Legendary American news broadcaster Barbara Walters has died at the age of 93, ABC news reported in a special broadcast.
Barbara Walters was a pioneering journalist who interviewed some of the most powerful, influential, and US opposition figures in the world, including Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad.
Walters joined ABC in 1972 and quickly became a household name in the USA. She was the first female anchor on an evening news program and in 1979 became a co-host of the award-winning “20/20” news show. In 1997, she launched “The View.”
Both shows remain staples on American television screens today. Known for her interviews, Walters got her start as a correspondent before working her way up to news anchor.
Walters stepped down as a co-host of the View in 2014, but remained as an executive producer and continued to occasionally conduct interviews for ABC News late into her life. Her career spanned five decades, during which she won 12 Emmy awards.
Posting on Twitter, Disney CEO and former President of ABC Television, Bob Igor posted on Twitter about Walters’ life and death. We were all influenced by Barbara Walters,” ABC News’ David Muir said in a tribute that aired Friday.
Walters was born on September 25, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts to Dena and Louis Walters. Her dad was a nightclub owner and Walters joined the news business after her family went broke.
She went on to interview some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Walters’ longtime representative and friend Cindi Berger responded to the news by calling Walters a trailblazer not only for female journalists but for all women.
Before working at ABC, Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in the 1950s and got work as a writer for NBC’s Today show in 1961. Later, she would become the show’s first female host and won her first Emmy for her work there in 1975.
The next year she would join ABC’s Evening News as the first female co-anchor of an evening news program. During a 2014 ceremony that renamed part of the ABC News headquarters, Walters explained what she thought of her legacy.
She is survived by her daughter Jacqueline Dena Guber. She was married four times to three different men, trying twice with TV executive Merv Adelson.
Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2022.
RIP BW