Barbara Jill Walters (born September 25, 1929) is an American
broadcast journalist and television personality.
Known for her interviewing ability and popularity with viewers, Walters appeared as a host of numerous television programs, including ''
Today'', ''
The View'', ''
20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
'', and the ''
ABC Evening News
''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...
''. Walters was a working journalist from 1951 until her retirement in 2015.
Walters began her career on ''
The Today Show'' in the early 1960s as a writer and segment producer of women's interest stories. Her popularity with viewers resulted in Walters receiving more airtime, and in 1974, she became co-host of the program, the first woman to hold such a title on an American news program. In 1976, she continued to be a pioneer for women in broadcasting by becoming the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program, alongside
Harry Reasoner on the ''ABC Evening News''. From 1979 to 2004, Walters worked as a producer and co-host on the
ABC newsmagazine ''20/20''. She also became known for an annual special aired on ABC, ''
Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People''. Walters interviewed every sitting U.S. president and first lady from
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
to
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
. She has interviewed both
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
and
Joe Biden, though not as presidents.
Walters created, produced, and co-hosted the ABC daytime talk show ''The View'', on which she appeared from 1997 until her retirement in 2014.
Thereafter, she continued to host a number of special reports for ''20/20'' as well as documentary series for
Investigation Discovery. Her final on-air appearance for ABC News was in 2015.
Walters was inducted into the
Television Hall of Fame
The Television Academy Hall of Fame honors individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to U.S. television. The hall of fame was founded by former Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) president John H. Mitchell (1921–1988). ...
in 1989, and in 2007 received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
. In 2000, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, edu ...
.
Early life
Barbara Walters was born in 1929 (although Walters has claimed 1931 in an on-camera interview) in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
to Dena (née Seletsky) and
Louis "Lou" Walters (born Louis Abraham Warmwater). Her parents were both Jewish,
and descendants of refugees from the former
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
.
Walters's paternal grandfather, Abraham Isaac Warmwater, was born in
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of ca ...
, Poland, and emigrated to the United Kingdom, changing his name to Abraham Walters (the original family surname was Waremwasser). Walters's father, Lou, was born in London in 1898 and moved to New York with his father and two brothers, arriving August 28, 1909. His mother and four sisters arrived in 1910. During her childhood her father managed the
Latin Quarter nightclub. This club was owned in partnership with E.M. Loew and initially located in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1942, her father opened the New York version of the Latin Quarter. He also worked as a Broadway producer where he produced the ''
Ziegfeld Follies of 1943''.
He also was the Entertainment Director for the
Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he imported the "Folies Bergère" stage show from Paris to the resort's main showroom. Walters's brother, Burton, died in 1944 of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...
.
[James Conaway, "How to talk with Barbara Walters about practically anything," ''The New York Times'', September 10, 1972, page SM40, 43–44] Walters's elder sister, Jacqueline, was born
mentally disabled[Stated in interview at '' Inside the Actors Studio''] and died of
ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different ...
in 1985.
According to Walters, her father made and lost several fortunes throughout his life in show business. He was a booking agent, and unlike her uncles who were in the shoe and dress business, his job was not very safe. During the good times, Walters recalls her father taking her to the rehearsals of the night club shows he directed and produced. The actresses and dancers would make a huge fuss over her and twirl her around until she was dizzy. Then she said her father would take her out for hot dogs, their favorite.
[Walters, Barbara (2008). ''Audition: A Memoir''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf]
According to Walters, being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them.
When she was a young woman, Walters's father lost his night clubs and the family's
penthouse on
Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a
breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture." Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, to a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business."
[Elisabeth Bumiller, "So Famous, Such Clout, She Could Interview Herself", ''The New York Times'', April 21, 1996, page H1] During her childhood in Miami, Walters briefly lived with the mobster
Bill Dwyer.
Walters attended Lawrence School, a public school in Brookline, Massachusetts, to the middle of fifth grade, when her father moved the family to Miami Beach in 1939, where she also attended public school. After her father moved the family to New York City, she went to eighth grade at
Ethical Culture Fieldston School, after which the family moved back to Miami Beach. Then, she went back to New York City, where she attended
Birch Wathen School["Can Barbara Walters's Career Survive Rosie and Donald's War?"](_blank)
''New York'' (March 5, 2007). Retrieved on October 27, 2011. from which she graduated in 1947. In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly ...
and immediately looked for work in New York City. After about a year at a small advertising agency, she began working at the NBC network affiliate in New York City, WNBT-TV (now
WNBC
WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...
