She became known for her deftly maneuvered questions, often catching her subjects off guard and revealing uncommon candor. It was during this time that Walters honed her skill as a reporter and solidified her probing interview style. She followed up the next year by arranging the first joint interview with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. The initial interview program featured President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Walters also launched the first of a series of Barbara Walters Specials in 1976. That same year, she was chosen to moderate the third and final presidential debate between challenger Jimmy Carter and incumbent President Gerald Ford. In 1975, she won her first Daytime Entertainment Emmy Award for best host in a talk series.Įnticed by an unprecedented $1 million annual salary, Walters accepted a job at ABC in 1976 as the first woman co-anchor of a network evening news program. By 1972, she had established herself as a competent journalist and was chosen to be part of the press corps that accompanied President Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China. Walters remained on the show for 11 years, during which time she honed her trademark probing-yet-casual interviewing technique. The resulting report earned Walters increasing responsibility at the network.īy 1964, Walters became a staple of the Today show-starring alongside Hugh Downs and, later, Frank McGee-and earned the nickname “ Today girl.” Although serving as a co-host, she wasn’t given that official billing until 1974 and was restricted from asking questions of the show’s “serious” guests until the male co-host had finished asking his. Within a few months, however, she lobbied for a breakthrough assignment to travel with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on a trip to India and Pakistan. Her initial assignments were stories slanted toward female viewers. In 1961, NBC hired Walters to work as a researcher and writer for its popular Today show. Working for the 'Today' Showīarbara Walters on the Today show, circa mid-1970s Getty Images After sharpening her writing and producing skills at the NBC affiliate, Walters moved to CBS, where she wrote material for the network’s Morning Show. After a brief stint as a secretary, she landed her first job in journalism as the assistant to publicity director and Republican activist Tex McCary of WRCA-TV. Walters attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in English. Walters was surrounded by celebrities from an early age, which has been said to account for her relaxed manner when interviewing famous people. As a result, Walters attended Fieldston and Birch Wathen private schools in New York City and graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1937, Lou opened a chain of nightclubs that expanded his business from Boston to Miami Beach, Florida. Walters was born Jewish, though her parents weren’t practicing Jews. She had two siblings: older sister Jacqueline, who was born developmentally disabled and died in 1985, and brother Burton, who died of pneumonia in 1932. Journalist and writer Barbara Jill Walters was born on September 25, 1929, in Boston, the daughter of Dena Seletsky Walters and nightclub impresario Lou Walters. The recipient of multiple awards and more than 30 Emmys, Walters died in December 2022 at age 93. In 1997, she premiered a still popular talk show called The View and served as co-host until May 2014. president and first lady from Richard and Pat Nixon to Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Donald and Melania Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. In addition to many other high-profile subjects, Walters interviewed every U.S. She held long-standing jobs on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s 20/20 and, in 1976, became the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. Barrier-breaking TV journalist Barbara Walters developed her trademark interviewing style-a probing-yet-casual approach-throughout the 1960s and ’70s.
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