How did barbara walters become famous

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Barbara Jill Walters

Walters worked briefly in an advertising agency before taking her first position in television, as assistant to the publicity director for the NBC-affiliated television station in New York City. She was soon the youngest person ever to become a producer at the station. After going from there to another local station, she joined the CBS network staff as a news and public affairs producer and as a writer.

Walters took a break from television to work for a theatrical public relations firm, but she was back in broadcasting by 1961. Working as a writer for NBC’s successful morning show Today, she began for the first time to make occasional appearances on the air. These feature-story appearances led to an opportunity to try out as the “Today Girl,” a title she would soon discard. Walters turned the role of the pretty, smiling small-talker into an essential part of the program. Before long she was reading news and acting as a commentator. In 1971, Hugh Downs left the program and was replaced by Frank McGee, a former evening news anchor who felt that Today w

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Exclusive: How Barbara Walters broke the rules and changed the world for women and TV

Adapted from "The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters" by Susan Page. (464 pp. Simon and Schuster, April 23)

She had been warned.

Barbara Walters had finally won the anchor’s chair in 1976, the prize she had long sought and one that NBC News had refused to give her. ABC, then the third-ranking network with little to lose, offered her the job of co-anchoring the nightly news with Harry Reasoner and hosting four annual specials for the then-breathtaking salary of a million dollars a year.

She was the first newswoman − the first newsperson, in fact − to get such an astronomical sum. She achieved that distinction by shrewdly playing each network against the other. But her price came with its own price. No one would ever let her forget it.

“Barbara Walters: Million-Dollar Baby?” The Miami Herald asked in a headline trumpeted across all six columns at the top of page 1. “A Million-Dollar Baby Handling 5-and-10 Cent News?” ridiculed a column in The Washington Post. Richard Salant,

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Barbara Walters

1929-2022

Who Was Barbara Walters?

Barrier-breaking TV journalist Barbara Walters developed her trademark interviewing style—a probing-yet-casual approach—throughout the 1960s and ’70s. She held long-standing jobs on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s 20/20 and, in 1976, became the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. In addition to many other high-profile subjects, Walters interviewed every U.S. president and first lady from Richard and Pat Nixon to Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Donald and Melania Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. In 1997, she premiered a still popular talk show called The View and served as co-host until May 2014. The recipient of multiple awards and more than 30 Emmys, Walters died in December 2022 at age 93.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Barbara Jill Walters
BORN: September 25, 1929
DIED: December 30, 2022
BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts
SPOUSES: Robert Katz (1955-1958), Lee Guber (1963-1976) and Merv Adelson (1986-1992)
CHILDREN: Jaqueline
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Early Life

Journalist and writer Ba