Barbara Walters

Walters, the trailblazing television news broadcaster and longtime ABC News anchor, has died at 93. Barbara ...

With "The View," she created a forum for women of different backgrounds and views to come together and discuss the latest hot topics in the news, a format that has since been widely imitated by other networks. In 2000, Oprah Winfrey echoed Jennings' speech when she presented Walters a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 1994, she launched the "Most Fascinating People" special, which aired every December and afforded her the opportunity to chat with the year's top newsmakers. Toward the end of the interview, Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children when you have them?" In her memoir, Walters wrote that she had dark hair, a sallow complexion and was often told she was skinny. "I told him that what we most profoundly disagreed on was the meaning of freedom." For years, she hosted an annual Oscars special, in which she interviewed Academy Award nominees and was known for making a number of them reveal deeply personal information and even cry. "No one was more surprised than I," she said of her on-air career. She would become the program's first female co-host in 1974, and won her first Emmy award the following year for Outstanding Talk Show Host. She was a one-of-a-kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time, from heads of state to the biggest celebrities and sports icons. "Much of the need I had to prove myself, to achieve, to provide, to protect, can be traced to my feelings about Jackie. She will be missed by all of us at The Walt Disney Company, and we send our deepest condolences to her daughter, Jacqueline,” Iger said in a statement Friday.

Print reporters, broadcasters, celebrities and others paid tribute to the legendary news anchor.

“As the first female national news anchor, she opened the door to endless possibilities for so many girls who wanted to work in TV, myself included,” Ms. [said on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/1609018990742962176)that Ms. “She cared about the truth and she made us care too. Walters as an “American institution.” “She held them accountable,” he wrote on Twitter. Walters called to offer her a job on “20/20.” She said it was an honor to share the set. Walters’s “hard hitting questions & welcoming demeanor made her a household name and leader in American journalism.” [Star Jones](https://twitter.com/StarJonesEsq/status/1609022812009955328?s=20&t=xB9wMlztYRYx1SKWtcf6dQ), one of the original co-hosts of “The View,” wrote: “I owe Barbara Walters more than I could ever repay. Walters as a mentor and a friend. Fortunately, she inspired many other journalists to be just as unrelenting.” Maria Shriver, a former NBC News anchor and California first lady, described Ms. Journalists across the country recalled on Friday night the effect that Ms. “So many women broke into the news business because she did her job well,” Ms.

Disney Legend Barbara Walters, the pioneering television journalist who spent 38 years at ABC News, passed away this evening at her home in New York.

She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She became a co-host of the program without the official title in 1963, but in 1974, NBC formally designated her as the program’s first female co-host. After 25 years as host and chief correspondent of ABC News’ 20/20, Walters left the show in 2004, but she remained an active member of the news division and network for years thereafter. She made journalism history with the first joint interview with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1977. She not only interviewed the world’s most fascinating figures, but she became a part of their world. I had the pleasure of calling Barbara a colleague for more than three decades, but more importantly, I was able to call her a dear friend.

Walters broke gender barriers for women to enter and deliver hard news to Americans, becoming co-host of The Today Show in 1974. Two years later, the first ...

Barbara Walters, one of the most visible women on U.S. television as the first female anchor on an American network evening news broadcast and one of TV's ...

In 1997, Walters launched "The View" on ABC, a popular roundtable discussion show for women that was sometimes riven by disputes with her co-hosts Star Jones and Rosie O'Donnell. Being interviewed by Walters on "20/20" or on her numerous specials became a distinction - and guaranteed exposure - for her subjects. After 13 years on "Today," Walters was given an unprecedented $1 million annual salary to move to rival network ABC in 1976 and make history as the first woman co-anchor on a U.S. She also had high-profile boyfriends such as Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, and John Warner, who would later become a senator from Virginia. Walters became so prominent that her star quality sometimes overshadowed the people she was questioning. "These two men were really quite brutal to me and it was not pleasant," Walters told the San Francisco Examiner. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, she worked in public relations before joining NBC's "Today" show as a writer and segment producer in 1961. Her unwilling partner, Harry Reasoner, made his disdain for Walters obvious even when they were on the air. Walters said the spoof bothered her, until her daughter told her to lighten up. Celebrity interviews also were an important part of Walters' repertoire, and for 29 years she hosted a pre-Oscars interview program featuring Academy Award nominees. In a broadcast career spanning five decades, Walters interviewed an array of world leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro, Britain's Margaret Thatcher, Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and every U.S. WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Barbara Walters, one of the most visible women on U.S.

