Barbara Walters dead aged 93: ‘Trailblazing’ ABC News anchor passes away after incredible career that spanned 5 decades
LEGENDARY news anchor and reporter Barbara Walters has died at age 93 after an incredible career that spanned five decades.
Walters is a TV news icon who is often credited with shattering the glass ceiling in a once male-dominated industry.
The famed newswoman died at her home in New York City.
Tributes have poured in for the host, including a touching one from Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger.
“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” said Iger.
“She was a one-of-a-kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time, from heads of state to the biggest celebrities and sports icons.”
In 1976, Walters became the first female anchor on an evening news program when she joined ABC News.
Three years later, she co-hosted 20/20 and would launch The View in 1997.
She retired from the program in 2014 but remained an executive producer and still continued to do some interviews and specials for ABC News.
“I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain,” she said at the time.
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“I want instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women - and OK, some men too - who will be taking my place.”
Throughout her career, Walters won 12 Emmy Awards, 11 of them with ABC News.
EARLY LIFE
Walters was born on September 25, 1929, to Dena and Louis Walters in Boston, Massachusetts.
Her father worked as a booking agent and nightclub producer, discovering comedians such as Fred Allen and Jack Haley, who would star as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
Throughout her childhood, Walters was surrounded by celebrities, which taught her a lesson at an early age.
“I would see them onstage looking one way and offstage often looking very different,” she said in a 1989 interview with the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences.
“I would hear my parents talk about them and know that even though those performers were very special people, they were also human beings with real-life problems.
“I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe.”
She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and found work as a publicist and television writer before becoming a writer on NBC’s Today show in 1961.
She became the program’s first female co-host in 1975.
A year later, she won her first Emmy award for Outstanding Talk Show Host.
“No one was more surprised than I,” she said.
“I wasn't beautiful, like many of the women on the program before me, [and] I had trouble pronouncing my r’s.”
NOT AFRAID
Walters was known for her high-profile interviews and for asking tough questions.
“I asked Vladimir Putin if he ever ordered anyone to be killed,” she once said. “For the second, he said ‘no.’”
She crossed the Bay of Pigs with Fidel Castro, writing in a statement following his death in 2016 that “he made clear to me that he was an absolute dictator and that he was a staunch opponent of democracy.”
“I told him that what we most profoundly disagreed on was the meaning of freedom.”
She hosted an annual Oscars special interviewing Academy Award nominees and was known to make several of them reveal personal information and even cry.
In 1994, she started the Most Fascinating People special that aired every December.
In 1999, she sat with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky to ask about her affair with then-President Bill Clinton.
Walters asked: “What will you tell your children when you have them?”
Lewinsky replied: “Mommy made a big mistake.”
Walters was quick to respond: “And that is the understatement of the year.”
An estimated 74million viewers watched the iconic interview.
Walters interviewed every US president and first lady from Richard and Pat Nixon to Barack and Michelle Obama - and interviewed former President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump before they entered the White House.
Through The View, Walters helped to create a forum for women from different backgrounds to come together and discuss the most pressing topics in the news.
In 2019, the New York Times Magazine dubbed the program “the most important political TV show in America.”
PRIVATE BATTLE
Before her death, the legendary journalist had not been seen in public for years.
Her last known public outing was at the Paris Theatre for the New York premiere of 'Cafe Society' on July 13, 2016.
Just weeks ago, The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg gave a rare update on the show creator.
As a sweet, smiling photo of Walters appeared on the screen, the moderator said: “To the one and only Barbara Walters, who had a birthday yesterday, we wanna say, 27 never looked so good!”
Walters had kept to herself since retiring and had not had a public appearance since 2016, only adding to fans’ concerns.
The star was noticeably absent from all of The View's 25th-anniversary celebrations earlier this year, as well.
Over the past decade or so, in the years leading up to and following her retirement, the television personality had seen her health sadly deteriorate through a number of setbacks.
In May 2010, Walters underwent an aortic valve replacement.
At the time, she that she was about to undergo surgery to replace the faulty heart valve.
"You know how I always say to you how healthy I am. ... I've never missed a day's work," she began. "Later this week, I'm going to have surgery to replace one faulty heart valve. Lots of people have done this, and I have known about this condition for a while now."
She was told that her chances of being alive in two years were 50-50— unless she had open-heart surgery.
Barbara was back enjoying her view on the morning show four months later.
While in Washington D.C. in January 2013 to cover President Obama‘s second inauguration, the veteran ABC journalist, then 83, lost her footing at a party and fell down the stairs and cut her forehead.
“Out of an abundance of caution, she went to the hospital to have her cut tended to, have a full examination and remains there for observation,” Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, said at the time.
“Barbara is alert (and telling everyone what to do), which we all take as a very positive sign.”
The journalist missed out on the rest of the inauguration week, and several days following as well.
Just a few days later, the broadcast legend came down with chicken pox.
Once again, she found herself under hospital care, as Whoopi explained on The View.
“We want to give you an update on Barbara,” Whoopi said. “You all know that she fell and cut her head 10 days ago, and then was running a temperature, but it turns out it is all the result of a delayed childhood. Barbara has the chicken pox.
"She’d never had it as a child. So now she’s been told to rest, she’s not allowed any visitors.
"And we’re telling you, Barbara, no scratching.”
Tributes have poured in after the broadcast icon's death, with many women sharing how she was their role model.
Oprah posted a photo of her and Walters to , saying: "Without Barbara Walters there wouldn’t have been me—nor any other woman you see on evening, morning, and daily news. She was indeed a Trailblazer."
Robin Roberts shared a tribute on , writing: "Barbara Walters was a true trailblazer.
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"Forever grateful for her stellar example and for her friendship."
Walters' cause of death was not immediately made public.
