Barbara Walters: Barrier-Breaking TV Journalist (2024)

1929-2022

Barrier-breaking TV journalist Barbara Walters developed her trademark interviewing style—a probing-yet-casual approach—throughout the 1960s and ’70s. She held long-standing jobs on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s 20/20 and, in 1976, became the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. In addition to many other high-profile subjects, Walters interviewed every U.S. president and first lady from Richard and Pat Nixon to Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Donald and Melania Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. In 1997, she premiered a still popular talk show called The View and served as co-host until May 2014. The recipient of multiple awards and more than 30 Emmys, Walters died in December 2022 at age 93.

FULL NAME: Barbara Jill Walters
BORN: September 25, 1929
DIED: December 30, 2022
BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts
SPOUSES: Robert Katz (1955-1958), Lee Guber (1963-1976) and Merv Adelson (1986-1992)
CHILDREN: Jaqueline
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Journalist and writer Barbara Jill Walters was born on September 25, 1929, in Boston, the daughter of Dena Seletsky Walters and nightclub impresario Lou Walters. She had two siblings: older sister Jacqueline, who was born developmentally disabled and died in 1985, and brother Burton, who died of pneumonia in 1932. Walters was born Jewish, though her parents weren’t practicing Jews.

In 1937, Lou opened a chain of nightclubs that expanded his business from Boston to Miami Beach, Florida. As a result, Walters attended Fieldston and Birch Wathen private schools in New York City and graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. Walters was surrounded by celebrities from an early age, which has been said to account for her relaxed manner when interviewing famous people.

Walters attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in English. After a brief stint as a secretary, she landed her first job in journalism as the assistant to publicity director and Republican activist Tex McCary of WRCA-TV. After sharpening her writing and producing skills at the NBC affiliate, Walters moved to CBS, where she wrote material for the network’s Morning Show.

In 1961, NBC hired Walters to work as a researcher and writer for its popular Today show. Her initial assignments were stories slanted toward female viewers. Within a few months, however, she lobbied for a breakthrough assignment to travel with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on a trip to India and Pakistan. The resulting report earned Walters increasing responsibility at the network.

By 1964, Walters became a staple of the Today show—starring alongside Hugh Downs and, later, Frank McGee—and earned the nickname “Today girl.” Although serving as a co-host, she wasn’t given that official billing until 1974 and was restricted from asking questions of the show’s “serious” guests until the male co-host had finished asking his.

Walters remained on the show for 11 years, during which time she honed her trademark probing-yet-casual interviewing technique. By 1972, she had established herself as a competent journalist and was chosen to be part of the press corps that accompanied President Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China. In 1975, she won her first Daytime Entertainment Emmy Award for best host in a talk series.

Enticed by an unprecedented $1 million annual salary, Walters accepted a job at ABC in 1976 as the first woman co-anchor of a network evening news program. That same year, she was chosen to moderate the third and final presidential debate between challenger Jimmy Carter and incumbent President Gerald Ford. Walters also launched the first of a series of Barbara Walters Specials in 1976. The initial interview program featured President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. She followed up the next year by arranging the first joint interview with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

It was during this time that Walters honed her skill as a reporter and solidified her probing interview style. She became known for her deftly maneuvered questions, often catching her subjects off guard and revealing uncommon candor. Her success has been attributed to her relentless effort to get the "first interview" from a wide range of people, an uncanny ability to ask the questions the public would most like to hear, and her ability not to alienate the people she interviews.

Many of Walters’ male colleagues were outraged and openly critical of her newfound success. Among the most outspoken was her ABC co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, whose patronizing manner was apparent on camera. Critics also remained skeptical of Walters’ qualifications as a credible journalist and questioned the move as a publicity stunt by ABC News to cash in on Walters’ “star status.” Adding to Walters’ credibility problems was Gilda Radner’s famous parody as Baba Wawa on Saturday Night Live, in which Radner exaggerated Walters’ slight speech impediment. Although ABC’s market research indicated male news anchors were not exclusively preferred by the audience, the ratings for the evening news program were disastrous, and the network released Walters within two years.

In 1979, Walters became a part-time correspondent for the ABC news show 20/20. She scored an exclusive interview with former President Nixon in 1980—his first TV interview since his resignation in 1974. By fall 1981, she was a regular contributor to the program. She, along with former Today show partner Hugh Downs, was elevated to co-host in 1984. Downs retired in 1999, and Walters continued to co-host the show with John Miller and later John Stossel. In September 2000, Walters renewed her contract with ABC News for five more years. Her reported $12 million yearly salary made her the highest-paid news host in history. In September 2004, at the age of 73, Walters stepped down as co-host of 20/20.

