page_title: Betty White
section_title: 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: Betty White / Entertainment career / 1950s
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Betty White from the television series Category:Betty White Show.
context_page_description: Betty Marion White Ludden is an American actress and comedian, with the longest television career of any entertainer, spanning more than 80 years. Regarded as a pioneer of television, she was one of the first women to exert control in front of and behind the camera and is recognized as the first woman to produce a sitcom, which contributed to her receiving the honorary title Mayor of Hollywood in 1955.
  White is known for her award-winning roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls – the Writers Guild of America has included both sitcoms in its list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series of All Time – and Elka Ostrovsky on Hot in Cleveland.
  A staple panelist of American game shows such as Password, Match Game, Tattletales, The Hollywood Squares and The $25,000 Pyramid, White has been dubbed "the first lady of game shows", and became the first woman to receive an Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host in 1983 for the show Just Men! She is also known for her appearances on Boston Legal, The Carol Burnett Show, and Saturday Night Live.
context_section_description: White began hosting the show by herself in 1952 after Jarvis' departure, spanning five and a half hours of live ad-lib television six days per week over a contiguous four-year span altogether. In all of her various variety series over the years, White would sing at least a couple of songs during each broadcast. In 1951, she was nominated for her first Emmy Award as "Best Actress" on television, competing with such legendary stars as Judith Anderson, Helen Hayes, and Imogene Coca (the award went to Gertrude Berg). This was the very first award and category in the new Emmy history designated for women on television.
  In 1952, the same year that she began hosting Hollywood on Television, White co-founded Bandy Productions with writer George Tibbles and Don Fedderson, a producer. The trio worked to create new shows using existing characters from sketches shown on Hollywood on Television. White, Fedderson, and Tibbles created the television comedy Life with Elizabeth, with White portraying the title role. The show was originally a live production on KLAC-TV in 1951, and won White a Regional Los Angeles Emmy in 1952.
  Life with Elizabeth was nationally syndicated from 1952 to 1955, allowing White to become one of the few women in television with full creative control in front of and behind the camera. The show was unusual for a sitcom in the 1950s because it was co-produced and owned by a twenty-eight-year-old woman who still lived with her parents. White said they didn't worry about relevance in those days, and that usually the incidents were based on real life situations that happened to her, the actor who played Alvin, and the writer.
  White also performed in commercials seen on live television in Los Angeles, including a rendition of the "Dr. Ross Dog Food" advertisement at KTLA during the 1950s. She guest starred on The Millionaire in the episode "The Virginia Lennart Story", as the owner of a small town diner that received an anonymous gift of $1,000,000, in 1956.
  In 1954, she hosted and produced her own daily talk/variety show, The Betty White Show, on NBC (her second show to feature that title). Like her sitcom, she had creative control over the series, and was able to hire a female director. The show faced criticism for the inclusion of Arthur Duncan, an African-American performer, as a regular cast member. The criticism followed when NBC expanded the show nationally. Local southern stations threatened to boycott unless Duncan was removed from the series. In response, White said "I'm sorry. Live with it." and gave Duncan more airtime. Initially a ratings success, the show repeatedly changed time slots and suffered lower viewership. By the end of the year, NBC quietly cancelled the series.
  Following the end of Life with Elizabeth, she appeared as Vicki Angel on the ABC sitcom Date with the Angels from 1957 to 1958. As originally intended, the show, loosely based on the Elmer Rice play Dream Girl, would focus on Vicki's daydreaming tendencies. However, the sponsor was not pleased with the fantasy elements, and pressured to have them eliminated. "I can honestly say that was the only time I have ever wanted to get out of a show," White later said. The sitcom was a critical and ratings disaster, but ABC wouldn't allow White out of her contractual agreement and required her to fill the remaining thirteen weeks in their deal. Instead of a retooled version of the sitcom, White rebooted her old talk/variety show, The Betty White Show, which aired until her contract was fulfilled."
  In July 1959, White made her professional stage debut in a week-long production of the play, "Third Best Sport", at the Ephrata Legion Star Playhouse in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
caption: White in 1954
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