Barbara Walters, the first woman to anchor a network evening news program, has died at age 93. During her decades-long career as a TV journalist, she was known for asking tough questions in her interviews with a variety of public figures, from political leaders like Fidel Castro to pop stars like Mariah Carey. Walters’s death was announced by ABC, a network she had a longtime working relationship with, on Friday night. “Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones,” publicist Cindi Berger said in a statement confirming the news. “She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women.”
Born on September 25, 1929, Barbara Jill Walters grew up around celebrities thanks to a father who worked in show business. After working as a publicist and television writer, she launched her journalism career in the 1960s as a writer and segment producer on NBC’s Today show. In 1974, she became the program’s first female co-host. Just a couple of years later in 1976, she made broadcast history again by moving to ABC’s Evening News and becoming the first woman to co-anchor a network nightly news program. Babs went on to co-host ABC’s 20/20 and created the network’s daytime talk show The View. She won 12 Emmy Awards during her lifetime and was a celebrity in her own right. When Walters retired from The View in 2014, both Oprah and Hillary Clinton showed up for the send-off episode, along with a crew of women journalists — Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Jane Pauley, Joan Lunden, Connie Chung, Elizabeth Vargas, Lisa Ling, and more — whom Walters called her “proud legacy.”