), doing publicity and writing press releases. She began producing a 15-minute children's program, ''Ask the Camera'', directed by
Roone Arledge in 1953. She began producing for TV host
Igor Cassini (Cholly Knickerbocker). However, she left the network after her boss pressured her to marry him and engaged in a fist-fight with a man she preferred to date. Then she went to WPIX to produce the ''Eloise McElhone Show''; it was canceled in 1954. She became a writer on ''The Morning Show'' at
CBS in 1955.
Career
''The Today Show''
After a few years as a publicist with
Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at
Redbook
''Redbook'' is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the " Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publication as of January 2019 and now operates an article-comprise ...
magazine, Walters joined
NBC's ''
The Today Show'' as a writer and researcher in 1961.
She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl," handling lighter assignments and the weather. In her autobiography, she describes this era before the
Women's Movement as a time when it was believed that nobody would take a woman seriously reporting "hard news." Previous
"Today Girls" (whom Walters called "tea pourers") included
Florence Henderson,
Helen O'Connell
Helen O'Connell (May 23, 1920 – September 9, 1993) was an American singer, actress, and hostess, described as "the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s".
Early life
Born in Lima, Ohio, O'Connell grew up in Toledo, Ohio. By the time ...
,
Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American actress, singer and stage director.
After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program '' Today'' and ...
and
Lee Meriwether
Lee Ann Meriwether (born May 27, 1935) is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the Miss America 1955 pageant. She has appeared in many films and television shows, notably as Betty Jones, the title character's secretary and daught ...
. Within a year, she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews. One very well received film segment was "A Day in the Life of a Novice Nun," edited by then-first assistant film editor Donald Swerdlow (now Don Canaan), who was subsequently promoted to become a full film editor at NBC News.
She had a great relationship with host Hugh Downs for years. When
Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first three questions. She was not named co-host of the show until McGee's death in 1974 when NBC officially designated Walters as the program's first female co-host. Beginning in 1971, she also hosted her own local NBC affiliate show, ''
Not for Women Only,'' which ran in the mornings after ''The Today Show.''
''ABC Evening News'' and ''20/20''
Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor
Harry Reasoner displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ''
ABC Evening News
''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...
'' from 1976 to 1978. Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters, because he disliked having a co-anchor, even though he worked with former CBS colleague
Howard K. Smith nightly on ABC for several years. Walters has said that the tension between the two was because Reasoner did not want to work with a co-anchor and also because he was unhappy at ABC, not because he disliked Walters personally. In 1981, five years after the start of their short-lived ABC partnership and well after Reasoner returned to CBS News, Walters and her former co-anchor had a memorable (and cordial) ''20/20'' interview on the occasion of Reasoner's new book release.
Walters is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine ''
20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
'' where she reunited with former ''
Today Show'' host
Hugh Downs in 1979.
Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of
9/11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
. She was also chosen to be the moderator for the third and final debate between candidates
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
and
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
, held on the campus of the College of William and Mary at
Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall in
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is ...
, during the
1976 presidential election.
[CNN: 1976 Presidential Debates]
Retrieved on June 14, 2008. In 1984, she moderated a presidential debate held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at
Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College is a private Benedictine liberal arts college in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Founded in 1889, it is the third-oldest Catholic college in New England. Named for Saint Anselm of Canterbury (Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1 ...
in
Goffstown, New Hampshire
Goffstown is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 18,577 at the 2020 census. The compact center of town, where 3,366 people resided at the 2020 census, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the Goff ...
.
Interviews
Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews.
In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's president,
Anwar Al Sadat, and Israel's Prime Minister,
Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. ...
. According to ''The New York Times'', when she went mano a mano with Walter Cronkite to interview both world leaders, at the end of Cronkite's interview, he is clearly heard saying: "Did Barbara get anything I didn't get?" Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century.
