How Barbara Walters Went From ‘Today Girl’ to Pioneering Media Star

At the same time, she was working, unofficially, as the “Today” show’s first female co-host. The network did not allow her to direct questions at on-set guests until her male co-host had asked three of his own, a restriction she bypassed by seeking out interviews away from the show’s studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The constraints were lifted in 1974, when NBC formally gave her the title of co-host.

“People may have loved her or hated her, but they sure as hell watched her,” Stuart Schulberg, a “Today” producer, told The Times in 1977.

ABC lured her from NBC in 1976, making her the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. She was paid a $1 million annual salary, more than any other newscaster at the time. But her stint on ABC Evening News was “a total flop,” she later said.

Her counterpart, Harry Reasoner, “was really awful to me on and off the air,” she told Vogue, though he later said he never disliked her personally. “The studio was cold and I was frozen out,” she once said, describing how she had to rely on her knowledge of the New York Yankees to convince the stagehands to talk to her. She described being so visibly miserable that the actor John Wayne, not known as a staunch feminist, sent her a telegram to cheer her up.

In 1979, Ms. Walters joined the prime-time ABC News magazine “20/20,” where she stayed for 25 years and developed a reputation for persuading public figures to speak to her before anyone else. In 1995, she was the first to interview the actor Christopher Reeve after he was paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident. In 1999, her interview with Monica Lewinsky, another first, drew about 50 million viewers.

Ms. Walters also helped create the influential ABC daytime talk show “The View” in 1997, overseeing what The Times called “TV’s most dysfunctional family” with a panel of women that has included Star Jones, Meredith Vieira, Lisa Ling, Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell. She was 67 when it began.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/business/media/barbara-walters-appraisal.html