Barbara Walters, the iconic broadcast journalist and television personality who won a dozen Emmys, has died at age 93, ABC News first reported Friday.
"Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones," Cindi Berger, publicist for Walters, confirmed in an email to Insider. "She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women."
Walters' death was quick to spur a massive outpouring of condolences on social media, with tributes posted from celebrities including Oprah and Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC — the network where Walters spent most of her career.
"Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself. She was a one-of-a-kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time, from heads of state and leaders of regimes to the biggest celebrities and sports icons," Iger said in a statement.
Walters was both a pioneer for broadcast journalists and a beloved TV personality. Over time, it became difficult to detach her own star power from that of her countless interview subjects; she even received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.
She lived the vast majority of her adult life in front of the camera and played an irreplaceable role in shaping — and, at times, blurring — the intersection of news and culture, of reputable reporting and celebrity intrigue.
Walters won 12 Emmy Awards, having racked up dozens of nominations.
"Television could have been invented just to suit her," The New Yorker wrote in 2008. "Walters's almost unbelievable staying power indicates the perfect match of a person's talents to a medium's imperatives."
Walters became the first woman to anchor a nightly newscast in 1964
After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1951 with a degree in English, Walters landed a job at a local NBC station as a PR staffer, as reported by the Huffington Post, in a feature titled "How Barbara Walters Changed Everything." She later became a producer.
She began to garner public acclaim when the sole female writer on "Today" left the show in 1961 and Walters was hired in her place.
She began to appear more and more on television, but almost strictly in stereotypical segments targeted towards women; she filled in during a swimsuit demonstration and broadcasted dressed as a Playboy Bunny.
—The View (@TheView) September 28, 2017
Frank McGee, then-host of the show, reportedly refused to do joint news segments or interviews with Walters. To him, working with a woman "was a humiliation," according to Walters.
In the mindset of that era, TV-women "were supposed to do fashion shows and celebrities," Walters told TVNewser. "When NBC hired me, I wasn't an actor or a model and I didn't sing. It was a huge breakthrough just to put me on."
Before Walters, the female hosts of "Today" were called "Today Girls." But thanks to her negotiations, Walter's contract specifically stipulated that when McGee died — which he did in 1974, at age 52 — she "had to be co-host."
"That's my legacy," she told Fusion in 2014. "All these young women now in the news. There were not that many when I began; there were very few. So if I have a legacy, it's those women."
Even Gloria Steinem paid tribute to her trailblazing role: "The shift from the old 'Today Girl' — who was usually a coffee-server and amiable lightweight — to Barbara Walters is the television industry's change of attitude in microcosm," Steinem said in 1965.
Naturally, Walters was still plagued by sexism in the male-dominated media landscape. As Variety reported, during a 1976 press conference, Walters was peppered with questions about her wardrobe; others asked her to justify her staggering $1 million salary.
Still, Walters was an emblem of perseverance and progress — and had already become a prominent face in broadcast journalism.
"If she had quit in 1976, Walters' status as a television superstar would have been secure," writes the Huffington Post. "She reigned supreme at 'Today,' and had already interviewed an eye-popping gallery of people."
Upon moving to ABC, Walters became the world's highest‐paid newscaster
Walters' celebrity grew when she left NBC to co-host the "ABC Evening News" with Harry Reasoner, who did not care to hide his contempt for the female addition.
"As for billing on the program, Mr. Reasoner had a suggestion: 'sexist grace and courtesy,' he declared, 'I suggest we just do it alphabetically by last name,'" the New York Times reported at the time.
Although she didn't last long on the program with Reasoner, it helped to cement Walters' legacy as a formidable force in driving public interest.
She later became a renowned celebrity interviewer
Walters had already built up an impressive repertoire at NBC, having interviewed everyone from Grace Kelly to Henry Kissinger.
She went on to showcase interview highlights as a co-host for "20/20," like Michael Jackson and Fidel Castro (twice). She sat down with every US President from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump.
Her draw, her ability to clinch a major "get," was rooted in her genuine inquisitively; her ability to balance awe for her subjects and a persistent line of questioning.
As The New Yorker noted, Walters managed to interview Monica Lewinsky on camera, "the monster get of all time," with a single proposition: "I can give you the forum and the opportunity to present yourself with the greatest dignity."
Her reputation for recognizing and capturing star power was reflected in her yearly "Most Fascinating People" list, which captured the public's attention year after year.
Walters co-founded 'The View' in 1997
Though ABC's premiere daytime talk show has undergone many changes since its conception, it has won 30 Daytime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Talk Show Host.
"I've always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds, and views: a working mother, a professional in her 30s, a young woman just starting out, and then somebody who's done almost everything and will say almost anything," Walters says in the show's original title sequence. "And in a perfect world, I'd get to join the group whenever I wanted."
After 50 years in TV, Walters officially retired in 2014, but continued to appear periodically on the program. She maintained her role as an executive producer.
"If the Pope said he would do an interview, would I come back? You bet," she told Fusion after confirming her retirement. "If Queen Elizabeth said, 'Would you do an interview?' — she's never done one — would I come back? Yes."
"I'm not saying goodbye forever. I'm not walking into the sunset," she continued. "You don't say 'never' when you're in this business."
