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Barbara Walters, news pioneer of ‘The View’, dies

Barbara Walters, one of the most visible women on U.S. television as the first female anchor on an American network evening news broadcast and one of TV’s most prominent interviewers, died on Friday at age 93, her longtime ABC News home said. Walters, who created the popular ABC women’s talk show “The View” in 1997, died at her home in New York, Robert Iger, chief executive of ABC’s corporate parent, The Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N) , said in a statement. The circumstances of her death were not given.

Barbara Walters, news pioneer of ‘The View’, dies

Newslooks- NEW YORK (AP)

Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who blazed the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died. She was 93.

ABC broke into its broadcast to announce Walters’ death on air Friday night.

FILE – Barbara Walters attends A Celebration of Barbara Walters at the Four Seasons Restaurant on May 14, 2014, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

“She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” her publicist Cindi Berger also said in a statement, adding Walters died peacefully at her New York home.

An ABC spokesperson did not have an immediate comment Friday night beyond sharing a statement from Bob Iger, the CEO of ABC parent The Walt Disney Company.

FILE – Barbara Walters attends the TIME 100 Gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Time Warner Center, on April 21, 2015, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” Iger said.

During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend that made stars of TV reporters.

FILE – Co-hosts, from left, Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, Joy Behar and Barbara Walters sit on the set of “The View” on June 5, 2003, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Ed Bailey, File)

Late in her career, she gave infotainment a new twist with “The View,” a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. With that side venture and unexpected hit, Walters considered “The View” the “dessert” of her career.

A statement from the show said Walters created “The View” in 1997 “to champion women’s voices.”

FILE – In this Oct. 7, 2014 file photo, Barbara Walters addresses an audience at the John F. Kennedy School of Government on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

“We’re proud to be part of her legacy,” the statement said.

Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million salary that drew gasps. Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists following in her trail.

FILE – This Sept. 21, 1977 file photo shows Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, right, presenting ABC’s Barbara Walters with a handmade dress and mother-of-pearl box following an interview with him in Beirut. Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Harry Koundakjian, File)

“I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking stock of her success. “I always thought I’d be a writer for television. I never even thought I’d be in front of a camera.”

But she was a natural on camera, especially when plying notables with searing questions.

“I’m not afraid when I’m interviewing, I have no fear!” Walters told The Associated Press in 2008.

FILE – ABC television newscaster Barbara Walters wraps her arms around her husband, Merv Adelson, moments after their wedding ceremony on May 10, 1986, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Peter Borsari, File)

In a voice that never lost its trace of her native Boston accent or its substitution of Ws-for-Rs, Walters lobbed blunt and sometimes giddy questions, often sugarcoated with a hushed, reverential delivery.

“Offscreen, do you like you?” she once asked actor John Wayne, while Lady Bird Johnson was asked whether she was jealous of her late husband’s reputation as a ladies’ man.

FILE – ABC television newscaster Barbara Walters poses with her husband, Merv Adelson, in November 1986. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

In May 2014, she taped her final episode of “The View” amid much ceremony to end a five-decade career in television (although she continued to make occasional TV appearances ). During a commercial break, a throng of TV newswomen she had paved the way for — including Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Robin Roberts and Connie Chung — posed for a group portrait.

“I have to remember this on the bad days,” Walters said quietly, “because this is the best.”

FILE – Newswoman Barbara Walters is seen on NBC-TV’s Today Show on June 3, 1976. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff, File)

Her career began with no such inklings of majesty.

Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1943 and eventually landed a “temporary,” behind-the-scenes assignment at “Today” in 1961. Shortly afterward, what was seen as the token woman’s slot among the staff’s eight writers opened. Walters got the job and began to make occasional on-air appearances with offbeat stories such as “A Day in the Life of a Nun” or the tribulations of a Playboy bunny. For the latter, she donned bunny ears and high heels to work at the Playboy Club.

FILE – Television journalist Barbara Walters attends the Metropolitan Opera season opening night gala performance at Lincoln Center on Sept. 22, 2008, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)

As she appeared more frequently, she was spared the title of “’Today’ Girl” that had been attached to her predecessors. But she had to pay her dues, sometimes sprinting between interviews to do dog food commercials.

She had the first interview with Rose Kennedy after the assassination of her son, Robert, as well as with Princess Grace of Monaco and President Richard Nixon. She traveled to India with Jacqueline Kennedy, to China with Nixon and to Iran to cover the shah’s gala party. But she faced a setback in 1971 with the arrival of a new host, Frank McGee, who insisted she wait for him to ask three questions before she could open her mouth during interviews with “powerful persons.”

FILE – Barbara Walters interviews the Shah of Iran at the Cornell Medical Hospital in November, 1979, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

Although she gained celebrity status in her own right, the celebrity world was familiar to her even as a little girl. Her father was an English-born booking agent who turned an old Boston church into a nightclub. Lou Walters opened other clubs in Miami and New York, and young Barbara spent her after-hours with regulars such as Joseph Kennedy and Howard Hughes.

