Barbara Walters: The Life Story Behind the Interview Pioneer

Barbara Walters asked the questions that no one else could ask, and she asked them of the people no one else could reach. Fidel Castro, sitting with her for hours in Cuba. Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, sitting together after years of war. Monica Lewinsky, telling her story to an audience of tens of millions. For more than fifty years, Barbara Walters was the person world leaders and movie stars called when they wanted to be heard, and the person viewers trusted to ask the question they were thinking at home. She was not just a television journalist. She was a pioneer who opened the door for every woman who came after her in American news.

Barbara Jill Walters was born on 25 September 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, and she grew up in a world of bright lights and late nights, because her father, Lou Walters, owned nightclubs, including the famous Latin Quarter in New York and Boston. Her mother, Dena, kept the family together, and Barbara had an older sister, Jackie, who had a developmental disability and needed care for her whole life, and a brother, Burton, who died young. The family moved often, following her father’s clubs, and Barbara grew up watching famous performers from the wings, learning that the people on stage were often very different from the people they seemed to be in public.

What makes Barbara’s story remarkable is that she entered television news at a time when women were not expected to be journalists at all, let alone to interview presidents, and she rose to the top by being more prepared, more persistent, and more curious than anyone else in the room. She became the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news programme in America, she created The View, and she interviewed almost every important person of the second half of the twentieth century. She did it with a voice that had a slight speech difference, a manner that was both warm and tough, and a question that became famous around the world, what kind of tree would you be, a question she once asked Katharine Hepburn, and one that followed her for the rest of her life.

Boston, Nightclubs, and a Childhood Behind the Curtain

Barbara grew up in a family that lived between two worlds, the glittering world of her father’s nightclubs and the quiet, worried world of home. Her father, Lou Walters, was a showman who owned the Latin Quarter, one of the most famous nightclubs in America, where stars performed and audiences dressed up for a night out. Barbara spent time in the clubs as a child, watching singers, comedians, and dancers from the side of the stage, and she learned early that fame was a performance, and that the person on stage was not always the person off it. That lesson would serve her well as an interviewer, because she learned to look past the performance and to find the real person underneath.

Her home life was very different from the glamour of the clubs. Her sister Jackie had a developmental disability, and Barbara’s mother devoted a great deal of time to Jackie’s care, and Barbara grew up feeling a deep sense of responsibility for her sister. She has spoken about how Jackie’s life shaped her, and how it made her aware of people who were overlooked or underestimated, and how it gave her a sense of compassion that stayed with her throughout her career. Her brother Burton died when he was young, and that loss also marked the family, teaching Barbara early that life could be fragile and that the people we love are not with us forever.

The family moved between Boston, Miami, and New York, following her father’s business, and Barbara went to several schools, never quite settling in one place for long. She was a shy, serious girl who read a great deal and who was not the kind of child who sought attention, but she was observant, and she noticed the way people behaved when they thought no one was watching. She also learned to be adaptable, to make friends quickly, and to feel at home in new places, skills that would later help her as a journalist who had to walk into a room full of strangers and make them feel comfortable enough to talk.

After finishing school, Barbara went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she studied English and graduated in 1953. Sarah Lawrence was a college that valued independent thinking, and Barbara thrived there, learning to write clearly, to argue a point, and to trust her own judgement. She did not study journalism, and she did not have a plan to become a television star. She simply wanted a job, and she took a small position at a New York advertising agency, before moving into television, where she found the work that would become her life.

Small Jobs, a Typewriter, and the Door into Television

Barbara’s first jobs in television were small and unglamorous, and they taught her the value of hard work and persistence. She worked as a writer and a researcher for a New York television station, and she learned how a news programme was put together, from the first idea in the morning to the broadcast in the evening. She wrote scripts, she checked facts, and she learned to work under pressure, because television news is a business where a mistake can go out live to millions of people, and where there is no time to go back and fix it.

She also worked as a writer for a morning show on CBS, and she began to appear on camera in small roles, doing interviews and features that were considered suitable for a woman in those days, stories about fashion, food, and family life. The work was not what she wanted to do, but it was a start, and she used it to learn the craft of television, how to look at a camera, how to ask a question, and how to listen to an answer. She was patient, and she was determined, and she did not complain about the small assignments. She did them well, and she waited for a bigger chance.

That chance came in 1961, when she joined NBC’s Today show as a writer and researcher. Today was the most important morning programme in America, and it was a place where a young journalist could learn from the best in the business. Barbara worked behind the scenes at first, writing and researching, but she soon began to appear on camera, doing interviews that were more serious than the ones she had done before. She interviewed politicians, authors, and artists, and she showed that she could ask tough questions in a way that was firm but not rude, and that made people want to answer her.

