This article will answer every question you have about Barbara Walters. Below are some of the frequently asked questions about him.
- What does Barbara Walters do for a living?
- Who are Barbara Walters’s parents and siblings?
- What are Barbara Walters’s interests and hobbies?
- Is Barbara Walters married or does he have a girlfriend?
- Does Barbara Walters have any children?
- Where is Barbara Walters now?
- How tall is Barbara Walters?
- How much money does Barbara Walters earn?
- What is Barbara Walters’s net worth?
N/B: Please read the entire post to have all your questions answered.
Who is Barbara Walters?
Barbara Walters is an American retired broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. Known for her interviewing ability and popularity with viewers, Walters appeared as the host of numerous television programs, including Today, The View, 20/20, and the ABC Evening News.
Walters was a working journalist from 1951 until 2015. Walters created, produced, and co-hosted the ABC daytime talk show The View in 1997, on which she appeared until her retirement in 2014. In 1976, she continued to be a pioneer for women in broadcasting by becoming the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program, alongside Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News. From 1979 to 2004, Walters worked as a producer and co-host on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20.
She also became known for an annual special aired on ABC, Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People. Thereafter, she continued to host a number of special reports for 20/20 as well as documentary series for Investigation Discovery. Her final on-air appearance for ABC News was in 2015. Walters began her career on The Today Show in the early 1960s as a writer and segment producer of women’s interest stories.
Her popularity with viewers resulted in Walters receiving more airtime, and in 1974, she became co-host of the program, the first woman to hold such a title on an American news program. Walters was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1989, and in 2007 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Barbara Walters’s Career
On The Today Show
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. In her autobiography, she describes this era before the Women’s Movement as a time when it was believed that nobody would take a woman seriously reporting “hard news.” Previous “Today Girls” (whom Walters called “tea pourers”) included Florence Henderson, Helen O’Connell, Estelle Parsons, and Lee Meriwether. Within a year, she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews.
She had a great relationship with host Hugh Downs for years. When Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first three questions. 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. Beginning in 1971, she also hosted her own local NBC affiliate show, Not for Women Only, which ran in the mornings after The Today Show. One very well-received film segment was “A Day in the Life of a Novice Nun,” edited by then-first assistant film editor Donald Swerdlow (now Don Canaan), who was subsequently promoted to become a full film editor at NBC News.
20/20 and ABC Evening News
Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters because he disliked having a co-anchor, even though he worked with former CBS colleague Howard K. Smith nightly on ABC for several years. Walters has said that the tension between the two was because Reasoner did not want to work with a co-anchor and also because he was unhappy at ABC, not because of any dislike of Walters personally by Reasoner. In 1981, five years after the start of their short-lived ABC partnership and well after Reasoner returned to CBS News, Walters and her former co-anchor had a memorable (and cordial) 20/20 interview on the occasion of Reasoner’s new book release.
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. Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of 9/11. 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.
Retirement
On March 7, 2010, Barbara Walters announced she would no longer hold Oscar interviews, but will still be working with ABC and on The View. On March 28, 2013, numerous media outlets reported that Barbara Walters would retire in May 2014 and that she would make the announcement on the show four days later.
However, on the April 1 episode, Walters neither confirmed nor denied the retirement rumors; she said “if and when I might have an announcement to make, I will do it on this program, I promise, and the paparazzi guys — you will be the last to know” In a November 2010 episode of The View, while interviewing Larry King on his retirement from CNN, Walters alluded to her impending retirement, stating, “I know when my time’s coming.”
How Old is Barbara Walters?
Walters was born on September 10, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently 91 years old.
Barbara Walters‘s Family
Who are Barbara Walters’s parents?
Walter’s parents are named Dena Walters and Louis Walters.
Does Barbara Walters have siblings?
Walters’s brother, Burton, died in 1944 of pneumonia. Walters’s elder sister, Jacqueline, was born mentally disabled and died of ovarian cancer in 1985.
Barbara Walters‘s Education
Walters attended Lawrence School, a public school in Brookline, Massachusetts, to the middle of fifth grade, when her father moved the family to Miami Beach in 1939, where she also attended public school. After her father moved the family to New York City, she went to eighth grade at Ethical Culture Fieldston School, after which the family moved back to Miami Beach.
Then, she went back to New York City, where she attended Birch Wathen School from which she graduated in 1947. In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College and immediately looked for work in New York City.
Barbara Walters‘s Marriages
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. The marriage was reportedly annulled after 11 months or in 1957.
Her second husband was Lee Guber, the 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; he said that he proposed marriage to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, but Walters denied this. She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline
Barbara Walters‘s Children – Kids
Walters has a daughter named Jacqueline.
Barbara Walters’s Net Worth
Walters has an estimated net worth of $170 million.
Height/Measurements
Walters stands at 5 feet 5 inches tall.