Barbara Walters got chicken pox from smooching Frank Langella

Barbara Walters made her triumphant return to “The View” this week after being laid up with a series of maladies, including chicken pox, since late January. And after a few surprises for her, like an appearance by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg with a bouquet of flowers, Walters had a surprise of her own: the identity of the actor who gave her chicken pox in the first place.

As Walters confirmed on Tuesday’s show, the actor who gave her chicken pox is Frank Langella, with whom Walters shared a New Year’s Eve smooch on the cheek a few weeks before.

Langella had a case of shingles, which he was not aware of at the time. (He has since recovered.) The actor, who recently starred in the indie movie “Robot and Frank,” was a guest at the Miami home of a mutual friend of Walters.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox, but only in adults who have already had chicken pox as children. Walters never got them in her youth and so she developed a case in late January.

Though Walters didn’t want to name the actor initially, word got out to the media that it was Langella and she finally came clean. “I didn’t want to” do this, she told Joy Behar.

Walters was off the air for six weeks total after she fell and hit her head while attending a party at the Washington home of the British ambassador.

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