The legendary actor Sylvester Stallone recently took to his Instagram account and posted a throwback picture riding a motorcycle with TV icon Barbara Walters at the back.
His caption read:
There will never ever be anyone like Barbara Walters again. A true original and a ground breaker. May she rest in peace. It was an honor to know her.
Walters, who was the first female anchor on an American network evening news broadcast and one of TV’s most prominent interviewers passed away on Friday at age 93, her longtime ABC News home said. Previously Arnold Schwarzenneger had paid his tribute.
Walters, who created the popular ABC women’s talk show “The View” in 1997, passed away at her home in New York, Robert Iger, chief executive of ABC’s corporate parent, The Walt Disney Co., said in a statement. The circumstances of her death were not given.
“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” Iger wrote.
In a broadcast career spanning five decades, Walters interviewed an array of world leaders, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and every U.S. president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon.
Walters’ critics said she too often asked softball questions and she was long skewered for a 1981 interview in which she asked Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would like to be. Walters pointed out that she only asked because Hepburn had first compared herself to a tree.
Celebrity interviews also were an important part of Walters’ repertoire, and for 29 years she hosted a pre-Oscars interview program featuring Academy Award nominees. She also had an annual “most fascinating people” show but dropped it when she decided she was weary of celebrity interviews.
