ALINA SELYUKH, HOST:
One of the most famous American broadcast journalists has died at the age of 93. Barbara Walters was a celebrity as much as anyone she ever covered. She interviewed world leaders and other newsmakers as well. NPR's David Folkenflik offers this tribute to an unexpected path breaker.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: If you remember Barbara Walters as a journalist who blurred the lines between news and entertainment, yeah, there's some truth to that.
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BARBARA WALTERS: Those lips, those eyes, that body. When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met on the set of "Mr. And Mrs. Smith," it set off Hollywood's hottest romance.
FOLKENFLIK: Or take this Thanksgiving special with President and Michelle Obama.
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WALTERS: You love him very much, don't you?
MICHELLE OBAMA: I do.
BARACK OBAMA: She's a little biased.
FOLKENFLIK: Yet over the decades, Walters posed plenty of tougher questions. She had the only joint interview of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin amid their peace talks and the first big interview with Monica Lewinsky. Here, she asked Syria's Bashar al-Assad about brutal reprisals against protesters.
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WALTERS: You have seen, I'm certain, pictures of Egypt's former President Mubarak in jail, pictures of - in Libya of Moammar Gadhafi killed. Are you afraid that you might be next?
PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD: No, I'm afraid that the people won't support me - Syrian people.
WALTERS: Do you feel now that you still have the support of your people?
FOLKENFLIK: Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929, just a month before the Wall Street crash that kicked off the Great Depression. And she later said that throughout her life, she was driven by fear financial collapse. Walters' parents held her out of many social settings to stay with her older sister, Jackie, who had a mental disability. Walters said she learned patience and empathy from Jackie - traits that proved handy. Walters' father ran nightclubs and was often absent, as she told NPR's Steve Inskeep in 2008.
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WALTERS: You know, there was such a dichotomy because on the one hand, here was this glamorous life of nightclubs and gorgeous showgirls and big stars - Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. And I'm sure it's a life that people would look at and envy and think, oh, wasn't that terrific? I didn't want that. I wanted a normal life. I wanted a daddy who was home.
FOLKENFLIK: Her father's livelihood eroded as television ascended. But after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, Walters joined TV as a writer and producer. At NBC's "Today Show," she contributed occasional on-air features as well, then developed into a hit as she expanded her role there. In 1974, she became the show's first female co-host. Her friend Andrea Mitchell of NBC News says she was inspired as a teen by seeing a woman alongside the men of the "Today Show."
ANDREA MITCHELL: She always had to wait to ask the fourth question because the men in charge wouldn't let her go first. But she just pushed ahead, and she always asked the smartest questions.
FOLKENFLIK: In 1977, Walters left for ABC to become the first female evening news anchor and was spoofed by the late Gilda Radner on "Saturday Night Live."
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GILDA RADNER: (As Barbara Walters) This is my last moment on NBC. I want to remind you to look for me along with Harry Reasoner weeknights at 7 o'clock.
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FOLKENFLIK: That impression was the price of success. She was the first million-dollar-a-year network anchor, and her ABC co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, could not have been less gracious.
DAVID WESTIN: First of all, I don't think he wanted anybody to be (laughter) a co-anchor with him. He wanted it all to himself. And I think the idea of a woman, and particularly a woman who had done not only news, but also done fashion and other sort of, so-called back then, women's issues, I think he found deeply offensive to him.
FOLKENFLIK: That's David Westin, later Walters' boss as president of ABC News. The pairing with Reasoner was quickly canceled, but Walters fought her way back, moderating two presidential debates yet displaying her instinct for showbiz, interviewing celebrities as well as world leaders and eventually devising a yearly Oscar interview program, specials on the year's most fascinating people and the daytime chat fest, "The View."
WESTIN: She loved not only making substantive, serious news, but she also loved the lighter side as well. I mean, they reflected her interests and her appetites. And she also, I think, really stood in for a lot of the audience and knew that people were interested in these things. And she never felt that she should look down on them for that.
FOLKENFLIK: In private, Walters' life also revolved around celebrity. She was married four times to three men, had a rocky five-year affair with then-Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts and dated other prominent figures, too. But none of the relationships stuck.
Walters focused on her career - a foot in entertainment and news - and faced criticism for her style - unfounded, she felt. After being widely mocked for asking Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would want to be, Walters defended herself by noting it was Hepburn who made the comparison. Walters simply asked, what kind of tree?
And Walters' competitiveness could not be underestimated. NBC's Andrea Mitchell was in Havana for a planned interview with Fidel Castro; a network jet was on the way with a full crew when the Cubans canceled it because Walters had decided she would have one and insisted hers be exclusive. Walters' fame was that powerful.
MITCHELL: And it was humiliating in the extreme. But this was just the course of doing business for Barbara. It never would have occurred to her that it had any impact on our friendship.
FOLKENFLIK: At the time of her death, they were still friends. Over more than half a century, this driven celebrity journalist not only staved off financial disaster, but built one of the most remarkable careers in TV news. Barbara Walters is survived by her daughter, Jackie, named for her older sister.
David Folkenflik, NPR News, New York.
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