They include the
Shah of Iran,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran
, image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg
, caption = Shah in 1973
, succession = Shah of Iran
, reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979
, coronation = 26 Octob ...
, and his wife, the Empress
Farah Pahlavi; Russia's
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
and
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
; China's
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...
; the UK's
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
; Cuba's
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 20 ...
, as well as India's
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 and was al ...
, Czechoslovakia's
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...
, Libya's
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
, King
Hussein of Jordan, King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, عبدالله بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود ''ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd'', Najdi Arabic pronunciation: ; 1 August 1924 – 23 January 2015) was King and Prime Minister of Saudi ...
, and Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...
, among many others. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...
, actress
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...
, ''Vogue'' editor
Anna Wintour, and in 1980
Sir Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage o ...
. Walters considered
Robert Smithdas, a deaf-blind man who spent his life improving the lives of other individuals who are deaf-blind, as her most inspirational interview.
Walters was widely lampooned for asking actress
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...
, "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" On her last 20/20 television episode, Walters showed video of the Hepburn interview, showing the actress saying that she would like to be a tree. Walters merely followed up with the question, "What kind of a tree?",
and Hepburn responded "an oak" because they are strong and pretty. According to Walters, for years Hepburn refused her requests for an interview. And when she finally agreed to one, she said she wanted to meet her first. Walters walked in all smiles and ready to please, while Hepburn was at the top of the stairs and barked, "You're late. Have you brought me chocolates?" Walters hadn't but said she never showed up without them from then on. They had several other meetings later, mostly in Hepburn's living room where she would give Walters her opinions, which included that careers and marriage did not mix and children and careers were out of the question. Walters said Hepburn's opinions stuck with her so much, she could repeat them almost verbatim to this day.
Her television special about Cuban leader
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 20 ...
aired on ABC-TV on June 9, 1977. Although the footage of her two days of interviewing Castro in Cuba showed his personality, in part, as freewheeling, charming, and humorous, she pointedly said to him, "You allow no dissent. Your newspapers, radio, television, motion pictures are under state control." To this, he replied, "Barbara, our concept of freedom of the press is not yours. If you asked us if a newspaper could appear here against socialism, I can say honestly no, it cannot appear. It would not be allowed by the party, the government, or the people. In that sense we do not have the freedom of the press that you possess in the U.S. And we are very satisfied about that." She concluded the broadcast of the interview by remarking, "What we disagreed on most profoundly is the meaning of freedom—and that is what truly separates us." At the time, Walters kept quiet about seeing New York Yankees owner
George Steinbrenner, pitcher
Whitey Ford
Edward Charles "Whitey" Ford (October 21, 1928 – October 8, 2020), nicknamed "the Chairman of the Board", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played his entire 16-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the New York Yankees ...
, and several coaches in Cuba, there to assist Cuban ballplayers.
On March 3, 1999, her interview of
Monica Lewinsky was seen by a record 74 million viewers, the highest rating ever for a news program. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children when you have them?" Lewinsky replied, "Mommy made a big mistake," at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers and saying, "And that is the understatement of the year."
''The View''
Walters was a co-host of the daytime talk show ''
The View,'' of which she also is co-creator and co-executive producer with her business partner,
Bill Geddie. It premiered on August 11, 1997.
Walters described the show in its original opening credits as a forum for women of "different generations, backgrounds, and views." She added, "Be careful what you wish for..." on the opening credits of its second season. Through ''The View'', she was able to clinch two
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ...
s for Best Talk Show in 2003 and Best Talk Show Host (with longtime host
Joy Behar
Josephine Victoria "Joy" Behar (; née Occhiuto) is an American comedian, television host, actress, and writer. She co-hosts the ABC daytime talk show '' The View'', where she is the only original panelist still regularly appearing. She hosted ...
, moderator
Whoopi Goldberg,
Elisabeth Hasselbeck
Elisabeth DelPadre Hasselbeck (; born May 28, 1977) is an American retired television personality and talk show host. Hasselbeck rose to prominence in 2001 as a contestant on the second season of the American version of '' Survivor'', where sh ...
