Barbara Walters’ Longtime ‘View’ Producer Reflects on How ‘She Kicked Sexism and Ageism Squarely in the Ass’

Barbara Walters was a force to be reckoned with — and her producer of decades Bill Geddie often had a front-row seat to her mastery of the broadcast medium.

Geddie, who worked with Walters at ABC for years before they joined forces to create The View in 1997, exclusively offered insights to PEOPLE about her illustrious career.

“When I started working with Barbara Walters in 1988, I was just over 30 and she was just under 60,” recalls Geddie. “As the new Executive Producer of her highly rated specials, I was told by several male TV execs not to get too comfortable. ‘You’ll only have the job a few years,’ one of them said. ‘No one wants to see a woman over age 60 on TV.'”

Continues Geddie, “The job lasted 27 years and, in the end, she was doing live television five days a week in her mid 80s.”

He sums up, “Barbara’s total impact on broadcasting is hard to quantify, but this much is clear — she kicked sexism and ageism squarely in the ass.”

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Throughout her career, which spanned more than seven decades, Walters was vocal about combatting sexism in the workplace.

In a 2015 Oprah’s Master Class video, she tackled the double standard for women in TV news: “The so-called hard news, a woman couldn’t do it. The audience wouldn’t accept her voice,” Walters said. “She couldn’t go into the war zones, she couldn’t ask the tough questions.”

But Walters refused to stand down.

“Some people admired it. Others said, ‘She’s rude,'” Walters recalled. “On the one hand, it made me more valuable; on the other hand, I got the reputation as being a pushy cookie. ‘There goes that pushy cookie.'”

Walters also shared the advice she often gave to young women: “Fight the big fights. Don’t fight the little fights. If you don’t get all the lines, if you’re not where you should be, be the first one in. Be the last one out. Do your homework.”

“Choose your battles,” she advised. “Don’t whine, and don’t be the one who complains about everything. Fight the big fights.”