Cindi Berger told People Friday that Barbara Walters died peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. Source confirms that Barbara Walters, a pioneering journalist and TV host, has died. She turned 93.
Cindi Berger, who works for the person’s family, tells Source that the well-known journalist died Friday evening.
Berger says that Barbara Walters died peacefully at home, surrounded by people she loved. “She did a lot in her life.” “She has no regrets about how she lived. She broke new ground not just for women journalists but for all women.”
Bob Iger, the CEO of Walt Disney, also tweeted that Walters had died at her home in New York, calling her a “one-of-a-kind reporter.”
“Barbara was a true legend and a pioneer, not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” Iger said in a tweet, adding that his colleague and friend of 30 years had gotten some of the “most important interviews of our time.”
Walters was born in Boston on September 25, 1929. She grew up in a New York home where her father, nightclub owner and Broadway producer Lou Walters, had many famous friends. She went to Sarah Lawrence College and got a degree in English from there.
After a short time as a writer for CBS News, Walters started her career in TV news in 1961 when she was hired as a writer and researcher for NBC’s Today show. As she moved up the ranks, she reported the weather and did feature stories. Eventually, she became a reporter-at-large and, along with Hugh Downs and Frank McGee, the show’s first female co-host.
I have sad news to share today. Barbara Walters passed away this evening at her home in New York. pic.twitter.com/fxSyU6BQk4
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) December 31, 2022
In her autobiography, Audition, which came out in 2008, Walters said that in the 1970s she had an affair with U.S. Senator Edward Brooke. She also dated Alan Greenspan, who was the head of the Federal Reserve, around the same time.
Walters left NBC in 1976 and became a co-anchor on the ABC Evening News. Three years later, he joined the news show 20/20 on the same network. She was at ease whether she was talking to a pop culture star or a political leader. She co-hosted 20/20 until 2004, during which time Vladimir Putin, Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson, and Monica Lewinsky were among the famous people she interviewed. She was also the person in charge of presidential debates.
Walters started her daytime talk show, The View, in 1997. She was a co-host on the show for many years until she left it in 2014.
ABC’s Most Fascinating People special at the end of each year from 1993 to 2015 was a fan favourite (with the exception of 2000 and 2001).
She has won many awards, including three Emmys, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the New York Women’s Agenda and the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
The icon was also very open about the sexism she had to deal with in her career.
“Even though it was supposed to be hard, a woman couldn’t do it. The people wouldn’t listen to her, “Walters said this in a video from 2015 for Oprah’s Master Class. “She couldn’t go into war zones, and she couldn’t ask the hard questions.”
Walters said that she wouldn’t give up, though.
“It was liked by some. Some people said, “She’s mean,”” Walters said. “On the one hand, it made me more valuable, but on the other, people started calling me a pushy cookie. “There goes that aggressive cookie.””
In 2021, Walters turned 92, and the co-hosts of The View, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, and Ana Navarro, who was a guest on the show, celebrated with a big party. Whoopi Goldberg, who usually runs the show, was not there that day.
Also in September of that year, View alum Meredith Vieira talked to PEOPLE about becoming the first moderator of the show. She said that being chosen by Walters was a “tremendous” honour.
“Getting to work with her was a little bit like a dream come true. I think she was hesitant to hire me because she didn’t know how funny I was. But Barbara gave me a chance. I wasn’t really looking for or interested in the job until I tried out for it “she told me. “Then I thought, ‘I don’t know why I like this so much, but I do.'”
“Barbara is a very complicated person once you work with her,” Vieira said of her old boss. “On the one hand, she is very kind and generous. On the other hand, she is a real taskmaster and tough as nails, which is why she was successful in this business when there were so few women. She was not only smart, but also very determined.”
In honour of The View’s 25th anniversary, many of Walters’ former co-hosts recently talked to PEOPLE about her groundbreaking career and how she changed their lives.
“I’ve always thought of [The View] as a play where Barbara is the grown-up and the rest of us are playing in the sandbox. So it was great to have her there as a steady part that never changed. Barbara was always there “Goldberg said. “She knew a lot of great, interesting things. She talked to everyone, and everyone knew her. People wanted to come and a lot of people wanted to meet her, so having her here was a gift. We were able to find out how to really interview someone. That was a good thing to have.”
Behar added, “I miss her on the show, and I wish she was there right now. I do. I’d like to see her there again, but I don’t think that will happen.”
“No matter what other people say, working with Barbara Walters was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. I never forgot that I might not be doing what I’m doing if women like Barbara hadn’t had to fight so hard when they were getting started in the business “Lisa Ling said. “She was hard on all of us because she wanted the best from us, and because she believed in me, I did my best to give it to her. Barbara taught me a lot, and I will always be grateful to her for the chance she gave me and the advice she gave me.”
Debbie Matenopoulos gave Walters a call “”the Grande Dame.” He also said, “Whatever she said went, as it should have, since she and executive producer Bill Geddie came up with the idea for the show.” Not to mention that she was a pioneer in the field of journalism and had made it possible for many other women to follow in her footsteps.
She worked hard and paid her dues, so now she can do things her way. I’m not going to lie, she was tough, and she had high expectations for everyone. But that’s only because she didn’t expect anything else from her. People use the word “boss” a lot these days, but she was the best example of what the word means. Barbara Walters will never be replaced.”
Hostin, Walters’ current co-host, said that Walters was “very much a teacher” and “very much a mentor for me.”
This fall, Sherri Shepherd will have her own show “She taught me to ask questions and be interested in other people. Barbara taught me to speak up.”
Walters never got married again after getting a divorce from Merv Adelson, her third husband, in 1992. She is remembered by her daughter Jackie Danforth, whom she had with her ex-husband Lee Guber.
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