marshall. They all looked at one another. Anthony smiled. Babs smiled. Charlene glared.
Yesterday was celebrity day in the midst of the seemingly endless trial — with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also taking the stand to describe his good friend Brooke’s descent into dementia.
At a January 2002 dinner party Astor was throwing in honor of her good friend, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Kissinger said she asked, “Who is the black fellow who is sitting on the other side of me?” referring to Annan.