Barbara Walters began her career as a receptionist in an ad agency, then became a newswriter for a series of local stations, eventually working as a gopher and occasional writer for CBS News. She worked as an assistant to the producer at New York's WRCA-TV, and as a publicist for long-time talk show host and Republican activist Tex McCrary, before joining Today as a researcher and writer in 1961. After a few months with Today she was promoted to an on-camera position as a reporter, but assigned to cover only the fluffiest of topics. At her own urging she was gradually allowed to report on more serious topics, and by the mid-1960s she seemed to be the show's co-host alongside Hugh Downs -- a position that had previously been held only by men and a chimp named J Fred Muggs. But despite sitting across from Downs and subsequent host Frank McGee, Today maintained an informal rule that Walters was not to ask questions of the show's 'serious' guests -- economists, philosophers, politicians -- until her male co-host had finished asking his questions, and she was not actually billed as co-host of The Today Show until 1974. In 1976 she left NBC to co-anchor The ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner, becoming the first female to anchor a network newscast. The media coverage of this "women's liberation newscaster" was intense, and Reasoner was chilly on camera and ice cold backstage. The ratings were disastrous, and soon she was gone. ABC, though, had Walters under contract, and to get their money's worth they offered a series of prime time Barbara Walters Specials, with Walters interviewing celebrities and newsmakers. And this became Walters' legacy -- her uncanny knack for extracting sometimes chatty, often revealing, occasionally embarrassing comments from the rich and powerful. Over three decades, Walters' specials ranged from the sublime -- she had the first joint interview with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin -- to the absurd -- she leaned forward to ask Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would choose to be, and asked Monica Lewinsky how she would tell her as-yet un-conceived children about her services to Bill Clinton. Walters was also co-host of 20/20, again opposite Downs, from 1984-99, and after his retirement she hosted the program either solo or with other sidekicks from 1999-2004. She created the girls' gabfest The View in 1997, and has been among the program's hosts ever since. Her father, Lou Walters, was a vaudeville booking agent who produced Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies of 1943 starring Milton Berle. He owned the Latin Quarter, a small chain of prestigious night clubs in Boston, New York, and Miami Beach. In its 1940s and '50s heyday, entertainment at the Latin Quarter included high-kicking chorus girls and big-ticket acts from Jack Benny to Tony Bennett. New York's Latin Quarter is now an Olive Garden restaurant.