Her rise at Today was slow, and it was not easy. In the 1960s, television news was a man’s world, and women were expected to smile, to be pleasant, and to leave the serious stories to the men. Barbara did not accept that. She prepared more carefully than anyone else, she asked better questions, and she refused to be limited to the stories that were considered women’s stories. She became a regular on the show, and by the early 1970s she was one of its most important faces, a journalist who could interview a president in the morning and a movie star in the afternoon, and who did both with the same care and the same curiosity.

Today, the First Woman at the Desk, and a Million-Dollar Contract

In 1974, Barbara became the co-host of the Today show, the first woman to hold that role, and it was a major step forward for women in television. She sat beside the host, Frank McGee, and later beside Jim Hartz, and she interviewed the news-makers of the day, from politicians to authors to scientists. The work was demanding, because Today was broadcast live every morning, and there was no room for error, but Barbara thrived on the pressure, and she became known for her preparation, her calm manner, and her ability to ask a question that got to the heart of a story.

In 1976, she made history again when she moved to ABC News to become the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news programme in the United States, alongside Harry Reasoner. ABC paid her a salary of one million dollars a year, a huge sum at the time, and the news made headlines around the world. The move was controversial, because many people in the news business thought a woman could not anchor the evening news, and her partnership with Reasoner was difficult, with the two anchors often disagreeing on air and off. Barbara has spoken honestly about how hard those years were, and how she felt that she was being judged more harshly because she was a woman, and how she had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously.

The evening news job did not last long in its original form, and Barbara soon moved to a new role at ABC, one that suited her far better. She became a correspondent for the news magazine programme 20/20, and she began doing the long, in-depth interviews that would become her trademark. 20/20 was a programme that gave journalists time to tell a story properly, and Barbara used that time to interview the most important people in the world, in a way that no other journalist could. She was no longer reading the news. She was making it, one interview at a time.

Her interviews in the late 1970s were extraordinary. In 1977, she interviewed Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba, in a long conversation that was broadcast around the world, and she also interviewed Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel together, a historic meeting that came at a time when the two countries were moving towards peace. Those interviews showed that Barbara could talk to anyone, from a communist leader to a prime minister, and that she could ask questions that were both tough and fair, and that her guests trusted her enough to answer honestly. She had become, in a few short years, the most famous interviewer in the world.

20/20, the Specials, and the Interviews the World Watched

For more than twenty-five years, from 1979 to 2004, Barbara Walters was a co-host of 20/20, and the programme became the home of her most famous interviews. She interviewed presidents, including every American president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, and she interviewed world leaders, royalty, and stars from every field. She interviewed the Dalai Lama, she interviewed Boris Yeltsin, and she interviewed many of the most famous actors and musicians of her time, always with the same careful preparation and the same calm, direct manner.

Her most famous interviews were often the ones that made news. In 1999, she interviewed Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose relationship with President Bill Clinton had led to a political crisis, and the interview was watched by more than seventy million people, making it one of the most-watched news interviews in American history. Lewinsky spoke about her life, her mistakes, and her feelings, and Barbara asked her questions that were firm but not cruel, giving her a chance to tell her story in her own words. The interview was controversial, because some people thought Lewinsky should not have been given such a platform, but it showed Barbara’s skill at handling a difficult, emotional story with care.

Barbara also created a series of prime-time specials, known as the Barbara Walters Specials, in which she interviewed a group of famous people in a single programme, and her annual list of the Ten Most Fascinating People became a television event in its own right. The specials were popular because they mixed serious interviews with lighter moments, and because Barbara had a gift for making her guests feel comfortable enough to reveal something new about themselves. She interviewed Oprah Winfrey, she interviewed Michael Jackson, and she interviewed many others, always with a preparation that was legendary in the business. She read everything about her guest, she talked to their friends and family, and she arrived at the interview knowing more about them than they expected.

One question she asked became famous for the wrong reason. In an interview with Katharine Hepburn, she asked the actress what kind of tree she would be, if she were a tree, and Hepburn answered that she would be an oak, because it was strong and long-lived. The question was mocked by comedians and by other journalists, and Barbara has said that she regretted asking it, but it also showed something about her style, which was to ask a question that was personal, unexpected, and designed to make the guest think in a new way. She was not afraid to ask a strange question, if she thought it would reveal something true about the person in front of her.

