Walters, Barbara, 1929-2022

Barbara Walters, who broke barriers for women as the first female co-host of the “Today” show and the first female anchor of a network evening news program, and who as an interviewer of celebrities became one herself, helping to blur the line between news and entertainment, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 93.

Her publicist, Cindi Berger, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause. ABC News, where Ms. Walters was a longtime anchor and a creator of the talk show “The View,” reported the death earlier.

Barbara Jill Walters born September 25, 1929, Boston, MA; In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College; After about a year at a small advertising agency, she began working at the NBC network affiliate in New York City, WNBT-TV (now WNBC), doing publicity and writing press releases. She began producing a 15-minute children's program, Ask the Camera, directed by Roone Arledge in 1953. She began producing for TV host Igor Cassini/Cholly Knickerbocker. However, she left the network after her boss pressured her to marry him and engaged in a fist-fight with a man she preferred to date. Then she went to WPIX to produce the Eloise McElhone Show; it was canceled in 1954. She became a writer on The Morning Show at CBS in 1955; After a few years as a publicist with Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at Redbook magazine, Walters joined NBC's The Today Show as a writer and researcher in 1961; She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl," handling lighter assignments and the weather; Within a year, she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews; 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 from 1976–78; Walters is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 where she reunited with former Today Show host Hugh Downs in 1979; She was also chosen to be the moderator for the third and final debate between candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, held on the campus of the College of William and Mary at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the 1976 Presidential Election; In 1984, she moderated a Presidential debate held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire; Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews; Walters was a co-host of the daytime talk show The View, of which she also is co-creator and co-executive producer with her business partner, Bill Geddie. It premiered on August 11, 1997; Walters has been married four times to three different men. Her first husband was Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant. They married on June 20, 1955, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City; er second husband was Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner. They married on December 8, 1963, and divorced in 1976. They have one daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted the same year); Her third husband was Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1984. They remarried in 1986 and divorced for the second time in 1992; She dated lawyer Roy Cohn in college; Walters dated future U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s and was linked romantically to United States Senator John Warner in the 1990s;

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