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Entity shares the life of #womenThatDo Barbara Walters.

NAME: Barbara Walters

LIFETIME: September 25, 1929 – Present

WHAT SHE IS KNOWN FOR: Barbara Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author and television personality. She is best known as the 11-year star of the “Today” show as well as the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. In 2013, Walters announced her retirement from television journalism. Talking about her career, Walters explains, “I don’t want to appear on another program. I don’t want to climb another mountain. I want instead to sit in a sunny field and admire the very gifted women and, okay, some men too, who will be taking my place.”

WHY WE LOVE HER: With her successful career and her revolutionary role as the first female cohost of any news show, Barbara Walters has paved a clear path for women in journalism. In 1961, NBC hired Walters to work as a researcher and writer for the “Today” show. According to Biography, just a few months after landing this role, she “lobbied for a breakthrough assignment to travel with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on a trip to India and Pakistan.” As a result, she was given increasing responsibility at the network. By 1964, Walters had become a “staple” of the show, starring alongside Hugh Downs. Throughout her 11-year career on the “Today” show, she became known for her trademark probing-yet-casual interviewing technique and in 1975, she won her first Daytime Entertainment Emmy Award for best host in a talk series.

READ MORE: #WomenThatDid: Golda Meir

When she worked on ABC, she continued to hone her skills as a reporter and develop her unique interviewing style. As Biography writes, “She became known for her deftly maneuvered questions, often catching her subjects off guard and revealing uncommon candor.” Because of her success, she has been able to get the “first interview” privilege from a number of people. She has also conducted various interviews with world leaders to provide viewers with “a more three-dimensional view” of personalities such as the UK’s first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, the Dalai Lama, the Shah of Iran and Russia’s first post-communist president, Boris Yeltsin.

In 1997, she premiered “The View,” a mid-morning talk show of which she was co-executive producer and co-host. As Biography writes, this program “features unique perspectives from five women on politics, family, careers and general public interest topics.”

FUN FACT: To solidify her legacy, Walters was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1989, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007 and was given the Disney Legends award in 2008, an award given to those who made outstanding contributions to the Walt Disney Company. She has also won 34 Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, the 1988 President’s Award, the Overseas Press Club’s highest award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation in 1991, a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Excellence in Media Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women’s Agenda.

READ MORE: #WomenThatDid: Gwen Ifill

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