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“I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.” Award-winning journalist Barbara Walters first rose to fame in the early 1960s on The Today Show. As one of only a few women in the industry, Walters was tasked with writing and producing female-related segments. She soon proved she was just as talented as any male in the industry and earned additional airtime before being named the first female co-host of a major television news program.
Raising the bar of journalism with her unique style, Walters took her seat on ABC Evening News and earned a hefty $1 million paycheck. She co-hosted and produced 20/20 and launched her daytime talk show, The View, in 1997. She retired from daytime television in 2014 and has spent the last few years working behind the scenes as an executive producer and special reporter for ABC News. Let’s take a look at the 89-year-old’s incredible journey into television and her life behind the scenes!
Early Life and Career Beginnings
The daughter of a Broadway producer, Barbara Jill Walters was born on September 25, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts. Walters experienced several highs and lows throughout her childhood with her father’s career ebbing and flowing as is customary in show business. During one of the family’s hardest times, Walters’ father lost his night clubs and the family’s Central Park West penthouse, which devastated the family. “He had a breakdown,” Walters said of her father. “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… My mother should have married the way her friends did, to a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business.”
Despite the family’s financial troubles, Walters adored her father and accompanied him to many dress rehearsals where the actresses made a huge fuss over the youngster. She was enamored by the glitz and glamour of show business and, by the time she graduated from Birth Wathen School in New York City in 1947, she knew she was meant for the spotlight. She enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College and earned her degree in English in 1951. After graduation, she landed a job at a local advertising agency and was later hired to write press releases for NBC affiliate WNBT-TV.
In 1953, Walters caught a huge break when she was invited to produce a short children’s program for Ask the Camera. With the segment showcasing her talent, Igor Cassini hired her as a producer. However, Walters left the position shortly after when Cassini made sexual advances and asked for her hand in marriage. She worked at WPIX and Redbook magazine before she was hired as a publicist for Tex McCrary Inc.
Walters made her way back to television in the 1960s when she was hired as a researcher and writer for The Today Show on NBC. At the time, women were uncommon in broadcast journalism, so producers only allowed Walters to write on women’s interest stories. Walters played by the rules and eventually proved her talents as she broke the proverbial glass ceiling and was named the “Today Girl” with a regular slot in front of the camera. She was the first woman to report on serious news and became a pioneer in the journalism industry.
“Around 1960, I could write only the so-called female pieces,” Walters said. “The big breakthrough was when I could write for me.” Finally able to write for herself, Walters flourished next to her co-anchor Hugh Downs. Then, things shifted when Downs was replaced by Frank McGee, a man who refused to support a female co-anchor. “Frank had to ask three hard-news questions before I could ask one,” Walters recalled. “I also remember writing to the president of NBC News and saying, ‘We should do something on the women’s movement.’ And he wrote back, ‘Not enough interest.’”
Rise to Fame and Building A Legacy
Walters was named the new co-host of The Today Show in 1974 and made history as the first female to host a major news program. She left the network two years later and joined Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News. Reasoner, however, wasn’t thrilled by Walters’ presence. The transition was even harder when the media focused on Walters’ salary rather than her talents as a journalist. Rumors ran wild that she earned $1 million alongside Reasoner but the truth was that she earned $500,000 on the ABC Evening News and earned another $500,000 to anchor four one-hour primetime specials with President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, and Barbra Streisand.
Walters went after every major interview she could find as she juggled her career with her new role as a mother after she adopted her daughter, Jacqueline, in 1968. She was promoted to co-anchor alongside Hugh Downs on ABC’s new series, 20/20 and spent the next decade interviewing the biggest names in the world from Fidel Castro and Boris Yeltsin to Michael Jackson and Audrey Hepburn.
“Well, I can’t pretend that I didn’t go after the big interviews,” she said. “Years ago, I traveled to Cairo and threw pebbles against Anwar el-Sadat’s window before the signing of the Camp David peace treaty, hoping he’d come out and do one more interview. I mean, that’s insane. Then I’d get on a plane and do an interview in New Orleans. During the years when I covered the Middle East, I was constantly traveling.”
Unafraid to ask hard-hitting questions and cover the most salacious stories, Walters was the highest paid journalist on television in the 1990s and still wanted more. She created a new daytime talk show, The View, for ABC and co-hosted the series for 16 seasons before retiring in 2014. “Now I want something I haven’t had since I was in my 20s—time. I’ll miss certain things… but I also feel very content with my choice.”
Traveling the world for the first time in her life for fun and not work, Walters is thoroughly enjoying her retirement. She made her last public appearance in 2016 and is content with the legacy she’s built as an award-winning journalist. “To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.”
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