Barbara Walters Biography: Age, Career, Interviews, Family & Legacy

Barbara Walters was an American broadcast journalist who changed what a woman could do on television news. She became the first woman to co-host Today, then the first woman to co-anchor a network evening newscast, and she built a franchise of celebrity and world-leader interviews that ran for decades. She also created The View, the daytime talk show that has run since 1997. She died on December 30, 2022, at age 93, and her life and career are the subject of a Hulu documentary that has been streaming since 2025.

This biography covers her name and background, her path through NBC and ABC, her most famous interviews, her marriages and daughter, and her legacy.

What Was Barbara Walters’s Real Name?

Her full name was Barbara Jill Walters. She was known professionally by that name throughout her career.

How Old Was Barbara Walters?

She was born on September 25, 1929, and died on December 30, 2022, at age 93. If she were alive today, she would be 97.

Where Was Barbara Walters From?

She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and she was American. She spent part of her childhood in Boston and later in New York and Miami, following the family’s moves tied to her father’s business.

Barbara Walters’s Early Life and Family

Her father, Lou Walters, was a nightclub owner and theatrical producer who ran the Latin Quarter clubs in several cities, and her mother was Dena Seletsky. The family’s finances rose and fell with her father’s business, a pattern that made her acutely aware of money and security as a young adult. She had an older sister, Jacqueline, who had a developmental disability, and Walters later named her daughter after her.

Her family circumstances shaped her sense of ambition. She has said that she felt responsible for helping support her relatives, which pushed her toward a career where she could earn a steady income.

Barbara Walters’s Education

She attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and graduated in 1951 with a degree in English. After college, she worked in publicity and as a secretary before finding her way into television.

How Did Barbara Walters Start Her Career?

She began in the early 1950s in television, working in production and writing roles. She wrote for a CBS morning show and then worked in publicity before joining NBC’s Today show in 1961 as a writer and researcher. At first, she was not on camera much, and she was given what was then called the Today Girl role, which was largely decorative. She pushed to do more serious reporting, and over time she took on interviews and features.

Barbara Walters’s Breakthrough on Today

In 1974, she was named co-host of Today, becoming the first woman to hold that position on the show. She shared the desk with Jim Hartz, then Frank McGee, and she interviewed major newsmakers. Within the industry, it was a landmark moment, because the job had belonged to men.

Barbara Walters at ABC News

In 1976, ABC hired her to co-anchor the evening news with Harry Reasoner, making her the first woman to co-anchor a network evening newscast. The deal was reported to pay her one million dollars a year, a figure that drew enormous attention and some public backlash. The pairing with Reasoner was uncomfortable, since he was openly resistant to working with her, but she stayed and gradually shifted toward long-form interviews.

In 1979, she became a correspondent and later co-host of the newsmagazine 20/20, and she continued to anchor her prime-time interview specials, The Barbara Walters Specials, which ran for decades and became a kind of annual television event.

Barbara Walters’s Most Famous Interviews

Over her career, she interviewed presidents, dictators, royalty and entertainers. Early landmark interviews included a joint conversation with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in 1977 and an interview with Cuba’s Fidel Castro the same year.

Her best-known interview was with Monica Lewinsky, broadcast on March 3, 1999, which drew an audience of tens of millions of viewers and is often cited as one of the most-watched news interviews in American television history. She also interviewed Russian president Vladimir Putin, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in 2011, and a long list of entertainers, including Katharine Hepburn, whose conversation with her became a frequently quoted example of her interviewing style.

She was also known for the annual list of the most fascinating people, a program she hosted for ABC for more than twenty years.

Barbara Walters and The View

In 1997, she created and co-hosted The View, a daytime panel show that brought together women from different generations and backgrounds to discuss current events and personal topics. The program premiered on ABC on August 11, 1997, and has become one of daytime television’s longest-running talk shows. She remained a regular co-host and executive producer until May 2014, when she retired from the show.

Barbara Walters’s Awards and Achievements

Her honors include several Emmy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement honor, and induction into the Television Hall of Fame in 1989. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007 and many other lifetime awards from media and journalism organizations. In 2008, she published a memoir, Audition. Counts of her Emmy wins vary somewhat by source, so this article does not give a specific number.

Barbara Walters’s Husbands and Daughter

She was married three times. Her first marriage was to Robert Katz in the 1950s, and it ended in annulment. Her second marriage, to theater producer Lee Guber, lasted from 1963 to 1976. Her third was to film and television executive Merv Adelson, from 1986 to 1992.

In 1968, after several miscarriages, she and Guber adopted a daughter, Jacqueline, who is known as Jackie Danforth. Walters spoke about the difficulty of balancing her demanding career with motherhood, and the documentary about her life explores that relationship in detail. Danforth has said in the film that being her mother’s daughter was harder than being adopted, and she has also described the closeness that developed between them in later years. Danforth later founded a program for at-risk teenagers.

How Did Barbara Walters Die?

She died on December 30, 2022, at her home in New York City, at age 93. A specific cause of death was not announced by the family or by ABC News in the reports I reviewed. She had not appeared in public for several years before her death.

Barbara Walters’s Legacy

Walters opened doors that had been closed to women in broadcast news, and she did so by being relentless about getting the interview. Colleagues and critics credit her with changing how television approaches personalities and politicians alike, and with showing that a journalist could be both a hard-news reporter and a celebrity interviewer. She was also criticized at times for her interview style, which was sometimes seen as too emotional or too focused on celebrity, and that debate is part of her legacy too.

The Hulu documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, directed by Jackie Jesko, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in 2025 and later began streaming on Hulu. It combines archival footage with new interviews, including with Oprah Winfrey and Cynthia McFadden, and it explores both her career and her private life. In late 2023, an auction of her personal belongings was held by Bonhams, produced in partnership with her daughter.

Frequently Asked Questions About Barbara Walters

What was Barbara Walters’s real name?
Her full name was Barbara Jill Walters.

How old was Barbara Walters when she died?
She was 93. She was born on September 25, 1929, and died on December 30, 2022.

Where was Barbara Walters from?
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

What was Barbara Walters famous for?
She was a pioneering broadcast journalist known for her celebrity and world-leader interviews and for creating The View.

Who did Barbara Walters interview?
Her subjects included Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, Fidel Castro, Katharine Hepburn, Vladimir Putin and Monica Lewinsky.

Who created The View?
Walters created it with producer Bill Geddie. It premiered in 1997.

How many times was Barbara Walters married?
Three times: Robert Katz, Lee Guber and Merv Adelson.

Did Barbara Walters have children?
Yes. She and Lee Guber adopted a daughter, Jacqueline, in 1968.

Is there a Barbara Walters documentary?
Yes. Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything is streaming on Hulu.