Barbara Walters died on December 30, 2022, after making history during her life as the first woman to co-host the "Today" show and the first woman to co-anchor an evening network news program.
Wikimedia CommonsBarbara Walters died in 2022 after a lifetime of working in television.
By the time Barbara Walters died in 2022, she had had a trailblazing career. The first woman to co-host the Today show, and the first woman to co-anchor an evening network news program, Walters was known for her tough — and sometimes controversial — interviews with presidents, celebrities, and other prominent figures. Shortly before she died at the age of 93, Walters reportedly stated: “No regrets – I had a great life.”
But early in her life, few would have expected Barbara Walters to become a television legend.
After majoring in English at Sarah Lawrence College in the 1950s, Walters became a television writer and producer. She took a job at NBC’s Today show in 1961, and, before long, began to appear in brief segments in front of the camera. In 1974, Walters broke the glass ceiling when she was named co-host of the Today show alongside Hugh Downs.
From there, Walters made a name for herself as a tough, interrogative, and sometimes controversial interviewer. Walters interviewed almost every president since Richard Nixon, and even got Nixon to admit that he should have “probably” burned the Watergate tapes. She also interviewed world leaders like Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin, and conducted interviews with the world’s biggest celebrities, who often bristled at her questions.
After retiring from television, Barbara Walters died after suffering from dementia on Dec. 30, 2022. Her death marked the end of a long and eventful life. Though Walters’ questions were sometimes seen as invasive or insensitive, no one can deny that she had a barrier-breaking career.
Barbara Walters’ Rise In Television
Born on Sept. 25, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts, Barbara Walters grew up in show business. Her father, Lou, owned a chain of nightclubs and worked as a booking agent, which meant Walters spent her early years surrounded by performers. This formative experience later helped her feel at ease with celebrity guests.
Barbara WaltersBarbara Walters at a young age.
“I would see them onstage looking one way and offstage often looking very different. 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,” Walters remarked in a 1989 interview. “I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe.”
But Walters didn’t initially imagine herself interviewing famous people. She studied English at Sarah Lawrence college, then found a job working at NBC affiliate WRCA-TV in New York City. After gaining experience as a writer and a producer, Walters found a job at the Today show in 1961.
There, Walters’ career swiftly grew. Her sporadic on-camera appearances proved popular, and in 1974 Walters became the co-host of the Today show. Two years later, in 1976, Walters moved to ABC’s “Evening News.” She became the first female co-anchor of an evening news show, and her contract paid $1 million per year.
Public DomainBarbara Walters in 1976.
From there, Walters became a mainstay of American television. She joined 20/20 in 1979, started her popular “10 Most Fascinating People” annual special in 1993, and launched The View in 1997. Walters remained on 20/20 until 2004, and co-hosted The View until 2014.
During that time, Barbara Walters made plenty of news of her own.
Interviewing World Leaders and Icons
White HouseBarbara Walters interviewed countless world leaders, including nearly every president from since Richard Nixon.
Over the decades, Barbara Walters became known for her interviews with world leaders, celebrities, and other prominent figures. She interviewed almost every president since Richard Nixon and, while interviewing Nixon in 1980, got the president to offer a revealing response about the Watergate scandal. Walters asked, “Are you sorry you didn’t burn the tapes?” to which the president replied that he “probably should have.”
Walters also conducted interviews with controversial world leaders, including Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Vladimir Putin. Castro purportedly called Walters’ interviews “fiery debates,” and Walters pressed Putin on whether or not he’d ordered to have anyone killed. “For the record,” she later recalled, “he said ‘no.'”
World leaders were not the only subjects of Walters’s incisive questions. Some of Walters most famous — and infamous — interviews were conducted with celebrities. While speaking to Barbara Streisand, Walters asked the star: “Why didn’t you have your nose fixed?” During an interview with Martha Stewart, Walters demanded: “Martha, why do so many people hate you?” Barbara Walters also pressed singer Ricky Martin on his sexuality during an interview in 2000. Martin, who was not out at the time, said he had “PTSD” from the interview and Walters later expressed regrets about it.
ABC Photo ArchivesBarbara Walters and Fidel Castro.
That said, Walters expressed few regrets about her interview style.
“If it’s a woman, it’s caustic; if it’s a man, it’s authoritative,” Walters once remarked. “If it’s a woman it’s too pushy, if it’s a man it’s aggressive in the best sense of the word.”
The Death Of Barbara Walters At The Age Of 93
Barbara Walters continued to work well into her 80s. In more than half a century working in television, she was honored with Emmy Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and even had an ABC building named after her. In 2000, Walters also won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Wikimedia CommonsBarbara Walters retired from 20/20 in 2004 and stepped back from The View in 2014.
After she retired from The View in 2014, however, Walters made it clear that her television days were over.
“I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain,” she remarked at the time. “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.”
After spending her final years living in Manhattan, Barbara Walters died on Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93 years old. Her last words were reportedly: “No regrets – I had a great life,” and the phrase appears on Walters’ grave in Lakeside Memorial Park in Miami.
Before Barbara Walters died, she reflected on her legacy. Her greatest hope, she remarked, was not to be remembered for her countless interviews with world figures or controversial moments with celebrities, but for the role she played in evening the playing field in television for other women.
“People ask me very often, ‘what is your legacy?’ and it’s not the interviews with presidents, or heads of state, nor celebrities,” Walters said in 2014 at an ABC News ceremony. “If I have a legacy, and I’ve said this before and I mean it so sincerely, I hope that I played a small role in paving the way for so many of you fabulous women.”
After reading about the life and death of Barbara Walters, discover the surprising story of the death of Joan Rivers, the first woman to host a late night network talk show who died during surgery. And then look through this chilling collection of the last known photographs of famous people.
