Legendary television journalist Barbara Walters — the first woman to anchor a network news show — passed away at her home in Manhattan on December 30. She was 93.
Walters was born on September 25, 1929 in Boston, the second child of Dena and Lou Walters. For perspective, a meme circulating around social media in 2020 read, “If Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, they’d be the same age as Barbara Walters—all born in 1929.”
Although her parents were not religious, they both came from families that “joined the flood of Jews fleeing antisemitism in imperial Russia.” Walters’ mother’s side came from what’s now Lithuania and her father’s side from Poland.
Walters’ older sister Jacqueline was afflicted with a cerebral disability. Walters would write in “Audition: A Memoir” that Jacqueline was “the strongest influence in my life.”
While growing up, Walters was fond of the arts and performed in several school plays. The Walters family would move several times, from Brookline to Miami and New York City. Walters earned a Bachelor’s degree in English from Sarah Lawrence College in 1947.
“At Sarah Lawrence I learned to ask questions… I attribute my success, in many ways, to the curiosity and confidence I came away with from this remarkable college,” Walters said in the 2001 commencement address at her alma mater.
She would spend the next 14 years working in advertising and public relations, and get her earliest experience in producing television at NBC and CBS. As early as 1953, Walters was lauded as a “bright young producer” by TV Guide. Walters started working at “The Today Show” in 1961, where she booked guests and researched news segments and in a small office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza (then known as the RCA building). She was first put on air in 1961 for a segment about biking in Central Park.
In the days immediately following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Walters did on-air reporting from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. There, she reported on the foreign dignitaries who came to pay their respects at Kennedy’s casket. Walters called the coverage the news media did a “Cohesive national gathering place for a shocked nation.”
Looking back at the day Kennedy was assassinated, Walters said that “television came of age that dark day.”
In early 1964, Walters became a regular on-air reporter at “The Today Show” on NBC. In 1970, she released a book titled “How to Talk with Practically Anybody about Practically Anything.” The following year, Walters started hosting a women’s issues morning show called “Not for Women Only” that aired on NBC after “The Today Show.” In 1974, Walters officially became the first female co-host of “The Today Show,” where she would remain until 1976.
That year, Walters became the highest-paid news anchor in the U.S. when she moved to ABC to co-host “ABC Evening News.” Three years later, she would begin a 28-year run as anchor of “20/20.”
Walters was known for establishing a comfortable rapport with her guests while not shying away from the most controversial topics.
Walters was known for establishing a comfortable rapport with her guests while not shying away from the most controversial topics. The guests were among the most prominent and controversial figures of the last 50 years, including President of Cuba Fidel Castro, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and in 1977, a joint interview with Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and Prime Minister of Egypt Anwar Sadat. Among the famous and infamous who found themselves face to face with Walters were Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Christopher Reeve, Michael Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, Patty Hearst and Erik and Lyle Menendez.
By the time she left “20/20,” it was estimated that she had conducted over 700 interviews. From 1997 to 2014, Walters co-hosted “The View.” Between “20/20” and “The View” every U.S. President since Richard Nixon sat for at least one interview with Walters.
President Nixon told her to “get serious.” First lady Betty Ford discussed her battles with addiction with Walters (with President Gerald Ford by her side). President Jimmy Carter told Walters that he and wife Rosalynn sleep in a double bed. She interviewed President Ronald Reagan while riding horses at Rancho del Cielo.
President George H.W. Bush gave his last interview before inauguration with Walters. Just two days after the signing of The Oslo Accords, President Bill Clinton spoke to Walters about mediating between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush and Laura did their first exclusive television interview with Walters. When Walters interviewed President Barack Obama in 2009, the President told his wife Michelle that she had lipstick on her teeth. As the first lady wiped it off with the cameras rolling, Walters quipped “I’m going to leave this in. I think this is the most natural piece of television.”
Thirty-six years before he became President, Donald Trump was pressed by Walters about being honest about his business failures. As a Presidential candidate in 2015, Trump told Walters, “If I don’t win, I wasted my time.” In 2014 while hosting “The View,” Walters asked then-Vice President Joe Biden for a kiss as a thank you for his public service.
Throughout her career, Walters became synonymous with high profile interviewing. Nearly every year she was co-host, “The View” earned Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Talk Show, and won in 2003. Walters won the Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2009. In 2014, the ABC News Headquarters Building in the Upper West Side of New York was renamed The Barbara Walters Building.
“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,” Walters wrote in her memoir. She attributed this to growing up with her father’s unstable career ventures, her mother’s anxiety and sister’s special needs. Walters always felt as if she was auditioning in all of her work. And for decades, television audiences were happy to cast her in the role of prime-time interviewer-in-chief.
She was married four times to three different men. With theater producer Lee Guber, Walters adopted a daughter in 1968. They named her Jackie after Walters’ sister.
Shortly before her retirement, ABC News turned the tables around on Walters and asked for her reflections on her life and career.
“I want to be remembered by my daughter as a good and loving mother,” Walters said. “I want to be remembered by my friends as somebody who was loyal. I want to be remembered in television … maybe as a creator? Maybe as a good newswoman? No, more than being remembered, I hope that by younger women, I can help them aspire. I will miss the friendships, the people I work with. I will miss being on top of the news. I will miss having a structure in my life. But I do know that it’s time, for all intents and purposes, my career in television of 50 years is almost over. I have to learn to live with that, don’t I?
She was then asked, to finish the sentence “Barbara Walters is …”
Her response, “Soon to leave television. And if she is truthful, she will miss it.”
