The first female anchor of an American network evening news programme and one of TV's most renowned interviewees, Barbara Walters, passed away on Friday. She was one of the most significant women in US television. Her age was 93.
In 1961, Barbara Walters began working as a writer for NBC's "Today" programme. She was the first female co-anchor of a network evening newscast on US television in 1976.
Up until 1978, Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner co-anchored "ABC Evening News" and were compensated with an extraordinary $1 million annually.
Barbara Walters rose to fame on television as co-anchor of the ABC network's primetime news magazine programme "20/20" after quitting the network's evening newscast.
Among the foreign leaders interviewed by Barbara Walters are Indira Gandhi, Anwar Al Sadat of Egypt, Menachem Begin of Israel, the Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Boris Yeltsin of Russia, and each US president since Richard Nixon.
In 1997, Barbara Walters launched "The View" on ABC as a conversation forum for women.