Quick Facts
| Full Name: | Barbara Jill Walters |
| Age: | 92 years |
| Birthday: | 25 Sep |
| Birthplace: | Boston |
| Nationality: | American |
| Gender: | Female |
| Horoscope: | Libra |
| Status: | divorce |
| Net Worth: | $170 Million |
| Height: | 5 feet 5 inches (1.65m) |
| Profession: | Journalist |
| Sibling: | Burton Walters, Jacqueline Walters |
Barbara Jill Walters is a well-known television personality and broadcast journalist. Barbara Jill Walters rose to prominence as the producer of women’s interest stories on NBC News’ “The Today Show.”
How old is Barbara Jill Walters?
Barbara Jill Walters turns 90 in 2019. She was born on September 25, 1929, in Boston. As a result, she was born to Dena (mother) and Louis Walters (father). She grew up with two siblings named Burton Walters and Jacqueline Walters.
Her father was a Broadway producer as well as the Tropicana Resort and Casino Entertainment Director. She grew up near celebrities due to her father’s job, so she was never in awe of them. Similarly, her nationality is American, though her ethnicity remains unknown.
Education of Barbara Jill Walters
In terms of educational history, she enrolled at Lawrence School in Brookline. Barbara’s family later relocated to New York City, where she graduated from the Birch Wathen School in 1947. She received her B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College.
Career Line of Barbara Jill Walters
- In terms of her professional life, she relocated to New York City after graduating from college to career.
- She worked for a year at a small advertising agency after landing a job at WNBT-TV, an NBC network affiliate in New York City.
- She worked as a publicist for Tex McCrary Inc. before becoming a writer for Redbook magazine for a few years.
- She started as a writer and researcher on NBC’s “The Today Show” in 1961 and quickly rose to become the show’s regular Today Girl. During those days, women were only given minor responsibilities, such as weather monitoring.
- She was the Today Show’s first female co-host in 1974. She co-anchored the ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner in 1976-78. Assisted ABC during the 1976 Presidential Elections.
- She had previously worked as a reporter on news specials such as presidential inaugurations and as a moderator between candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. In November 1977, she conducted a joint interview with Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
- She joined the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 in 1979 and was a regular staff writer until 1981. She spent years working with Hugh Downs and had a great working relationship with him.
- Throughout her long and successful career, she met world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Boris Yeltsin of Russia, and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
- Walters has perfected the craft of personality journalism and has been the first to conduct interviews over the years.
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- She is sometimes accused of displaying personal feelings by pumping ratings and relying on softball questions.
- Walters’ detailed and diverse range of interviews, on the other hand, provides a profound chronicle of the personalities who dominated the latter half of the twentieth century. Walters conducted the first interview with Christopher Reeve after he was paralyzed in a horseback riding accident in 1995.
- The following April, the broadcast was honored with the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award.
- In 1999, the two-hour exclusive Walters with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky became television history’s highest-rated news show ever shown on a single device.
- Walters has conducted important interviews with world leaders, providing audiences with a more three-dimensional view of those larger-than-life figures.
- These include Iran’s Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s first female prime minister; the Dalai Lama; Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-communist president; and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president.
- Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, she flew to Saudi Arabia to question Osama bin Laden’s brother, as well as Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud and several Saudi middle-class males and females.
- She also conducted interviews with celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Katharine Hepburn. She and Bill Geddie created the concept for the ABC talk show The View, which has been airing since August 1997.
- The series has been running for 17 seasons and features a panel of five female co-hosts debating a variety of social and political issues. She went on to co-host The View.
- In May 2013, Walters announced her retirement from television journalism. She announced that she would leave the air in 2014, though she will remain an executive producer on her popular chat show The View.
- According to the Los Angeles Times, Walters clarified, “I don’t want to be on another show or climb another mountain.” Rather, I’d like to sit in a sunny field and admire the very gifted woman.
Is Barbara Jill Walters single?
Barbara is currently single in her personal life. She has been married four times to three different men. In 1955, she married Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant.
The marriage had ended abruptly. The couple married on June 20, 1955, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The marriage was reportedly annulled after 11 months, or in 1957.
On December 8, 1963, she married her second husband, Lee Guber. He is a theater owner and producer. However, the couple divorced in 1976. They adopted one daughter born in 1968 and adopted the same year). In 1981, she married Lorimar TV chief executive Merv Adelson for the third time. In 1984, they divorced, only to remarry in 1986. They divorced again in 1992.
Furthermore, she dated lawyer Roy Cohn in college, and he stated that he proposed to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber. Walters, however, denied this. She revealed her lifelong devotion to Cohn as thanks for his assistance in the adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline.
She expresses gratitude to Cohn in her autobiography for his legal assistance to her father. According to her, her father was the subject of an arrest warrant for “failure to appear” after failing to appear for a New York court date because the family was in Las Vegas, and Cohn was able to have the charge dropped. She testified as a character witness during Cohn’s disbarment trial in 1986.
In addition, she dated future US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s and was romantically linked to US Senator John Warner in the 1990s.
In her autobiography, Audition, she claimed that she had an affair with Edward Brooke, a married United States Senator from Massachusetts, in the 1970s. It’s unclear whether she was married at the time. She claimed the couple ended their affair to protect their careers from scandal.
She began dating Pulitzer Prize-winning gerontologist Robert Neil Butler in 2007. They did, however, end their relationship. Similarly, she is close friends with Tom Brokaw and Woody Allen, and she was close friends with Joan Rivers and former Fox News head Roger Ailes from the late 1960s until he died in 2017.
In 2014, she appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live and revealed that not having more children is her greatest regret in life.
How much is Barbara Jill Walters worth?
Barbara has a long list of accomplishments and awards. In contrast, she received the Overseas Press Club’s highest honor, the President’s Recognition, in 1988; election to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990; the 1990 Lowell Thomas Award for a career in journalism excellence; and the 1990 International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Similarly, she received the 1997 New York Women in Film and Television Muse Award, the 2000 National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2007 Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and 34 Daytime and Primetime Emmy Awards.
Walters has also received honorary doctorates from the University of Ben-Gurion in Jerusalem, Hofstra University, and Marymount College in Ohio.
Barbara’s professional life has garnered a great deal of attention. When it comes to her net worth, she has estimated it to be around $170 million. Her total salary, on the other hand, remains unknown for the time being.
Health of Barbara Jill Walters
Barbara Jill Walters announced on The View on May 10, 2010, that she was undergoing open-heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve.
She went on to say that she had been aware for a long time that she had aortic valve stenosis, even though she was symptom-free. The procedure to repair the faulty heart valve goes well, and the doctors are very pleased with the results.
On July 9, 2010, it was announced that she would return to The View and her Sirius XM satellite show, Here’s Barbara, in September 2010. Four years later, she announced her permanent departure from both shows.
How tall is Barbara Jill Walters?
Barbara is a stunning woman. She is 5 feet 5 inches tall. Even though the weight and body measurements have yet to be revealed. Her hair is blond, and she has brown eyes.