Walters, who created the popular ABC women’s talk show “The View” in 1997, died Friday at her home in New York, Robert Iger, chief executive of ABC’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co, said on Twitter.

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, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and every US president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon.

She earned 12 Emmy awards, 11 of those while at ABC News, the network said.

Walter began her journalism career on NBC’s “The Today Show” in the 1960s as a writer and segment producer. She made broadcast history as the first woman co-anchor on a US evening newscast, opposite Harry Reasoner.