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| Birth Name(s) : Barbara Walters |
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Full Barbara Walters Biography
Walters was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dena (née Seletsky) and Louis Edward Walters, a theatrical booking agent and producer. In 1937, her father opened the first of a famous chain of nightclubs known as the Latin Quarter; he also was a Broadway producer (he produced the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943). Walters' elder sister, Jacqueline, was born developmentally disabled and died of ovarian cancer in 1988. Her brother, Burton, died in 1932 of pneumonia. Walters' parents were Jewish, although she did not have a religious upbringing, as her father had become an atheist.
Being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them. When she was a young woman, Walters' father lost his nightclubs and the family's penthouse on Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the Government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture". Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business".
After attending Fieldston and Birch Wathen private schools in New York City, Walters graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1951, she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.
Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ABC Evening News in 1976-78. 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 is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 where she joined 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. Many of her regular and special programs are syndicated around the world. As of 2004, she is in semi-retirement as a broadcast journalist, but remains a correspondent for ABC News as well as a host of ABC's special programs.
Walters started to gain a reputation for her interview skills while at The Today Show. Not all of her interviewees remain dry-eyed, and critics accuse Walters of pumping for the ratings-generating public tears. Critics have also accused Walters of not posing enough tough questions to her subjects, relying mainly on so-called "softball" questions to elicit sometimes unexpected answers. Her Barbara Walters Specials are top-rated and, since 1993, her year-end Ten Most Fascinating People offers a review of the year's most prominent newsmakers. Prior to the move of the Academy Awards to an early Sunday evening time spot, a Walters interview show, usually featuring one or more of the top nominees, was a regular feature. Walters' celebrity interviews at ABC came as part of her $1 million contract to join ABC, with half of it coming from the news department and half from doing celebrity specials.
Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews. In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's President Anwar Al Sadat and Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century. They include Russia's Boris Yeltsin, China's Jiang Zemin, the UK's Margaret Thatcher, Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as India's Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon Michael Jackson.
Walters was widely lampooned in 1981, and often since, when, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn, Walters is incorrectly identified as having posed the question: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" As she has often pointed out, and the video clips confirm, Hepburn initiated the comment by saying she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with, "What kind of a tree?"
On March 3, 1999, she interviewed Monica Lewinsky in front of a record 74 million viewers, the highest ratings of any journalist interview. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children about this matter?" and Lewinsky replied, "'I guess Mommy made some mistakes,'" at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers and saying, "And that is the understatement of the century".
Walters has been married three times. As she told The New York Times in 1996, "I'm convinced that you stay married when the days are bad only because you really want to be. But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days." Her husbands were: Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant, married 20 June 1955 at the Plaza hotel in New York City; the marriage was reportedly annulled in 1958. Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner, married on December 8, 1963; divorced 1976. One daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted same year). Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television; married 1986, divorced in 1992. |
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