Walters, Barbara

(born Sept. 25, 1931, Boston, Mass., U.S.) U.S. television journalist. After brief employment in an advertising agency, she became assistant to the publicity director for New York City's NBC-affiliated television station. She worked in television as a writer-producer (1952–58), interviewer (1964–74), and cohost (1974–76) of NBC's Today show, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1975. In 1976–78, for an unprecedented $1 million a year, she was coanchor of the ABC Evening News, the first woman to anchor a network newscast in the U.S. From 1976 she hosted the series of Barbara Walters Specials, interviewing celebrities and world leaders Her disarmingly direct questioning drew many subjects into frequently interesting and occasionally provocative moments of self-revelation. In 1982 and 1983 she received Emmy Awards for best interviewer. From 1984 she also cohosted ABC's 20/20 news magazine program.

Walters, Barbara (1931– ) television journalist/interviewer; born in Boston, Mass. After graduation from Sarah Lawrence College, she went to work for the National Broadcasting Company's publicity department, then moved to the Today Show. Successful despite a slight lisp (later parodied on Saturday Night Live), she developed the reputation for intelligent and probing—if not confrontational—interviews. In 1976, ABC gave her a million-dollar-a-year contract – making her the highest-paid television journalist at the time – and the opportunity to be the first woman coanchoring the network evening news; however, under pressure from her coanchor Harry Reasoner, the network eased her out in 1979. She then moved to ABC's 20/20 where she became coanchor with Hugh Downs (1984). Her occasional Barbara Walters Specials (1976) established her as one of television's most skilled interviewers—known for her ability to elicit candid remarks from normally wary subjects—and she helped break the stereotype of women television journalists as merely pretty faces.