Barbara Walters.
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TV presenter Barbara Walters, a pioneer in leading the way for women in a male-dominated medium, died on Friday. She was 93 years old.
His death was confirmed by his representative, Cindy Berger, who said that Walters died “peacefully at his home surrounded by his loved ones.”
“She lived her life with no regrets,” Berger said. “She was a trailblazer not only for women journalists, but for all women.”
ABC, the network where she last worked, aired a special report Friday night announcing Walters’ death and reflecting on her career. Bob Iger, CEO of ABC’s parent The Walt Disney Company, said in a statement that Walters died Friday evening at his home in New York City.
He called her a “pioneer not only in journalism but for women in journalism”.
Walters was best known in recent years as the co-creator and patriarch of the hit ABC daytime show “The View,” but older viewers will remember her as the first female anchor of a network news program and the pre-eminent interviewer on television. Huh. She earned that reputation with a penchant for meticulous preparation, whether interviewing despots or divas, models or killers.
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“I do so much homework, I know more about a person than he knows about himself,” Walters said in a 2014 television special.
That campaign proved essential to his success. When she began her career as a writer on NBC’s “Today” show in 1961, the idea of a woman sitting on prime-time network television and interviewing a sitting president (which she did only a decade later) seemed more fanciful than. Edward R. Reality in an industry dominated by men like Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
Robert Thompson, director of the Blair Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, said, “She was playing in a field that was literally and figuratively an old boy’s network, and she didn’t take no for an answer.” News before Walters’ death.
Thompson said, “At some point, things that were a liability to her, being a woman trying to find a foothold in a male-dominated industry, started to become an asset.” “She was smart and poised, but also came across as more compassionate (than her male peers).
“Barbara Walters proves to be the evolutionary step between Edward R. Murrow and Oprah Winfrey.”
childhood exposure to celebrities
In some ways, Walters had been preparing for those trademark interviews all his life. Born Barbara Jill Walters in Boston on September 25, 1929, she grew up close to the rich and famous as the daughter of nightlife impresario Lou Walters, who owned clubs up and down the East Coast.
Walters said in 2014, “I learned that celebrities were human.”
Inheriting her father’s campaign, Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a bachelor’s degree in English and entered journalism as an assistant at NBC affiliate WRCA-TV. In 1955, she married businessman Robert Henry Katz, but her budding career remained her first love. The couple divorced after three years.
Hired as a writer and researcher on “Today”, Walters became the only female producer on the show and began occasionally filing on the air as the “Today Girl”, covering fashion shows, lifestyle trends and A reporting role reserved for the season was previously held by Florence Henderson of “The Brady Bunch” fame, among others.
Hardly the kind of hard reporting to which Walters was clearly aspiring.
Off-air, Walters married theater producer Lee Guber in 1963, with whom she adopted a daughter, Jacqueline, named after Walters’ older sister, who was developmentally disabled. The marriage would last 13 years.
great success
His big breakthrough came in 1962 with an assignment to travel with Jacqueline Kennedy on the first lady’s visit to India. This led to more news and status jumps to co-hosting responsibilities opposite Hugh Downes – although he did not receive the official title until 1974. By that time, Downs had left the network and was replaced by Frank McGee.
McGee, who died shortly after being partnered with Walters, demanded that he ask Walters three questions in each of his studio interviews. After all, he was a true journalist.
Therefore, Walters began fielding interviews outside the studio, quickly building a reputation as an incisive and probing questioner.
People were watching—including executives from rival networks. Walters was lured to ABC with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary to become the first female co-anchor of a prime-time newscast. However, it didn’t take long for viewers to sense the tension between Walters and co-anchor Harry Reisner, who couldn’t be bothered to hide his disdain for being billed as the former’s “today girl” equal. Were.
Her new-found celebrity also garnered the ultimate back-handed honor: Gilda Radner on “Saturday Night Live” due to her struggle to pronounce the hard R’s. Walters later admitted that he did not find the “Baba Wawa” skit funny.
With the ratings of her ABC news program disappointing, Walters’ career was saved by the prime-time interview specials she introduced for ABC. His first interview included President-elect Jimmy Carter, and within a year he had a joint interview with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat—a year before their historic peace treaty.
In 1979 she was reunited with Downes on the ABC news magazine show “20/20”, which began a successful 25-year run.
interview
But it was his interviewing that remained Walters’ passion, compiling a mix of tough and amusing questions on his trademark 3×5 index cards and fiddling with the order even after the cameras started rolling. In a 2014 television special that commemorated his retirement from TV journalism, Walters showed an autographed photo of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro that hung on his wall: “The longest and hardest I’ve ever been through in my life.” for an interview.”
Although Walters received a lot of criticism for asking Katharine Hepburn, “What kind of tree are you?” – In fairness, a follow-up to what the legendary actor had said – she could have given the toughest questions, such as looking Russian President Vladimir Putin in the eye and asking him if he had ever ordered the death of an opponent.
In 1999 his exclusive interview with Monica Lewinsky earned the highest ratings in history for a prime-time interview. In 1997, Walters launched a new show that was closer to her “Today” roots: a midmorning talk show with an all-female panel called “The View”. While she was co-executive producer and seated at the table, they tapped Meredith Vieira as the first moderator.
Over the years, panelists on the hit show have included Whoopi Goldberg, Star Jones, Lisa Ling, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Rosie O’Donnell, and Meghan McCain.
While Walters has largely managed to avoid controversy over her long career, she caused a stir with the revelation that she had an affair during the 1970s with Sen. Edward Brooke, R-Mass.
After nearly 60 years in journalism, Walters announced she was retiring in 2014.
“I don’t want to join another program or climb another mountain,” she said. “I’d rather sit in a sunny field and admire the very talented women — and okay, some men too — who will be taking my place.”