Born in Boston on September 25, 1931, Barbara Walters was the daughter of a well known nightclub proprietor. She grew up in Boston, Miami, and New York City, attended public and private schools, and in 1953 graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. After brief employment in an advertising agency she became assistant to the publicity director for New York City╒s NBC-affiliated television station. There she gained experience in writing and producing for television. After a short stint at another local station she was hired as a news and public affairs producer and writer by the CBS television network. She later left CBS to work for a theatrical public relations firm, but in 1961 she returned to television as a writer for the popular NBC morning show ╥Today.╙ In addition to writing she did occasional feature stories herself on the air.
In 1964, when the current ╥Today Girl╙ left, Barbara Walters was given a tryout in the job, one that had traditionally involved little more than looking pretty, making small talk, and reading commercials. She soon began expanding that narrow role and gradually made herself into a regular member of the ╥Today╙ show╒s panel of commentators and news readers. Her intelligence and camera presence, together with the solid journalistic work that she put into her feature stories, made her one of the most popular personalities on the program, and in 1974 she was named co-host of ╥Today╙ with Hugh Downs.
Walters was particularly known for her interviews with world notables. A tenacious pursuer of elusive figures in the news, she scored numerous coups in the form of exclusive interviews with such people as Robert Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, Golda Meir, Truman Capote, Dean Rusk, Prince Philip, Mamie Eisenhower, Fred Astaire, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Henry Kissinger. Her disarmingly direct questioning drew many subjects into frequently interesting and occasionally provocative moments of self-revelation.
In 1970 Walters published How to Talk With Practically Anybody About Practically Anything. In 1975 she won an Emmy award for her work on ╥Today.╙ She also hosted her own syndicated talk show, ╥Not for Women Only,╙ and was a commentator on NBC╒s ╥Monitor╙ radio program. In 1976 she made headlines herself by signing a five-year contract with the ABC network that made her the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news program and, at a million dollars a year, the highest paid journalist in history. Owing in part to personal frictions the evening news spot failed to produce the increased ratings ABC had hoped for, and Barbara Walters was assigned to produce her own special shows. She continued to host ╥The Barbara Walters Specials,╙ and in 1982 and 1983 she won an Emmy Award for best interviewer. From 1979 she was co-host with Hugh Downs of the ABC news show ╥20/20.╙ In 1990 she was named to the Hall of Fame of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
