After claiming on “The View” Monday that she contracted chicken pox from a “well known” actor she kissed on New Year’s Eve in Miami, Confidenti@l has learned it’s Frank Langella who likely spread the virus to Barbara Walters.
“I gave him a New Year’s hug and a kiss on the cheek,” she explained on the show Monday. “The next day he left. What he didn’t know then, and I didn’t know at all, was that he was about to develop a bad case of shingles” (the same virus is involved in both diseases).
Everyone at ABC was left guessing who the man was who brought Babs to her knees. But one pal of the talk queen assured us it was Langella, who indeed ran into her at a New Year’s party.
“We were all on Google checking if you need to exchange fluid to catch it. It seems that Barbara is telling the truth, and a kiss on the cheek would be enough to pass it on,” laughs our ABC insider. “Now we are all betting on who this name was. Diddy spends a lot of time in Miami and his name was being tossed around.”
Langella, 75, was divorced from wife Ruth Weil in 1996. In an odd connection to “The View,” the actor lived with Whoopi Goldberg from 1996 until 2001. Langella, who is not shy about his hookups, last year authored a book called “Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them.”
Walters was out for six weeks following a fall, a hospitalization and her bout with the pox. She made sure to stage a grand entrance Monday on the show when she returned to the air, says another source.
She got a standing ovation and a surprise visit from Mayor Bloomberg. During her time off, she received letters from the Obamas, Jimmy Carter and tons of A-listers. We hear Babs was happy with how the day went, and loved video messages from Ali Wentworth and Joan Rivers.
But all the hoopla didn’t stop Walters, 83, from showing her sharp, eagle-eyed smarts. “She said it was ‘very curious’ that the flowers Bloomberg gave her on air looked remarkably similar to the ones Regis [Philbin] later gave her,” says our source.
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