Those were the good times. But her father made and lost fortunes in a dizzying cycle that taught her success was always at risk of being snatched away, and could neither be trusted nor enjoyed.

FILE – Walters Barbara is seen after opening night on the ABC evening news with anchor partner Harry Reasoner, on Oct. 4, 1976. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

Sensing greater freedom and opportunities awaiting her outside the NBC studio, she hit the road to produce more exclusive interviews, including with Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman.

By 1976, she had been granted the title of “Today” co-host and was earning $700,000 a year. But when ABC signed her to a $5 million, five-year contract, she was branded the “the million-dollar baby.”

FILE – Television newswoman Barbara Walters and former NBC Today show host Hugh Downs hug during airing of Walters’ final live broadcast as co-host of the morning news program, at the NBC studios in New York City, June 3, 1975. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

Reports failed to note her job duties would be split between the network’s entertainment division and ABC News, then mired in third place. Meanwhile, Harry Reasoner, her seasoned “ABC Evening News” co-anchor, was said to resent her salary and celebrity orientation.

It wasn’t just the shaky relationship with her co-anchor that brought Walters problems.

FILE – This May 8, 1980 file photo, former President Richard M. Nixon answers question during interview by ABC television personality Barbara Walters in New York. TV news pioneer and creator of ‘The View,’ Barbara Walters has died at 93, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Ray Stubblebine, File)

Comedian Gilda Radner satirized her on “Saturday Night Live” as a rhotacistic commentator named “Baba Wawa.” And after her interview with a newly elected President Jimmy Carter in which Walters told Carter “be wise with us,” CBS correspondent Morley Safer publicly derided her as “the first female pope blessing the new cardinal.”

It was a period that seemed to mark the end of everything she’d worked for, she later recalled.

“I thought it was all over: ‘How stupid of me ever to have left NBC!’”

FILE – President Jimmy Carter sits with ABC news correspondent Barbara Walters during the taping of an interview in in the Green Room of the White House in Washington, on Dec. 14, 1978. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

But salvation arrived in the form of a new boss: ABC News president Roone Arledge moved her out of the co-anchor slot and into special projects. Meanwhile, she found success with her quarterly primetime interview specials. She became a frequent contributor to newsmagazine “20/20,”and later co-host. A perennial favorite was her review of the year’s “10 Most Fascinating People.”

FILE – Oprah Winfrey is greeted by Barbara Walters, left, as she arrives at New York’s Plaza Hotel, Nov. 11, 1994. Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Clark Jones, File)

By 2004, when she stepped down from “20/20,” she had logged more than 700 interviews, ranging from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Moammar Gadhafi, to Michael Jackson, Erik and Lyle Menendez and Elton John. Her two-hour talk with Monica Lewinsky in 1999, timed to the former White House intern’s memoir about her affair with President Bill Clinton, drew more than 70 million viewers.

FILE – President Barack Obama speaks to Barbara Walters during his guest appearance on ABC’s ‘”The View” on July 28, 2010, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Lewinsky tweeted that she had lunch with Walters a few years ago where “of course, she was charming, witty and some of her questions were still her signature interview style.”

A special favorite for Walters was Katharine Hepburn, although a 1981 exchange led to one of her most ridiculed questions: “What kind of a tree are you?” (Walters would later object that the question was perfectly reasonable within the context of their conversation).

FILE – Barbara Walters arrives to participate in a panel discussion featuring the hosts of ABC’s “The View,” at The Paley Center for Media on April 9, 2008, in New York. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)

Walters did pronounce herself guilty of being “dreadfully sentimental” at times and was famous for making her subjects cry, with Oprah Winfrey and Ringo Starr among the more famous shedders.

But her work also received high praise. She won a Peabody Award for her interview with Christopher Reeve shortly after the 1995 horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed.

FILE – Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, center right, responds to a question from American NBC reporter Barbara Walters, center left, during a news conference granted to members of the U.S. press covering Senator George McGovern’s trip to Cuba, in Havana, May 7, 1975. Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, has died, according to ABC News on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo, File)

Walters’ first marriage to businessman Bob Katz was annulled after a year. Her 1963 marriage to theater owner Lee Guber, with whom she adopted a daughter, ended in divorce after 13 years. Her five-year marriage to producer Merv Adelson ended in divorce in 1990. Walters wrote a bestselling 2008 memoir “Audition,” which caught readers by surprise with her disclosure of a “long and rocky affair” in the 1970s with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke.

Walters’ self-disclosure reached another benchmark in May 2010 when she made an announcement on “The View” that, days later, she would undergo heart surgery. She would feature her successful surgery — and those of other notables, including Clinton and David Letterman — in a primetime special.

FILE – President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with U.S. television network ABC journalist Barbara Walters in Moscow’s Kremlin, Monday, Nov. 5, 2001. Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)

Walters is survived by her daughter, Jacqueline Danforth.

“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,” Walters told the AP upon her retirement from “The View.” “I think that when I look at what I have done, I have a great sense of accomplishment. I don’t want to sound proud and haughty, but I think I’ve had just a wonderful career and I’m so thrilled that I have.”

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