never set out to be a role model or pave the way for the next generation of female journalists.The legendary Ms. Walters signed off as co-anchor of ABC's 20/20 in September of 2004, after more than 740 interviews and one of the longest and most distinguished careers in television news. She has interviewed every American President and First Lady since Richard Nixon. Barbara Walters made journalism history by arranging the first joint interview with Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin in November 1977. Another of her "firsts" was an hour-long primetime conversation with Cuban President Fidel Castro, an interview that has been printed in half a dozen languages and shown all over the world.
As late as the 1970s, television network rules stated that since Barbara was a woman, she had to wait until the fourth question to finally ask guests a hard-news question. "That seems amazing to me. I cannot say I was Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan, but I am proud in making the progress I made. It helped other women, and today I am so proud of those women. I glow with pride for them because this kind of conversation seems almost obsolete."

Barbara Walter's controversial move in 1976 to ABC as the first female co-anchor of a network evening-news program resulted in turmoil and debate. Harry Reasoner made it clear that he had no interest in working with Barbara. Media critics focused on her then record-breaking seven-figure salary and her "infotainment" style of news. Ms. Walters was soon bumped from that anchor desk.

"I had to work my way back," says Barbara Walters, who joined 20/20 in 1979 and officially became Hugh Downs' co-anchor in 1984. Her mantra? "Don't complain, don't whine, and don't blame anybody. Just work as hard as you can. I showed that not only could women do what men can do, but sometimes we do it better, faster and first."

Barbara Walters has interviewed such world leaders as Russia's Boris Yeltsin, China's Premier Jiang Zemin, Great Britain's former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as Indira Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Moammar Qaddafi, the Shah of Iran and King Hussein of Jordan. Ms. Walters' numerous and timely interviews, which appeared regularly on the weekly newsmagazine 20/20 and on The Barbara Walters Specials, read like a "Who's Who" of newsmakers. She did the first interview for American television with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and the first interview with President and Mrs. Bush following September 11th.

At the other extreme, in 1999 Ms. Walters conducted the first interview with Monica Lewinsky, which became the highest-rated news program ever broadcast by a single network.

The Barbara Walters Specials are always the top-rated specials of the year and have included Sir Laurence Olivier, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Bette Davis, and Audrey Hepburn. More recently, she has interviewed Ricky Martin, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Celine Dion and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Barbara Streisand, Tom Hanks, and Julia Roberts. Ms. Walters' The Ten Most Fascinating People special broadcast, launched in 1993, offers a year-end review of the most prominent newsmakers of the year as well as the selection of the "most fascinating" individual.

Barbara Walters is known for asking the questions that other people want answered but are afraid to ask. "I look at some of the questions I've asked, and think, 'How did I ask them?' But when I interview, I'm in a different place in my own mind. I am a journalist. I ask the questions that have to be asked," she says. Ms. Walters told the New York Times that she has become uncomfortable with the pressure to find interview subjects appealing to young people who are less interested in news. "We did Castro and it was a huge interview," she told the Times. "But we did much better in the ratings with Courtney Cox and David Arquette."

Barbara Walters turned 73 the day after she left 20/20. "I wish I were younger, sure, but I can't remember feeling as happy or as good about things as I do now." She will continue to produce a half-dozen interview specials a year for ABC, including her signature Oscar-Night Specials, and she will appear twice weekly on The View, the daytime talk show she created.