One of television’s most accomplished interviewers across her 50-year career, Barbara Walters has died at the age of 93.
Barbara Walters, the pioneering journalist who broke countless barriers in her 50-year career, has died at age 93.
WCPO was the first one to break the news via Twitter today.
According to TMZ, the journalist died in New York City. No further detail was revealed.
A rep for Walters did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
On September 25, 1929, she was born to Dena and Lou Walters, a nightclub owner, in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1974, she became the first woman to ever host NBC’s “Today” after more than a decade at the network. She started at the company as a researcher and writer, then steadily landed bigger and bigger stories including a travelling assignment with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Then in 1976, after building a huge following, she landed a $US1 million contract with ABC to co-anchor “The Evening News.” Her seat at the desk made her the highest-paid TV journalist at the time and the first woman to ever anchor the evening news on a major network.
Walters, seen at left on The View in 2010, stayed on TV well into her 80s.
During her career, Walters earned numerous awards and accolades including four Emmys, and one lifetime achievement award. She’s interviewed countless Hollywood icons, fascinating pop culture figures and every president since Richard Nixon, with the exception of Donald Trump.
But perhaps her most prized endeavour will always be “The View,” which launched in 1997. The morning talk show featured a diverse cast of voices sharing a roundtable discussion on politics, entertainment, family and other hot topics.
After sitting at the table for 17 years, Walters stepped down from the show in 2014, but remained an executive producer. “I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain,” she told the Los Angeles Times of retiring. “I want to instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women – and OK, some men too – who will be taking my place.”
She was a tough but fair celebrity interviewer – seen here with Katy Perry in 2011.
“I don’t think that I was very good at marriage,” Walters explained in an ABC special about her life. “It may be that my career was just too important. It may have been that I was difficult person to be married to, and I just seem to be better alone. I’m not lonely, I’m alone.”
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