Biography of Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters, born on September 25, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up with a father who produced theater and ran a night club chain called Latin Quarter. After graduating with an English degree at the Sarah Lawrence College, she became a part of NBC’s ‘The Today Show’ staff in 1961 as a researcher and writer. Barbara Walters eventually made it in front of the camera as the “Today Girl,” then as a co-host of the show. In the late 1970s, Barbara signed on with ABC and became a co-host of the “ABC Evening News” and “20/20,” wherein she co-hosted for two decades until the show ended in 2004. In 1997, Barbara Walters produced and co-hosted the morning talk show “The View,” which is still running.

Throughout her career as a personality journalist, Barbara Walters has interviewed all U.S. presidents since Richard Nixon, numerous world leaders, high-profile celebrities like Michael Jackson and headliners like Monica Lewinsky. Barbara Walters also covered historical events such as the finale debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, the 9/11 coverage and presidential inaugurations. Walters has received plenty of awards and recognitions, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an induction to the Television Academy Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame and two Lifetime Achievement Awards – one from the International Women’s Media Foundation and the other from Women’s Project and Productions.

Barbara Walters has a daughter named Jacqueline Dena, whom she and former husband Lee Guber adopted a few days after her birth on June 14, 1968. Barbara has been married three times – to Robert Henry Katz in 1955, Lee Guber in 1963 and in 1986 to Merv Adelson, whom she divorced in 1992. In Barbara Walter’s autobiography entitled “Audition,” she revealed that she had an affair with Edward Brooke in the 1970s.