BARBARA Walters, a trailblazing journalist, anchor, and news producer who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career has died. She was 93.
“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” said publicist Cindi Berger in a statement.
Barbara Jill Walters was born in Boston on September 25, 1929. Her father, Lou Walters, was a nightclub owner. Walters attended Miami Beach High School and New York’s private Fieldston School and Birch Wathen School.
She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a B.A. in English.
Despite her intention to be a teacher, Walters began work as an assistant to the publicity director of NBC’s WNBT New York (later renamed WNBC).
Over the course of her career, four decades of which was at ABC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with high profile and prominent public figures, rulers, and royalty across industries from Katharine Hepburn to Monica Lewinsky to Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat propelled her celebrity stardom.
She made headlines as the first female news anchor to earn an unprecedented US$1 million (about RM4.40 million) annual salary.
“I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, looking back at her storied career.
“I always thought I’d be a writer for television. I never even thought I’d be in front of a camera. I’m not afraid when I’m interviewing, I have no fear,” Walters told The Associated Press in 2008. Before ABC, she worked at NBC’s Today show for over 12 years.
Walters received multiple Daytime Emmy nominations for best talk show host for her work on ‘The View’, winning in 2003 and 2009. She also received multiple Primetime Emmy nominations for her specials, winning in 1983.
She won a Daytime Emmy in 1975 for ‘Today’ and shared a News and Documentary Emmy for her work at ABC on coverage of the turn of the millennium.
Walters’ March 3, 1999, interview of Monica Lewinsky during the infamous scandal with President Clinton was seen by 74 million viewers, the biggest audience ever for a journalist’s interview.
As Variety described in an article, “Walters’ longevity was notable in that she was a driving force in the rise of the superstar TV news personality, and she has endured into an era when that kind of authoritative star power is waning.”
Walters was as important for who she was as for what she represented. As the first longtime co-host of ‘Today’, she broke the glass ceiling for women.
In 1997, she co-created daytime ABC talkshow ‘The View’, which she co-hosted alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell, and Meredith Vieira.
In September 2009, Walters was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the 30th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards. She was also inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
ABC aired a two-hour documentary on Walters’ life and career when she retired in May 2014.
Walters was married three times: to Bob Katz in 1955; to Lee Gubers, with whom she adopted a daughter, Jacqueline; and to TV producer Merv Adelson, whom she divorced for the second time in 1992. – The Vibes, December 31, 2022
