NEW YORK – The ‘Lady of the interviews’ is gone: Barbara Walters, American TV icon, pioneer of women’s TV journalism, is dead. She was 93 years old. You celebrate her interviews with Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, the Shah of Persia Reza Pahlavi, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. But she was also the first evening presenter in the history of the ABC news, in ’76. No one knew how to say no to her when she asked for an interview: this was also the case for Indian premier Indira Gandhi, Muhammar Gaddafi, King Husayn of Jordan and Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, as well as Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Among the show’s personalities, Walters had interviewed Sophia Loren, Michael Jackson and Katharine Hepburn. The interview, in ’99, with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, protagonist of the biggest sex scandal of a US president, Bill Clinton, was followed by a record audience of 74 million viewers. She celebrates the question: “What will she say to her children when she has them?”. “Mom made a big mistake.” At that point Walters closed the interview, addressing the audience and pronouncing the final sentence: “And that’s the euphemism of the year.”
In her second life as a television star, the journalist had become a host and producer of entertainment programs, from “20/20” to “The View”, launched in 1997. Walters has won 12 Emmy Awards, eleven of which for her work at ABC News. She had become such a celebrity over time that she earned author impersonations on Saturday Night Live. One of these, created by the comedian Gilda Radner, had ended up increasing its popularity. The journalist herself had so enjoyed imitating her that when Radner died of cancer in ’89, she sent a message of condolences from her husband, actor and director Gene Walder.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 25, 1929, of Jewish parents of Russian origin, Walter graduated in New York. After a brief stint in an advertising agency, she had become assistant director of advertising for a New York TV affiliate of NBC. Her charm and elegance conquered everyone to the point that she was hired as a producer for the CBS news. In ’61 she had become the writer of lyrics for the morning show ‘Today’, one of the most popular on NBC. That was her first breakthrough moment, because Walters got to go live to tell the stories. Within a few years she became a point of reference, also for her solid journalistic training, and was promoted to run Today together with Hugh Downs. It was ’74.
The following year, he earned his first Emmy. One more year and her definitive turning point arrives: she signed a five-year contract with ABC to become the first co-anchor of the evening news. Her hire grabbed the headlines for the sheer size of the bill: $1 million a year. A star salary. Her money that she has richly deserved for decades. Of her remains the eternal smiling face that had conquered millions of Americans, the many interviews considered journalism lessons, and an autobiographical book, ‘Audition’, from 2008, that is ‘Provino’, so called because, she once explained, she felt to be under scrutiny at all times, a self-discipline that has made it a giant of information and television entertainment. She was a great friend of Woody Allen, in 2007 she had received the definitive star baptism, with the inscription of her name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.