After a short stint as a publicist and a magazine writer, Walters joined NBC's Today show as a writer and researcher in 1961. She quickly moved up to become one of the show's onscreen regulars but wasn't technically named the show's first female co-host until 1974.
Walters with her Today co-workers Jim Hartz, Lew Wood and Gene Shalit in New York.
In 1975 Walters took home a Daytime Emmy for her work on Today. She snagged two more, one in 2003 and another in 2009, for The View.
While guest-hosting on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Walters interviewed Truman Capote.
Walters became a newscaster for ABC Evening News from 1976-78 alongside co-anchor Harry Reasoner, with whom she had a difficult relationship.
Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn Carter shared an embrace after the third presidential debate, which Walters (who can be seen in the background) moderated.
In addition to hosting, Walters often appeared on ABC News specials as a commentator and went on assignment. Here, she interviewed an armed PLO guerrilla youth at the Palestinian refugee camp in Shatila, near Beirut, Lebanon.
Walters talked with first lady Mamie Eisenhower on an ABC News special on Sept. 9, 1979.
The ABC television personality interviews former president Richard M. Nixon in New York.
Walters with former president Bill Clinton, who topped her "Most Fascinating People" list in 1996 and 1998.
Richard Gere and Walters greeted the Dalai Lama on a visit to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. On July 6, 2012, Walters traveled to Dharamsala, India, to interview the Dalai Lama about Tibetan Buddhism and the Buddhist view of heaven for 20/20.
In 1999, Monica Lewinsky sat down with Walters for an interview that drew a record 74 million viewers. "What will you tell your children when you have them?" Walters asked Lewinsky. "Mommy made a big mistake," Lewinsky replied. "And that is the understatement of the year," said Walters.
Walters interviewed Cuba's Fidel Castro for ABC’s 20/20 in 2002. She said, "For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96 percent."
Walters interviewed many world leaders, including Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Jiang Zemin, the U.K.'s Margaret Thatcher and Syria's Bashar Assad (pictured here). It was Assad's first on-camera interview with an American journalist since the uprising in Syria began.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama participate in a taping of the The View at ABC's studios in New York.