The legendary newswoman, who died Friday at 93, made her name over decades of headline-making TV specials. Here are some of her most influential.
Legendary newswoman Barbara Walters, who died Friday at 93, may have started out on “The Today Show” and blazed a trail as the first woman to co-anchor the evening news. But she made her name over decades of headline-making TV specials, in which she interviewed celebrities, businesspeople, politicians and — perhaps most memorably — objects of scandal. Here are a number of the most influential.
The first edition of “The Barbara Walters Specials” premieres to record ratings, with “A Star Is Born” actor Barbra Streisand vying for space on the marquee with President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
Walters’ interviews with political leaders the world over — including the Shah of Iran, Boris Yeltsin, Margaret Thatcher, Václav Havel, Moammar Kadafi, Hugo Chávez and countless others — were among her hallmarks, but none made quite the splash as her confab with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who she finally persuaded to sit for ABC’s cameras after a two-year campaign of letters and phone calls to the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
Walters’ blockbuster joint interview with the Israeli prime minister and the Egyptian president reportedly came about after Begin convinced Sadat to do it “for the sake of our friend Barbara.
