Obituary: Barbara Walters

 Famed journalist Barbara Walters, 93, has died.  She started in journalism when few women entered the field.  She was also known as the first female network news anchor.  Plenty of women have done it since, but she was the first, and I remember there was a bit of controversy about.

She preceded Jane Pauley on The Today Show, and when she went to ABC, she later co-hosted 20/20 with another broadcast stalwart who recently died, Hugh Downs.  After scaling back from broadcast journalism, she hosted and produced the somewhat gossipy The View.  Walters was known for her interviews with the famous and even infamous.  She was also the target of comedians, in particular the late Gilda Radner, who mercilessly parodied her on Saturday Night Live.  

ABC:

Barbara Jill Walters was born in Boston on Sept. 25, 1929, to Dena and Louis "Lou" Walters. Her father worked in show business as a booking agent and nightclub producer, and discovered comedians Fred Allen and Jack Haley, who would go on to star as the Tin Man in the classic film "The Wizard of Oz."

Growing up around celebrities taught a young Barbara a lesson that she relied upon throughout her career.

"I would see them onstage looking one way and offstage often looking very different. I would hear my parents talk about them and know that even though those performers were very special people, they were also human beings with real-life problems," Walters said in a 1989 interview with the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. "I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe."