Information about Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters, September 2007. Photo by Christopher Peterson. Birth name Barbara Walters Born September 25 1929 (1929--) (age 78) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Statistics Occupation Journalist, Television Talk Show Host Gender Female Marital status Divorced Spouse Merv Adelson (1986–1992) Lee Guber (1963–1976) Robert Henry Katz (1955–1958) Children Jacqueline Dena Guber Notable credit(s) The Today Show anchor (1962–1976) ABC Evening News anchor (1976–1978) 20/20 host (1984–2004) The View creator/co-host (1997–present)

Barbara Jill Walters^[1] (born September 25, 1929^[2]) is an American journalist, writer and media personality who has been a regular fixture on morning television shows (Today and The View), an evening news magazine (20/20), and on The ABC Evening News as the first female evening news anchor. Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's Today, where she worked with Hugh Downs and later hosts Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent over 20 years as co-host of ABC's newsmagazine 20/20. She was the first woman to co-anchor the network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on The ABC Evening News.

Biography

Early life

Walters was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dena (née Seletsky) and Louis Edward Walters, a theatrical booking agent and producer.^[3] In 1937, her father opened the first of a famous chain of nightclubs known as the Latin Quarter; he also was a Broadway producer (he produced the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943).^[4] Walters' elder sister, Jacqueline, was born developmentally disabled^[5] and died of ovarian cancer in 1988. Her brother, Burton, died in 1932 of pneumonia.^[6] Walters' parents were Jewish, although she did not have a religious upbringing, as her father had become an atheist.^[7]

Being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them.^[5] When she was a young woman, Walters' father lost his nightclubs and the family's penthouse on Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the Government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture". Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business".^[8] After attending Fieldston and Birch Wathen private schools in New York City,<ref name="Conaway" /> Walters graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1951, she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College^[9] in Bronxville, New York.

Career

Her career has opened doors for women in journalism. After a brief period as a publicist with Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at CBS News, Walters joined NBC's The Today Show as a writer and researcher in 1961.^[5] She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl", handling lighter assignments. Within a year, she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews.^[5] When Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first question. She was not named co-host of the show until McGee's death in 1974, when NBC officially designated Walters as the program's first female co-host.

Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ABC Evening News. Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters because he disliked having a co-anchor. She is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 where she joined host Hugh Downs in 1979.^[5] Walters had a great on-camera chemistry with Downs. Off camera, she also was said to have a good professional relationship built on high standards and mutual respect with Downs, both at "Today" for 5 years and 20/20, where this same anchor team enjoyed two decades of excellent ratings.

Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of 9/11. Many of her regular and special programs are syndicated around the world. As of 2004, she is in semi-retirement as a broadcast journalist, but remains a correspondent for ABC News as well as a host of ABC's special programs.

On June 14, 2007, Walters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Interviews

Walters started to gain a reputation for her interview skills while at The Today Show. Not all of her interviewees remain dry-eyed, and critics accuse Walters of pumping for the ratings-generating public tears. Critics have also accused Walters of not posing enough tough questions to her subjects, relying mainly on so-called "softball" questions to elicit sometimes unexpected answers. Her Barbara Walters Specials are top-rated and, since 1993, her year-end Ten Most Fascinating People offers a review of the year's most prominent newsmakers. Prior to the move of the Academy Awards to an early Sunday evening time spot, a Walters interview show, usually featuring one or more of the top nominees, was a regular feature. Walters' celebrity interviews at ABC came as part of her $1 million contract to join ABC, with half of it coming from the news department and half from doing celebrity specials.

Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews.^[5] In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century.^[5] They include Russia's Boris Yeltsin, China's Jiang Zemin, the UK's Margaret Thatcher, Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as India's Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon Michael Jackson.

Walters was widely lampooned in 1981, and often since, when, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn, Walters is incorrectly identified as having posed the question: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" As she has often pointed out, and the video clips confirm, Hepburn initiated the comment by saying she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with, "What kind of a tree?"^[10][5]

During a story on Cuban leader Fidel Castro, she claimed that "for Castro, freedom begins with education". She has been criticized for the statement and the story as a whole; critics point to her characterization of Castro as freedom-loving and argue that it painted an inaccurate picture of his government.