, and
Sherri Shepherd
Sherri Shepherd (born April 22, 1967) is an American actress, comedian, author, broadcaster, and television personality. She currently hosts the daily syndicated daytime talk show, '' Sherri''. From 2007 to 2014, Shepherd was a co-host of the da ...
) in 2009.
Walters retired from being a co-host on May 15, 2014. Although retired, Walters returned as a guest co-host on an intermittent basis throughout 2014 and 2015.
Retirement
After leaving her role as ''
20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
'' co-host in 2004, Walters remained as a part-time contributor of special programming and interviews for
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...
until 2016.
On March 7, 2010, Barbara Walters announced she would no longer hold Oscar interviews, but will still be working with ABC and on ''The View.''
In a November 2010 episode of ''The View'', while interviewing
Larry King on his retirement from CNN, Walters alluded to her impending retirement, stating, "I know when my time's coming."
On March 28, 2013, numerous media outlets reported that Barbara Walters would retire in May 2014 and that she would make the announcement on the show four days later.
However, on the April 1 episode, Walters neither confirmed nor denied the retirement rumors; she said "if and when I might have an announcement to make, I will do it on this program, I promise, and the paparazzi guys -- you will be the last to know".
Walters confirmed six weeks later that she would be retiring from television hosting and interviewing in May 2014, as originally reported; she made the official announcement on the May 13, 2013, episode of ''The View'' while also announcing that she will continue as the show's executive producer for as long as it's on the air.
On June 10, 2014, it was announced that she would be "coming out of retirement" in order to do a special ''20/20'' interview with
Peter Rodger
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a su ...
, the father of the perpetrator of the
2014 Isla Vista killings
The 2014 Isla Vista killings were a series of misogynistic terror attacks in Isla Vista, California. On the evening of May 23, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger
killed six people and injured fourteen others—by gunshot, stabbing and vehicle rammi ...
, Elliot Rodger.
In 2015, Walters hosted special ''20/20'' episodes featuring interviews with
Mary Kay Letourneau and
Donald and
Melania Trump.
In 2015, Walters hosted the documentary series ''American Scandals'' on
Investigation Discovery.
Walters continued to host her ''
10 Most Fascinating People'' series on ABC in 2014 and 2015.
Her final on-air interview was of presidential candidate Donald Trump for ABC News in December 2015.
Walters last appeared publicly in 2016.
Personal life
Walters has been married four times to three different men. Her first husband was Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant. They married on June 20, 1955, at
The Plaza Hotel in New York City.
The marriage was reportedly annulled after 11 months, or in 1957.
Her second husband was
Lee Guber
Lee Guber (November 20, 1920 – March 27, 1988) was an American theater impresario, who produced several Broadway theatre productions and developed a chain of entertainment venues in suburban locations along the East Coast.
Early life and ...
, theatrical producer and theater owner. They married on December 8, 1963, and divorced in 1976. After Walters had three miscarriages, the couple adopted a baby girl named Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted the same year).
Her third husband was
Merv Adelson
Mervyn Lee Adelson (October 23, 1929 – September 8, 2015) was an American real estate developer and television producer who co-founded Lorimar Television.
Early life
Adelson was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles on October 23, 1929 to Nat ...
, the CEO of
Lorimar Television. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1984. They remarried in 1986 and divorced for the second time in 1992.
She dated lawyer
Roy Cohn in college; he said that he proposed marriage to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, but Walters denied this.
She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline.
In her autobiography, Walters says she also felt grateful to Cohn because of his legal assistance to her father. According to Walters, her father was the subject of an arrest warrant for "failure to appear" after he failed to show up for a New York court date because the family was in Las Vegas, and Cohn was able to have the charge dismissed.
Walters testified as a character witness at Cohn's 1986 disbarment trial.
Walters dated future U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
in the 1970s and was linked romantically to United States Senator
John Warner
John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1979 to 20 ...
in the 1990s.
In Walters's autobiography ''Audition'', she claimed that she had an affair in the 1970s with
Edward Brooke, then a married
United States Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and po ...
from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether Walters also was married at the time. Walters said they ended the affair to protect their careers from scandal. In 2007 she dated
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
–winning gerontologist
Robert Neil Butler.
