Barbara Walters, pioneering US TV news anchor, dies at 93

Barbara Walters, the foremost American TV interviewer of her generation and the first woman to lead a US network evening news program, has died aged 93.

The circumstances of her death were not given.

Walters was at times criticized for soft-pedaling on her subjects: she asked 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.

She also asked tougher questions of other characters, including asking the notoriously-intemperate Russian president Boris Yeltsin if he drank too much and Vladimir Putin if he had ever killed anyone.

Even in 1976, when she became the first network TV female news anchor, she was told to refrain from asking a question until her male co-host had asked three.

But when she stepped away from the TV lights, she did so decisively: Walters had not been seen in public for six years before her death. Her driving energy, ability to vanquish rivals in the quest for the most sought-after interview, and often summon a tear from her subjects, including Gulf War general Norman Schwarzkopf, made her the queen of TV.

The circumstances of her death were not given.

But she was a natural on camera.

With Associated Press and Reuters