It's the night before New Year's Eve 2022, and my phone is blowing up with sad emojis. “Devastated?” “I'm so sorry.” “Oh no, Barbara!” Oh no, is right.

When Barbara hired Elisabeth Hasselbeck, in 2003, as the show’s first Republican, direct from a stint on “Survivor,” she made one thing clear: “The View” was not afraid of controversy, as the co-hosts started to wrestle on live TV over everything from working mothers to whether or not George W. In the final years of her life, she suffered from dementia, which is why we haven’t heard or seen from her in a few years. “How ironic is it that whenever somebody talks about Barbara Walters in articles, it’s never the Barbara Walters as the First Lady of journalism, or the Barbara Walters specials, or the Barbara Walters of ABC News, or Barbara Walters, the first female anchor. She didn’t intervene when “The View” became a hot mess backstage — as long as the ratings were good, she was fine with co-hosts who acted like bullies. And not surprisingly, she saw the world as it revolved around Barbara Walters. She’d sabotage a colleague for a scoop because she had no real friends among the other anchors in the newsroom. And it didn’t make much noise for a year, until Barbara fired Debbie on national TV, got spoofed on “Saturday Night Live” and suddenly found herself in the zeitgeist in a totally different way. “What makes me feel good is when a young woman — it’s almost always a woman — says, ‘You influenced me and you’re the reason I became a journalist,’” she told me. Barbara Walters loved many things — but mostly she loved being on TV, being on TV and being on TV. She’d request (OK, demand) a “20/20” special anchored by Oprah Winfrey, and tears from the co-hosts of “ [The View](https://variety.com/t/the-view/),” her surrogate TV daughters. “They watched, and they said, ‘If she could do it, I could do it.’” She was in good spirits that morning, meeting me at a hotel restaurant on the Upper East Side, near where she lived, having just had lunch with an old college friend.

Walters was a broadcasting trailblazer who helped develop many modern TV templates. Here are some of the most memorable moments from her influential career.

[behind-the-scenes drama](https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/elisabeth-hasselbeck-quit-the-view-listen-fight-barbara-walters-audio-1203180312/) — [arguments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc4SvJdfDZc), a revolving door of panelists, hosts [storming off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVrR2j7uwjs) the air — has occasionally overshadowed the show itself. These high-profile [conversations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuDnX63GSA8) spawned multiple spinoffs, including nearly 30 years of highly rated [Oscar-night programs](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/arts/television/04walters.html), starting in 1981; the annual [“10 Most Fascinating People” specials](https://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/barbara-walters-fascinating-people-began-21272019), starting in 1993; and a series of [intermittent one-off interviews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsL-QFAzRkw&app=desktop), such as with [Patrick Swayze](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsL-QFAzRkw&app=desktop). [former President Richard Nixon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZk2xuJN8kQ). In the late 1970s, she went to Cuba for an [extensive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC6xcQx4l7Y) [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC6xcQx4l7Y) with Fidel Castro (drawing the attention of the C.I.A. Trump](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3qna9ZVgs) (when Trump was still a candidate). (Walters [often](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/barbara-walters-retirement-2014-tv-trailblazer-reveals-top-19175060) [cited](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXh4_BUZwHI) this as the favorite of her interviews.) [move](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHQ7nfwK4I) to [ABC](https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/barbara-walters-debuts-abc-news-1976-69034551) as the first female co-anchor of a nightly network newscast wasn’t universally applauded. Her “ABC Evening News” co-host, [Harry Reasoner](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/07/obituaries/harry-reasoner-68-newscaster-known-for-his-wry-wit-is-dead.html), [didn’t think so](https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/13/archives/the-showdown-at-abc-news-behind-the-personality-conflict-between.html) and [rarely](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU5Fb0E0ZAk) [hid](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video/barbara-walters-risks-failures-23760251) his contempt on-camera. She flourished away from the studio as a [roving reporter and interviewer](https://www.nytimes.com/1978/04/20/archives/abc-news-shifting-center-to-capital-she-stays-in-new-york-deskborne.html). [Aline Saarinen](https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/15/archives/aline-saarinen-art-critic-dies-at-58.html). [Henry Kissinger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVNaQrJv4sU), [Prince Philip](https://twitter.com/todayshow/status/860210439136960515?lang=en), [Phyllis Schlafly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjrP0NFHKAE)) and showbiz celebrities ( [Judy Garland](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHJujYMvY30), Barbra Streisand, [Bette Midler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9jwFEu9mNQ)). [co-host](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeWjVLwV3Zk) until 1974, when she became the first woman to earn that title.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a ...