Walters is close friends with
Tom Brokaw and
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
, and was close friends with
Joan Rivers
Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona—heavi ...
as well with former
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...
head
Roger Ailes from the late 1960s until his death in 2017.
In 2013, Walters said she regretted not having more children.
Health
In May 2010, Walters said she would be having
open heart surgery
Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to c ...
to replace a faulty
aortic valve. She had known for quite a while that she was suffering from
aortic valve stenosis
Aortic stenosis (AS or AoS) is the narrowing of the exit of the left ventricle of the heart (where the aorta begins), such that problems result. It may occur at the aortic valve as well as above and below this level. It typically gets worse ...
, even though she was symptom-free. The procedure to fix the faulty heart valve "went well, and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome," Walters's spokeswoman, Cindi Berger, said four days later.
On July 9, 2010, it was announced that Walters would return to ''The View'' and her
Sirius XM satellite show, ''Here's Barbara'', in September 2010.
Four years later, Walters retired permanently from both shows.
Legacy and awards
Barbara Walters was inducted into the
Television Hall of Fame
The Television Academy Hall of Fame honors individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to U.S. television. The hall of fame was founded by former Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) president John H. Mitchell (1921–1988). ...
in 1989. On June 15, 2007, Walters received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, a
Women in Film Lucy Award, and a
GLAAD
GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayal ...
Excellence in Media award. Her impact on popular culture is illustrated by
Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impersonation of her on ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...
'',
featuring her idiosyncratic speech with its
rounded "R". Her name also appeared in the January 23, 1995 ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' Monday
Crossword Puzzle
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the ans ...
. In 2008, she was honored with the
Disney Legends
The Disney Legends Awards is a Hall of Fame program that recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary and integral contribution to The Walt Disney Company. Established in 1987, the honor was traditionally awarded annually during a spec ...
award, given to those who made an outstanding contribution to
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on Octobe ...
, which owns the network
ABC. That same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the
New York Women's Agenda. On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.
Awards and nominations
* 1985:
Paul White Award,
Radio Television Digital News Association
The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA, pronounced the same as " rotunda"), formerly the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), is a United States-based membership organization of radio, television, and online news dire ...
Daytime Emmy Awards
* 1975 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''Today'')
* 1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2003 Award for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2003 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')
* 2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
* 2009 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''The View'') (with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd)
* 2010 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')
NAACP Image Award
The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...
* 2009 Award for Best Talk Series (''The View'')
* 2010 Nomination for Best Talk Series
Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award
* 1998
Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.
Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
* 1991 Golden Plate Award presented by Awards Council member
Beverly Sills.
Bibliography
In the late 1960s, Walters wrote a magazine article, "How to Talk to Practically Anyone About Practically Anything", which drew upon the kinds of things people said to her, which were often mistakes.
[''Audition: A Memoir'', pp. 186–9] Shortly after the article appeared, she received a letter from
Doubleday expressing interest in expanding it into a book. Walters felt that it would help "tongue-tied, socially awkward people—the many people who worry that they can't think of the right thing to say to start a conversation."
She published the book ''How to Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything'' in 1970, with the assistance of
ghostwriter June Callwood. To Walters's great surprise, the book was a success. As of 2008, it had gone through eight printings, sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and had been translated into at least six languages.
She published her autobiography, ''
Audition: A Memoir'', in 2008.
See also
* ''
Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People''
*
New Yorkers in journalism
Citations
Further reading
*
External links
*
ABC News' "Time Tunnel" page containing clips of numerous newscasts on which Walters appearedExcerpts from 2008 autobiography, ''Audition: A Memoir''Barbara Walters Archive of American Television InterviewBarbara WaltersVideo produced by ''
Makers: Women Who Make America''
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walters, Barbara
1929 births
Living people
Age controversies
ABC News personalities
American memoirists
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American television talk show hosts
American women television journalists
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host winners
Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni
Jewish American journalists
Jewish American writers
Jewish women writers
Journalists from New York City
Miami Beach Senior High School alumni
NBC News people
People from Brookline, Massachusetts
Sarah Lawrence College alumni
Writers from Boston
Writers from Miami
Writers from New York City
American women memoirists
American women television writers
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
Birch Wathen Lenox School alumni
Women autobiographers