The first female co- host of the "Today" show and the first female anchor of a network evening news program died on Friday. She was old.
She was an anchor and creator of the talk show "The View" when she died. The cause of her death was not given.
She continued to appear on "The View" until she was 84. She was known for her ability to get into the private lives and emotional states of celebrities in one-on-one interviews.
She first appeared on camera on NBC's "Today" show in 1964 and was named co-hosting ten years later. Her success paved the way for future network anchors.
The token woman in the "Today" writers' room was Ms.Walters. She became known as the "million-dollar baby" when she was a co-anchor of ABC's evening news with Harry Reasoner.
The move to the co-anchor's chair made her not only the highest-profile female journalist in television history, but also the highest-paid news anchor, male or female, and her arrival signaled something of a cultural shift. Mr Reasoner dismissed her hiring as a stunt.
The ABC experiment didn't work out. The chemistry between the co-anchors was not good and Mr. Reasoner left for CBS. She began reporting on the show shortly after that. She co-hosted the show with Hugh Downs.
She made a name for herself as an indefatigable chronicler of the rich, the powerful and the notorious, thanks to her show, "Barbara Walters Specials". Ms. Walters was almost as famous as the people she interviewed as a result of the specials.
When politicians were more reserved and celebrities more elusive, Ms. Walters asked them questions that were startlingly intimate. She asked Jimmy Carter if he and his wife had separate beds. The people did not. She asked the Prime Minister if it was true that he drank his own urine for medical reasons. The was.
Ms.Walters was a celebrity journalist who reveled in the role, driving a motorcycle with Sylvester Stallone and dancing the mambo with Patrick Swayze. She was the reporter who asked Monica Lewinsky why she kept the blue dress she wore when she had sex with Clinton.
Ms.Walters raised eyebrows by courting high society and befriending high-ranking officials. The Shah of Iran was friends with several people. She was one of the only female reporters on the trip. The widow of the former Israeli foreign minister wore a black dress to her husband's funeral.
Her spirit and ambition kept going. She traveled 8,000 miles and many time zones to sit with the Jackson family at the memorial in Los Angeles and host a special tribute on "20-20." She kept popping up in the gossip pages when she tried to help Rosie O'Donnell and Donald J. Trump.
When around Mr. Trump, she could be gushing, like when she compared his family to American royalty and when she asked him if he could be the next president.
In addition to being an executive producer and frequently appearing on camera as a member of the show's all-female panel, Ms. The show is seen in several countries and has inspired imitations.
There is a long list of famous people she persuaded to go on camera with her. Barbra Streisand and Princess Grace of Monaco are included. She interviewed world leaders, including Margaret Thatcher and Boris N. Yeltsin, as well as American presidents and first ladies.
She presented an annual Oscar-night special that featured interviews with nominees and other celebrities. She said that celebrity interviews had become ubiquitous and that they were not what they used to be.
She said that a celebrity is a celebrity if he or she just came out of rehabilitation. I didn't want to do that
She continued with her annual "10 Most Fascinating People" specials. In the final special, in 2015, Caitlyn Jenner topped the list, but she didn't want to be interviewed.
Many people turned down the chance to be interviewed by Ms. Walters in her heyday. In her memoir, "Audition", Ms. Walters said that her greatest ungotten "gets" were the Kennedys and Diana.
There were other regrets. She apologized to The Toronto Star for asking Ricky Martin if he was gay in 2000 but he didn't come out until 10 years later. She said in her book that she was sorry that she didn't show the White House tour that Betty Ford gave her because she was drunk.
She said she would air the interview if she were interviewing a first lady who was drunk. There have been changes to the times.
When Ms. Walters began combining her career and family, "having it all" wasn't part of the culture. Her second husband, the theatrical producer Lee Guber, had a daughter with her. Senator John Warner of Virginia and the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan were both married to her multiple times. She revealed in "Audition" that she had an affair with Senator Edward W. Brooke III of Massachusetts in 1973.
She had a drive that would almost certainly have propelled her to fame even if she used her femininity and social connections differently. She was a worrier who did her own research and wrote her own questions on index cards.
She got the first joint interview with the President of Egypt and the Prime Minister of Israel when they were negotiating the terms of the 1979 peace agreement. Ms.Walters claimed that CBS persuaded the two leaders to sit down again with Cronkite.
She was a target of parody on SNL. The first cast member to impersonate her, as Baba Wawa, was Gilda radner. The impression was not amusing. It wasn't just the way she spoke. She used the contradictions in Ms. Walters's on-air persona, her slightly affected enunciation and tabloid reporter's unsqueamish appetite for juicy gossip.
She was impersonated by a group of people. Her opinion of her imitators had changed. She made her "S.N.L." debut days before her last appearance on "The View". She said that it had been an honor to see her career in journalism reduced to a cartoon character.
She was not the only critic of the writers of "S.N.L.." Many objected to the manner in which Ms. Walters interacted with her guests as well as her apparent determination to bring her interviewees to tears. The commander of allied forces in the Persian Gulf war cried when she asked about his father.
The ratings were with her all the time.
The daughter of a Boston booking agent who founded the Latin Quarter nightclubs in Boston, New York and Miami and whose fortunes rose and fell dragged the family from Florida manors and mansions.
She wrote that she was able to recognize how other families lived.
On September 25, 1929, Barbara Walters was born to her parents. She wrote in her memoir that her father was not particularly good-looking, but he was always dressed nicely and had an English accent. She wrote that her mother worked in a men's neckwear store when she met her husband. The couple were children of Jewish immigrants who fled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and were married for 60 years.
Barbara went to public and private schools. Tax collectors seized the family car, furniture and even the dining room chandelier, as well as trips to Europe and Broadway openings, when the family went there. She said that her childhood was shaped by her complicated relationship with her older sister. In 1985 she passed away.
When she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1951 with a degree in English, she needed to find a job to support her family. She once said she wanted to be normal. I wanted to be a popular girl and marry and have children.
She began her career as a secretary at a public relations firm. There was a stint in the publicity department of CBS and then a writing job on "The Morning Show." She was brought out of the writers' room once in a bathing suit when a model ran late, another time to interview survivors of the wreck of the Italian luxury.
She was hired by the show. At the time, the show had always had an on-camera girl, usually an actress or a contestant. She was occasionally seen on camera herself, but she wasn't a full-time member of the on-air team until 1964. The producers gave the job to a less glamorous candidate who already had the job.
Ms.Walters initially had a fear of being fired. She was determined to find a way around barriers. She said that Frank McGee, who became host of "Today" in 1971, persuaded the network to mandate that he ask the first three questions of any guest in the studio, worried that viewers would assume that he and Ms. Ms. Walters was trying to get around the three-question rule by interviewing famous people outside.
Jim Hartz became the new anchor after the death of Mr. McGee.
Even though she brought glamour to news programs, networks followed her lead. The industry did what she did.
She saw herself as a guardian of journalistic values by the end of her career. She was upset that ABC News chose Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who went to jail for having an affair with a student, over President George W. Bush for her final interview as co- host of the show.
In the age of internet news, cellphone videos and blog journalism, it would be hard for any one journalist to have the kind of career that Ms. Walters had. She said she had the advantage of being ahead of the game if she were top of the game.
The ABC News building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was renamed the Barbara Walters Building four days before she left "The View".
Ms.Walters said she was not going to cry. I make people cry but I won't cry.
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