The View, a New Kind of Television, and a Lasting Idea

In 1997, Barbara created a new kind of television programme, The View, a daytime talk show in which a group of women of different ages and different views discussed the news, interviewed guests, and talked about their lives. The idea was simple, but it was new, because daytime television had never had a show in which women talked to each other, rather than to a male host, about the issues of the day. Barbara was the creator and the co-host, and she sat at the table with a group of women who became famous in their own right, including Joy Behar, Meredith Vieira, and later Whoopi Goldberg.

The View was a success, and it ran for many years, becoming one of the most talked-about shows on daytime television. It was also a difficult show to work on, because the women at the table often disagreed, and those disagreements sometimes became public, but Barbara saw that as a strength, not a weakness. She believed that a conversation between women with different views was more interesting than a conversation between people who agreed, and she was right. The View changed daytime television, and it gave a platform to women’s voices in a way that had never been done before.

Barbara continued to work on The View and on her specials into her eighties, and she became a beloved figure in American television, a woman who had broken barriers and who had interviewed the world. She was honoured with many awards, including induction into the Television Hall of Fame, and she was recognised as one of the most important journalists of her generation. She retired from The View in 2014, in a ceremony that was broadcast live and that featured tributes from many of the people she had interviewed over the years, including presidents and stars who thanked her for her work.

Her retirement was not the end of her influence. The View continued without her, and the women who followed her in television news, from Diane Sawyer to Katie Couric to many others, have all spoken about how Barbara opened the door for them. She showed that a woman could interview a president, could anchor the news, and could create a show of her own, and she did it at a time when many people said it could not be done. That is a legacy that will last long after the programmes she hosted have been forgotten.

Awards, Honours, and the Women Who Followed Her

Barbara Walters received many honours during her long career, and they tell the story of how the industry came to recognise what she had achieved. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, she won many Emmy Awards, and she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honours that are given to only a small number of broadcasters. She also received awards from journalism organisations, from women’s groups, and from universities, all of which recognised her as a pioneer who had changed the face of American television. Those honours mattered, because they were a public acknowledgement that a woman’s work in news was as important as a man’s, and that Barbara’s work had set a standard for everyone who followed her.

The women who followed her have spoken often about her influence, and their words are the best measure of her legacy. Diane Sawyer, who became one of the most respected anchors in America, has said that Barbara opened the door for her, and that she learned from Barbara’s example. Katie Couric, who became the first woman to anchor the CBS Evening News on her own, has also spoken about Barbara’s influence, and about how Barbara’s career showed her that a woman could reach the top of television news. Many other women, from Oprah Winfrey to the journalists who now anchor the morning shows, have said the same thing, that Barbara Walters was the person who made their careers possible.

Her influence was not only about jobs. It was also about the way women were seen on television. Before Barbara, women on television news were expected to be pleasant, to smile, and to avoid difficult questions. After Barbara, women could be tough, could ask hard questions, and could be taken seriously as journalists. That change in perception is hard to measure, but it is real, and it is one of the most important parts of her legacy. She did not just open a door for herself. She opened it for a whole generation of women, and she held it open, even when it would have been easier to close it behind her.

She also left a mark on the way interviews are done. Her style, careful preparation, a warm manner, and a tough question asked at the right moment, became a model for interviewers in many countries, and it is still studied by journalism students today. Her interviews are used in classrooms as examples of how to ask a question, how to listen, and how to handle a difficult guest, and that educational legacy may last longer than any single programme she hosted. A good interview is a craft, and Barbara Walters was one of its greatest practitioners, and her work will be studied for as long as people care about how to ask a question well.

The Final Years and a Life Remembered

Barbara Walters died on 30 December 2022, at the age of ninety-three, in New York City. Her death was reported around the world, and tributes came from presidents, journalists, and viewers who had watched her for decades. People remembered her interviews, her warmth, her toughness, and her famous question about the tree, and they remembered that she had been a pioneer, a woman who had opened doors that had been closed to women before her. She was remembered as a journalist, a creator, and a person who had changed American television.

Her legacy is not a single interview or a single programme. It is the idea that a woman can ask the hardest questions, can sit across from the most powerful people in the world, and can do it with preparation, curiosity, and respect. She showed that an interview is not a fight, but a conversation, and that the best interviewer is the one who listens most carefully. She also showed that television news could be both serious and human, and that a journalist could be both tough and kind. Those lessons are still being learned by the journalists who followed her, and they will be learned for many years to come.

My Take:

I think Barbara Walters is one of the most important people in the history of American television, and I do not think that is an exaggeration. She did not just interview famous people. She changed who was allowed to ask the questions, and she changed what an interview could be. Before her, television news was a man’s world, and women were expected to smile and to talk about fashion. After her, women could anchor the news, could interview presidents, and could create their own shows. That change did not happen by itself. It happened because Barbara Walters was more prepared, more persistent, and more curious than the men around her, and because she refused to accept the limits that were placed on her. I admire that enormously.

