Barbara Walters, First Woman TV News Superstar and ‘The View’ Creator, Dies

New York: Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and programme host who blazed the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died.

She was 93.

ABC broke into its broadcast to announce Walters' death on air Friday night.

“She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” her publicist Cindi Berger also said in a statement, adding Walters died peacefully at her New York home.

“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” Iger said.

During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters' exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend that made stars of TV reporters.

Late in her career, she gave infotainment a new twist with “The View,” a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. With that side venture and unexpected hit, Walters considered “The View” the “dessert” of her career.

A statement from the show said Walters created “The View” in 1997 “to champion women's voices.”

 “We're proud to be part of her legacy,” the statement said.

Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million salary that drew gasps. Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists following in her trail.

 “I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking stock of her success.

But she was a natural on camera, especially when plying notables with searing questions.

In a voice that never lost its trace of her native Boston accent or its substitution of Ws-for-Rs, Walters lobbed blunt and sometimes giddy questions, often sugarcoated with a hushed, reverential delivery.

In May 2014, she taped her final episode of “The View” amid much ceremony to end a five-decade career in television.

However, her career had begun with no inklings of majesty.

Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1943 and eventually landed a “temporary,” behind-the-scenes assignment at “Today” in 1961. Shortly afterwards, what was seen as the token woman's slot among the staff's eight writers opened. Walters got the job and began to make occasional on-air appearances with offbeat stories.

As she appeared more frequently, she was spared the title of “Today' Girl” that had been attached to her predecessors. But she had to pay her dues, sometimes sprinting between interviews to do dog food commercials.

She had the first interview with Rose Kennedy after the assassination of her son, Robert, as well as with Princess Grace of Monaco and President Richard Nixon. She travelled to India with Jacqueline Kennedy, to China with Nixon and to Iran to cover the shah's gala party. But she faced a setback in 1971 with the arrival of a new host, Frank McGee, who insisted she wait for him to ask three questions before she could open her mouth during interviews with “powerful persons.”

Sensing greater freedom and opportunities awaiting her outside the NBC studio, she hit the road to produce more exclusive interviews, including with Nixon chief of staff HR Haldeman.

By 1976, she had been granted the title of “Today” co-host and was earning $700,000 a year. But when ABC signed her to a $5 million, five-year contract, she was branded the “the million-dollar baby.”

Reports failed to note her job duties would be split between the network's entertainment division and ABC News, then mired in third place. Meanwhile, Harry Reasoner, her seasoned “ABC Evening News” co-anchor, was said to resent her salary and celebrity orientation.

Later, ABC News president Roone Arledge moved her out of the co-anchor slot and into special projects. Meanwhile, she found success with her quarterly primetime interview specials. She became a frequent contributor to newsmagazine “20/20,” and later co-host.

By 2004, when she stepped down from “20/20,” she had logged more than 700 interviews, ranging from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Muammar Gaddafi, to Michael Jackson, Erik and Lyle Menendez and Elton John. Her two-hour talk with Monica Lewinsky in 1999, timed to the former White House intern's memoir about her affair with President Bill Clinton, drew more than 70 million viewers.

Her work also received high praise. She won a Peabody Award for her interview with Christopher Reeve shortly after the 1995 horseback-riding accident that left him paralysed.

Walters is survived by her daughter, Jacqueline Danforth.