On March 3, 1999, she interviewed Monica Lewinsky in front of a record 74 million viewers, the highest ratings of any journalist interview. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children about this matter?" and Lewinsky replied, "'I guess Mommy made some mistakes,'" at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers and saying, "And that is the understatement of the century".

The View

Main article: The View

Walters co-hosts the sometimes controversial^[11] daytime talk show The View, of which she is also co-creator and co-executive producer.^[5] Walters described the show in its original opening credits as a forum for women of "different generations, backgrounds, and views". As of 2007, she and comedian Joy Behar are the only two original panelists still appearing on the show.

In 2006, the tenth year of the show, Walters selected Rosie O'Donnell as co-host, an appointment that was outshined only by the drama that came along with it. Heated debates and "hot topics" made headline news across the country on various occasions, especially involving Donald Trump, the war in Iraq, and an on-air shouting match between O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Although the show's ratings went way up during O'Donnell's tenure, so did the concomitant headaches for Walters. Walters, upon announcing O'Donnell's early departure, said she adored O'Donnell and welcomed her back at any time.

Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd were added to the panel for the 11th season. Barbara now only appears on the show 3 times a week.

Personal life

Walters has been married three times. As she told The New York Times in 1996, "I'm convinced that you stay married when the days are bad only because you really want to be. But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days."<ref name="Bumiller" /> Her husbands were: Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant, married 20 June 1955 at the Plaza hotel in New York City; the marriage was reportedly annulled in 1958.<ref name="Walters1" />^[12] Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner, married on December 8 1963; divorced 1976. One daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted same year). Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television; married 1986, divorced in 1992.

The lawyer Roy Cohn said that he proposed to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, which Walters has denied.^[6] Jerry Oppenheimer explains Walter's somewhat puzzling lifelong devotion to Roy Cohn—which extended to publicly asserting that though she had dated him, she had no idea he was gay, and that she believed his claim that he was dying of liver cancer rather than AIDS— as gratitude for his help in her adoption of Jacqueline.^[13] She dated former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s ^[14] and her name was linked to United States Senator John Warner in the 1990s. ^[15]

Trivia

Her idiosyncratic speech with its rounded "R" inspired Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impersonation on Saturday Night Live.^[5]

References

External links

• Barbara Walters at the Internet Movie Database
• Barbara Walters at TV.com

Preceded by John Chancellor	Today Show Host Hugh Downs and herself 1962 – 1971 Frank McGee and herself 1971 – 1974 Jim Hartz and herself 1974 – 1976 1962 – 1976	Succeeded by Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley
Preceded by Hugh Downs as sole host	20/20 Host Hugh Downs and herself 1979 – 1999 Solo 1999 – 2002 John Miller and herself 1/2002 – 1/2003 John Stossel and herself 2003 – 2004 1979 – 2004	Succeeded by Elizabeth Vargas and John Stossel

Anchors of The Today Show
Garroway • Chancellor • Downs • McGee • Walters • Hartz • Brokaw • Pauley • Gumbel • Norville • Garagiola • Couric • Lauer • Vieira

•  • [ e] Anchors of ABC Evening News/World News Tonight/World News
Daly Goddard Swayze Cochran Jennings Young Reynolds Smith Reasoner Walters Robinson Jennings Woodruff Vargas Gibson

•  • [ e] Co-Anchors of 20/20
Hayes • Hughes • Downs • Walters • Miller • Stossel • Vargas

•  • [ e] Co-Hosts of The View
Current: Joy Behar • Elisabeth Hasselbeck • Barbara Walters • Whoopi Goldberg Former: Debbie Matenopoulos • Lisa Ling • Meredith Vieira • Star Jones • Rosie O'Donnell

Preceded by n/a	The View co-host 1997-present	Succeeded by Incumbent