In August 1997, Walters premiered a mid-morning talk show called The View, for which she was co-executive producer and co-host. The program features unique perspectives from five women on politics, family, careers, and general public-interest topics. At various times, the panel of women has included reporter Lisa Ling, attorney Star Jones, journalist and working mother Meredith Vieira, and comedian Joy Behar. Through the years, several other notable women, including Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, Rosie O’Donnell, and Debbie Matenopoulos sat on the show’s panel.

In 2006, Walters found herself in the headlines when she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and revealed several “secrets” from her memoir, Audition—among them her affair with then-U.S. Senator Edward Brooke during the 1970s. In the book, Walters also discussed her animosity with former View co-host Jones over Jones’ weight loss and departure from the talk show.

In May 2013, Walters announced her retirement from television journalism. According to the Los Angeles Times, Walters explained: “I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain. I want instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women—and OK, some men, too—who will be taking my place.” Her last appearance as a full-time co-host on The View was May 16, 2014, though she remained an executive producer and occasional guest host.

Over the years, Walters refined the art of “personality journalism” and “being the first” interviews. She was sometimes criticized for displaying personal emotion to pump ratings and relying on softball questions. However, Walters’ comprehensive and wide range of interviews presents a deep chronicle of the personalities that influenced the latter 20^th century.

In 1995, Walters conducted the first interview with Christopher Reeve after the horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed. The following April, the broadcast received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. In 1999, Walters’ two-hour-long exclusive with the former White House intern Monica Lewinsky made history as the highest-rated news program ever broadcast on a single network.

Walters has conducted timely interviews with world leaders, providing viewers with a more three-dimensional view of these larger-than-life personalities. They include Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; the United Kingdom’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher; the Dalai Lama; Russia’s first post-communist president, Boris Yeltsin; and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. While interviewing Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gadhafi, Walters confronted him with, “In America, we read that you are unstable. We read that you are mad.” She challenged Fidel Castro on the lack of freedom of the press in Cuba, to which he agreed.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, she traveled to Saudi Arabia to interview the brother of Osama bin Laden as well as Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud and several Saudi middle-class men and women. In total, the interviews presented a different picture of the Saudi population and their view of the world at a time when most Americans were vexed by the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

During her impressive career, Walters was honored with many awards, among them the Overseas Press Club’s highest award, the President’s Award, in 1988; induction into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990; the Lowell Thomas Award for a career in journalism excellence in 1990; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation in 1991; the Muse Award from New York Women in Film and Television in 1997; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2000; and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007, as well as 34 daytime and primetime Emmy Awards.

Walters has also received honorary doctoral degrees from Ben-Gurion University in Jerusalem, Hofstra University, Marymount College, Ohio State University, Sarah Lawrence College, Temple University, and Wheaton College.

Walters was married to three different men and had several high profile relationships, including her affair in the 1970s with then-U.S. Senator Edward Brooke. She also dated Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Senator John Warner of Virginia.

Her first marriage was to business executive Robert Henry Katz. They wed in 1955 and divorced in 1958.

In 1963, Walters married theatrical producer Lee Guber. They adopted a daughter, Jacqueline Dena, named after Walters’ sister and mother. Walters and Guber divorced in 1976.

Walters’ third husband was developer-turned–TV producer Merv Adelson. They married in 1986 and were divorced in 1992. Several news article report that Walters and Adelson had previously been married earlier in the 1980s, though Walters told The New York Times in 2015 that they were married only once.

After her official retirement in 2014, Walters continued to appear as a guest host on The View and for the occasional special. In November 2015, she interviewed presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Melania.

In May 2010, she had a successful heart surgery. According to Variety, she had some memory loss toward the end of her life. On December 30, 2022, Walters died at her home in New York City at age 93.

• [Success] can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.
• It was very glamorous on the surface, but I knew they had problems and difficulties. So I’ve never been in awe of celebrities. That comes from my childhood.
  
• No matter how high my profile became, how many awards I received, or how much money I made, my fear was that it all could be taken away from me.
  
• I hope that I will be remembered as a good and courageous journalist. I hope that some of my interviews, not created history, but were witness to history, although I know that title has been used.
  

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