Barbara Walters
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Barbara Ann Walters (born September 25, 1931Template:Ref) is an American media personality known for her many years as the first woman network news anchor, on ABC News starting in 1976.
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Early life
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Walters is one of two daughters of the late Louis Edward Walters, a Jewish immigrant from London, England, who owned the famed New York nightclub "The Latin Quarter", and who was, among other things, a Broadway producer (he produced the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943), and his wife, Boston-born Dena Seletsky, who was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants.
Barbara had a sister, Jackie, who was developmentally disabled and who died of ovarian cancer. Barbara named her daughter, whom she adopted with her second husband, Lee Guber, after her late sister. On shows such as A&E Biography, Barbara has commented that being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them, an important factor in being able to conduct high-profile interviews. She graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1949.
Early career
Educated at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York (B.A., English), Walters began as a writer on NBC's The Today Show in 1961, and within a year had become a reporter-at-large, developing, writing and editing her own reports and interviews. In 1974, NBC officially designated her the program's first female co-host. She is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 where she joined host Hugh Downs in 1979 and became the show's sole host from 1999-2002. She left "20/20" in 2004. More recently she often co-hosts the daytime women's talk forum The View, of which she is also co-owner and co-executive producer. 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.
Personal Information: Marriages/Family Life
Walters has been married three times. Her first husband was Robert Henry Katz, a business executive. After the annulment of that marriage, she married Lee Guber, a theatrical producer on December 8 1963 and they were divorced in 1976. With Lee, Walters adopted daughter Jacqueline Walters Guber Danforth (named after her late sister). Walters' third husband was Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television, whom she married in 1986 and divorced in 1992.
Journalistic style, personality, and career
She follows the line of "personality journalism" that was a specialty of Edward R. Murrow, and is known for her "scoop" interviews, such as the Monica Lewinsky interview that won the highest ratings of any journalist interview. 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 biography of the latter part of the 20th century. They include Russia's Boris Yeltsin, China's Jiang Zemin, the UK's Margaret Thatcher, Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Moammar Qaddafi, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and King Hussein of Jordan. Not all her interviewees remain dry-eyed, and critics accuse Barbara Walters of pumping for the ratings-generating public tears. Critics have also accused Walters of not asking 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.
Barbara Walters was widely lampooned in 1981 and often since, when during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn, Walters allegedly posed the infamous 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?"
Her idiosyncratic speech with its rounded "R" inspired Gilda Radner's "Babwa Wawa" impersonation on Saturday Night Live, something by which the normally high-self-esteemed Walters has admitted she felt very hurt. She has been spoofed on the show by many comediennes, including Cheri Oteri and Rachel Dratch, as well as a DuckTales character named Webra Walters.
Impact
Her career has opened doors for women in journalism that, when she started out, were doors usually leading to studio kitchens. She 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, in addition to the fact that he felt uncomfortable with the idea of a female newscaster). She had a better relationship with Hugh Downs, and the 20/20 team flourished for two decades.
Footnote
- Template:NoteBarbara Walters' biographies usually give her date of birth as September 25, 1931. Researchers studying census records dispute this. They say that the 1930 Federal Census for the Enumeration District 41-184 shows her family on page 198, with father Louis Walters aged 34, wife Dena Walters, aged 33, Jacqueline, daughter, aged 3 years and 11 months, and Barbara, aged 6 months. This was recorded on April 21/22, 1930, so Barbara would have been born around October 1929. This is consistent with her conventionally reported birthdate of September 25, 1931, minus 2 years.
External links
- Image showing Barbara Walters was counted in the 1930 census
- Profile of Barbara Walters at the Notable Names Database
- {{{2|{{{name|Barbara Walters}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
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