But salvation arrived in the form of a new boss, ABC News president Roone Arledge, who moved her out of the co-anchor slot and into special projects for ABC News. By 1976, she had been granted the title of “Today” co-host and was earning $700,000 a year. As she appeared more frequently, she was spared the title of “Today” Girl that had been attached to her token female predecessors. Then she began to make occasional on-air appearances with offbeat stories such as “A Day in the Life of a Nun” or the tribulations of a Playboy bunny. Meanwhile, Harry Reasoner, her seasoned “ABC Evening News” co-anchor, was said to resent her high salary and celebrity orientation. A perennial favorite was her review of the year’s “10 Most Fascinating People.” “Harry didn’t want a partner,” Walters summed up. But she faced a setback in 1971 with the arrival of a new host, Frank McGee. She had the first interview with Rose Kennedy after the assassination of her son, Robert, as well as with Princess Grace of Monaco, President Richard Nixon and many others. In 1961 NBC hired her for a short-term writing project on the “Today” show. Late in her career, in 1997, she gave infotainment a new twist with “The View,” a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. During a commercial break, a throng of TV newswomen she had paved the way for — including Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Robin Roberts and Connie Chung — posed with her for a group portrait.

In the midst of her 16th season on “The View,” the legendary journalist cryptically asked ABC executive Anne Sweeney to write down the year 2014 on a piece of ...

“She had to be taken to the greenroom, where they laid her down on a sofa. The Emmy winner’s last episode aired in May 2014 with special guests Hillary Clinton, Michael Douglas and Oprah Winfrey. But as the year went on, Walters’ health continued to deteriorate, and it soon became clear that the 84-year-old could not go on working. [settling into life as a retiree](https://pagesix.com/2022/12/30/barbara-walters-made-final-public-appearance-6-years-before-death/). [original “View” co-hosts](https://pagesix.com/2022/12/30/star-jones-more-view-co-hosts-react-to-barbara-walters-death-at-93/) including Meredith Vieira and Star Jones returned to the show to celebrate Walters’ 17th and final season. [“Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View.'”](https://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Who-Punch-Explosive-Inside/dp/1250251982/?tag=pagesix-20&asc_refurl=https://pagesix.com/2022/12/30/inside-barbara-walters-tough-final-year-at-the-view/&asc_source=web)

Reaction poured in from the worlds of journalism, politics, sports and entertainment following the death of TV news pioneer and “The View” creator Barbara ...

“So often we toss around the words icon, legend, trailblazer - but Barbara Walters was all of these. “Barbara Walters will always be known as a trail blazer. A true trailblazer, she was the 1st woman anchor on the evening news. [Katie Couric](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm0WJF1r84t/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link), journalist, former “Today” co-host and network news anchor. we met in the spring of 1998, in the midst of the starr investigation; i was 24. She cared about the truth and she made us care too. “The world of journalism has lost a pillar of professionalism, courage, and integrity. She left the world the better for it. She will be missed by all of us at The Walt Disney Company, and we send our deepest condolences to her daughter, Jacqueline.” — “Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself. An intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host, she led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar. She was just as comfortable interviewing world leaders as she was Oscar winners and she had to fight like hell for every interview.

First female network news anchor in US achieved a celebrity status on par with the rulers, royalty and entertainers she interviewed.

“I always thought I’d be a writer for television. The circumstances of her death were not given. “I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking measure of her success.

The first woman to co-anchor the evening news, she endured the scorn of her male counterparts.

[passed documents](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/17/world/barbara-walters-gave-reagan-papers-on-iran.html) from Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms merchant she had interviewed for “20/20,” to the White House — a move [met with outrage](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-18-ca-7703-story.html) by much of the journalism community. Walters [interviewed](https://www.playbill.com/article/webber-names-his-favorite-on-20-20-com-69067) the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber for “20/20,” but did not reveal that she had invested $100,000 in the production of his musical “Sunset Boulevard” on Broadway. [ABC News admonished her](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/nyregion/abc-admits-walters-had-sunset-stake.html) about the oversight. [once said](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTdot_qjcts), describing how she had to rely on her knowledge of the New York Yankees to convince the stagehands to talk to her. [in a program](https://www.emmys.com/news/hall-fame/barbara-walters-hall-fame-tribute) for her 1989 induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Or, she might dig for gossip, wanting to know about Barbra Streisand’s face (“Why didn’t you have your nose fixed?”) and Ricky Martin’s sexuality (“You could say, as many artists have, yes I am gay, or you could say, no I’m not.”). She went on a few dates and remained longtime friends with the Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes. Her counterpart, Harry Reasoner, “was really awful to me on and off the air,” she told Vogue, though he later said he never disliked her personally. Her first autobiography, published in 1970, was called “How to Talk with Practically Anybody about Practically Anything.” She wrote in her 2008 memoir, “Audition,” that it was her legs, not her skills, that persuaded the head of a small Manhattan advertising agency to give her a job soon after she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1951. At the same time, she was working, unofficially, as the “Today” show's first female co-host. In 1961, she joined NBC’s “Today” show as a writer, researcher and occasional correspondent.

