(Photo: Courtesy of Barbara Walters)

I was sort of a fish out of water when we moved to New York. We had been living in Florida, which was much less sophisticated. My father owned nightclubs—the one in New York was called the Latin Quarter, and it was very famous then. It was where kids who were graduating from high school went for their proms. It had a big show, like a Las Vegas show, but the dancers were not nude—people came there to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. I was the envy of many of my friends, because I could go to the Latin Quarter. To me, I didn’t want my father to own a nightclub! I wanted him to be like my other friends’ fathers. I wanted him to be a dentist. My father only came home for dinner on Friday nights, and he usually came home at two in the morning. I never saw him all day long. I would think, Why isn’t he in the dress business?