What I admire most is her preparation. I have read many accounts of her interviews, and the one thing everyone agrees on is that she prepared more than anyone else. She read everything about her guest, she talked to their friends and their family, she learned the details of their lives, and she arrived at the interview knowing things that surprised even the guest. That preparation is a kind of respect. It says to the guest, your life matters enough for me to learn about it properly, and it says to the audience, I will not waste your time with easy questions. I think that is a lesson for anyone who does any kind of work that involves other people, which is to prepare, to listen, and to take the other person seriously.

I also admire her toughness. She was warm on camera, but she was not soft. She asked Fidel Castro hard questions, she asked Monica Lewinsky hard questions, and she asked presidents hard questions, and she did it in a way that was firm but not rude. That balance is very hard to achieve. It is easy to be tough by being rude, and it is easy to be warm by being soft, but it is hard to be both tough and warm at the same time, and Barbara was. She could make a guest feel comfortable, and then she could ask a question that made them think, and that combination is what made her interviews so powerful. I think young journalists should study that balance, because it is the heart of good interviewing.

Her childhood moves me, because it shows how a difficult start can shape a person in a good way. She grew up in nightclubs, watching famous people from the wings, and she grew up with a sister who needed care for her whole life, and both of those experiences taught her to look past the surface. She learned that the person on stage is not always the person off stage, and she learned that the people who are overlooked, like her sister, deserve attention and respect. Those lessons stayed with her, and they made her a better interviewer, because she was always looking for the real person behind the public image, and she was always aware of the people who were not in the spotlight.

I think about the million-dollar contract in 1976, and how much it mattered. A woman being paid a million dollars to co-anchor the evening news was a shock to the industry, and it made headlines around the world. Some people said she was not worth it, and some people said she was only getting the job because she was a woman, but the fact is that ABC paid her that money because she was the most famous interviewer in America, and because they wanted her. That contract was a statement, that a woman’s work in television news was worth as much as a man’s, and it opened the door for other women to demand fair pay. I think that is a part of her legacy that is easy to forget, but it matters, because money is a measure of value, and Barbara’s salary said that a woman’s work had value.

The Monica Lewinsky interview is the one I think about most, because it is the most complicated. On the one hand, it was a remarkable piece of journalism, an interview with a young woman who had been at the centre of a political crisis, conducted with care and with respect, and watched by more than seventy million people. On the other hand, it was a moment when a young woman’s private life became a public spectacle, and Barbara was the person who put her on television. I do not think the interview was wrong, because Lewinsky chose to give it, and Barbara gave her a chance to tell her story, but I also think it shows the power of television, and the responsibility that comes with it. An interviewer can give a person a voice, and can also turn a person’s pain into entertainment, and the line between those two things is thin. Barbara walked that line for fifty years, and she did it better than most, but the line was always there.

I also think about the tree question, because it is funny and sad at the same time. She asked Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would be, and the question was mocked for years, and Barbara has said she regretted it. But I think the question shows something true about her style, which was to ask a personal, unexpected question that made the guest think in a new way. It was not a great question, and it was not a terrible one either. It was a human question, the kind of question a curious person might ask a friend, and it revealed something about Hepburn, who answered that she would be an oak, strong and long-lived. I think we should be kind to Barbara about that question, because every interviewer asks a bad question sometimes, and the fact that this one is remembered says more about her fame than about her skill.

Her creation of The View is another part of her legacy that I admire, because it was a new idea, and new ideas are hard to sell in television. A show in which women of different ages talked to each other about the news, without a male host, was a risk, and it worked. The View gave a platform to women’s voices, and it showed that a conversation between women could be serious, funny, and important, all at the same time. I think Barbara understood something that many television executives did not, which is that women want to hear other women talk, not just to listen to a man ask them questions. The View proved her right, and it is still on the air today, which is a remarkable achievement for a show that began as a risk.

If I am honest, I think Barbara’s career also shows the cost of being first. She was judged more harshly than her male colleagues, she was paid less at first, and she was criticised for her voice, her appearance, and her questions in ways that men were not. She had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously, and she did, but that hard work came at a price. She was married several times, and her personal life was often difficult, and I think the pressure of her career played a part in that. Being a pioneer is lonely, and it is exhausting, and Barbara paid that price for fifty years. I respect her for it, and I also feel sad for her, because no one should have to work that hard simply to be allowed to do their job.