Walters died Friday at her home in New York the age of 93. The legendary anchor was the first female anchor in evening news in 1976 , won 12 Emmys awards, ...

"To be the first woman at anything speaks volumes to the strength and character of that woman, but to be the first woman in network news suggests a woman of intellect, tenacity and a fearless ability to uncover, confront and illuminate; in short, the one and only Barbara Walters. She blazed a trail for many other women to follow, who can pursue the possible because Barbara Walters did it first!" "Barbara was a trailblazer, a singular force who opened the door for every woman in television news," she said in a statement. "She was also the history maker right down the hall -- my friend and road buddy, eager to talk about the news world, the decades of passionate work -- the curiosity and laughter that gets us all through. She paved the way for so many - we learned from her - and remain in awe of her to this day. "So often we toss around the words - icon, legend, trailblazer - but Barbara Walters was all of these - and perhaps above all else, Barbara Walters was brave.

Walters, a pioneer as TV news' first woman superstar, has died. She was 93.

A perennial favorite was her review of the year’s “10 Most Fascinating People.” But she faced a setback in 1971 with the arrival of a new host, Frank McGee, who insisted she wait for him to ask three questions before she could open her mouth during interviews with “powerful persons.” As she appeared more frequently, she was spared the title of “‘Today’ Girl” that had been attached to her predecessors. By 1976, she had been granted the title of “Today” co-host and was earning $700,000 a year. “I hope that I will be remembered as a good and courageous journalist. Walters’ self-disclosure reached another benchmark in May 2010 when she made an announcement on “The View” that, days later, she would undergo heart surgery. But salvation arrived in the form of a new boss: ABC News president Roone Arledge moved her out of the co-anchor slot and into special projects. Her 1963 marriage to theater owner Lee Guber, with whom she adopted a daughter, ended in divorce after 13 years. In May 2014, she taped her final episode of “The View” amid much ceremony to end a five-decade career in television (although she continued to make occasional TV appearances ). Late in her career, she gave infotainment a new twist with “The View,” a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1943 and eventually landed a “temporary,” behind-the-scenes assignment at “Today” in 1961. “She lived her life with no regrets.

Barbara Walters, known for her groundbreaking interviews and a driving ambition that led her to become the first woman to anchor a network prime-time news ...

In the 2014 television special that commemorated her retirement from TV journalism, Walters showed off an autographed photo from Cuban despot Fidel Castro that hung on her wall: “For the longest and most difficult interview I’ve ever done in my life.” Her exclusive interview with Monica Lewinsky in 1999 earned the highest ratings in history for a prime-time interview. With ratings of her ABC news program a disappointment, Walters’ career was saved by the prime-time interview specials she started for ABC. ](https://twitter.com/mariashriver/status/1609026946696114177)"You paved the way for all of us. Walters was lured to ABC to become the first female co-anchor of a prime-time news broadcast with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary. It didn’t take long, however, for viewers to sense the tension between Walters and co-anchor Harry Reasoner, who couldn’t be bothered to hide his disdain for this former “TODAY Girl” being billed as his equal. When she broke into the business in 1961 as a writer on NBC’s “TODAY” show, the idea of a woman sitting down and interviewing a sitting president on prime-time network television (which she did just over a decade later) seemed more fantasy than reality in an industry dominated by men like Edward R. “She was smart and prepared, but at the same time she came across as more compassionate (than her male peers). “I learned that celebrities were human beings,” Walters said in 2014. ABC, the network where she last worked, aired a special report Friday night announcing Walters' death and reflecting on her career. She earned that reputation with a penchant for meticulous preparation, whether she was interviewing despots or divas, models or murderers. "She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women.”