Iconic interviewer and Emmy-winning TV personality Barbara Walters has died. She was 93.
ABC News broke the news tonight, tweeting: “Barbara Walters, who shattered the glass ceiling and became a dominant force in an industry once dominated by men, has died.”
Walters was the first woman to co-host a major network morning show with NBC’s “Today” and then to co-anchor an evening newscast on ABC in the mid-1970s.
She became most famous for her one-hour Barbara Walters Specials, which featured extended interviews with famous names across many fields, most notably showbiz and politics, and had a weekly presence as co-anchor of “20/20”. At one time, she was U.S. television’s highest-paid journalist and was famous for her technique which blended entertainment questions with deep probing ones into the personal lives of her subjects.
In her time, she conducted famous interviews with the most prominent figures across politics and entertainment, including Monica Lewinsky, Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Anwar Sadat, the Shah of Iran, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Michael Jackson and Ricky Martin.
She later created one of daytime televison’s most popular talk shows with “The View”, which she co-hosted until 2014.
Disney CEO Bob Iger says in a statement: “Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself. 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.”
Walters is survived by a daughter with her second husband Lee Guber.
Source: Deadline