I think about her retirement in 2014, and how emotional it was. She sat at the table on The View, and the people she had interviewed over the years sent tributes, and the audience stood and applauded. It was a fitting end to a remarkable career, and it showed how much she was loved, not just by her colleagues, but by the viewers who had watched her for decades. I think retirement must have been hard for her, because her work was her life, and she had done it for so long that it was hard to imagine who she was without it. But she retired with grace, and she left behind a body of work that will be studied for years to come.

What I learn from Barbara Walters is that preparation is a form of respect, and that curiosity is a form of courage. She prepared more than anyone else, and she was curious about everyone, from a communist leader to a movie star to a young woman in trouble, and that curiosity took her to places that no other journalist could reach. She teaches me that a good question is more powerful than a clever statement, and that listening is more important than talking. Those are lessons that apply far beyond journalism. They apply to any conversation, any friendship, and any moment when we want to understand another person.

I also learn from her that a woman does not need permission to do important work. Barbara did not wait for the industry to invite her in. She worked her way in, through small jobs, through writing and research, through interviews that no one else wanted to do, and she kept going until the industry had no choice but to make room for her. That is a lesson for anyone who feels excluded, which is to keep working, to keep preparing, and to keep asking questions, until the door opens. Barbara opened the door herself, and she held it open for the women who came after her, and that is a gift that will last.

In the end, I think Barbara Walters will be remembered as a pioneer, a journalist, and a person who asked the world its hardest questions with warmth, toughness, and an endless curiosity. She was not perfect, and her career included moments that were complicated and difficult, but her influence is enormous, and her best work is still worth watching. I will remember her sitting across from a president, or a star, or a young woman in trouble, leaning forward slightly, asking a question in that careful voice, and then listening, really listening, while the person in front of her talked. That image is simple, and it is powerful, and it is the reason her name will be remembered long after the programmes she hosted have faded from memory.

I will also remember her sister Jackie, and the way Barbara cared for her, because that part of her life shows a compassion that the interviews alone do not reveal. A person who grows up with a sister who needs care for her whole life learns something about patience, about love, and about the value of people who are often overlooked. Barbara carried that lesson into her work, and it made her a better interviewer, because she was always aware that the person in front of her was more than a headline, more than a scandal, and more than a famous name. She was a person, and Barbara treated her as one, and that is the heart of her legacy.

I also think about the women who followed her, and how grateful they are. Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, and many others have said that Barbara made their careers possible, and that is a remarkable thing to be able to say about a person. Most of us hope to do good work in our own lives. Barbara did good work, and she also made it possible for others to do good work after her, and that second achievement may be even greater than the first. A career that only helps one person is a good career. A career that helps a whole generation is a great one, and Barbara’s was great in that sense.

Finally, I think her story is a reminder that the best journalists are not the loudest, or the most famous, or the most controversial. They are the most prepared, the most curious, and the most willing to listen. Barbara Walters was all three, and she proved it for more than fifty years, night after night, interview after interview. I hope young people who want to be journalists will study her work, not to copy her voice or her questions, but to learn her preparation, her patience, and her respect for the person across the table. Those are the qualities that made her great, and they are qualities that anyone can learn, if they are willing to work as hard as she did.

I also think about the simple fact that she kept working into her eighties, and that she did it because she loved the work, not because she needed the money or the fame. That love of work is a rare and beautiful thing, and it is one that I admire, because it shows that a career can be a calling, not just a job, and that a person who finds their calling will keep doing it, even when it is hard, even when they are tired, and even when the world tells them to stop. Barbara did not stop, and her work is still here, in the interviews, in the programmes, and in the women who followed her, and it will be here for a long time to come.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Barbara Walters born and when did she die?

Barbara Walters was born on 25 September 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, and she died on 30 December 2022 in New York City, at the age of ninety-three.

What was Barbara Walters best known for?

She was best known as a television journalist and interviewer, co-host of 20/20, creator of The View, and the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news programme in the United States.

Who did Barbara Walters interview that made history?

She interviewed Fidel Castro in 1977, and she interviewed Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin together in the same year. She also interviewed every American president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama.

What was the Monica Lewinsky interview?

In 1999, Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern, in a programme watched by more than seventy million people, making it one of the most-watched news interviews in American history.

What is The View?

The View is a daytime talk show created by Barbara Walters in 1997, in which a group of women of different ages discuss the news and interview guests. Walters was its creator and a co-host until her retirement in 2014.

What was the tree question?

In an interview with Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Walters asked what kind of tree she would be, if she were a tree. Hepburn said she would be an oak, and the question became famous and was often mocked, though Walters said she regretted asking it.