From Thursday, January 19 to Sunday, January 22, you will nd at each of the business locations cited on the map, a Betty cutout along with a stack of Betty fact cards, a di erent fact at each location. Go and collect at least seven di erent fact cards over the course of the 4 days (note: business days and hours vary). Fill out (with name and email) and mail them (or drop them through the mail slot) to Wednesday Journal, 143 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302. Each card will be entered into a drawing for local gift certi cate prizes – the more cards you turn in the more entries you get. Keep in mind, locations 11 and 15 are not businesses and don’t have fact cards. Feel free to take sel es and photos, #BizBash4Betty Email questions to ndingbetty@oakpark.com.
1. Betty Marion White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on Jan. 17, 1922.
2. “Betty” was her legal name and not a shortened version of “Elizabeth.”
3. Betty was the only child of housewife Christine Tess and lighting company executive Horace Logan White.
4. She relocated to Los Angeles, California, at the age of two.
5. As a young girl, Betty took singing lessons and dreamed of being an opera singer.
6. Betty received 21 nominations and won 5 Emmy Awards.
7. Betty is the only woman to have received an Emmy in all performing comedic categories.
8. Betty’s last Emmy nomination came 60 years after her first.
9. In 2014, Betty became the Guinness World Record holder for Longest TV Career for an Entertainer (Female). 70 years in show business!
10. During World War II, White joined the American Women’s Voluntary Services.
11. White produced the sitcom “Life with Elizabeth” in the 1950s.
12. Betty is recognized as the first woman to produce a sitcom.
13. From 1962 to 1971, White hosted NBC’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
14. At age 95, she was the oldest person asked to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
15. Betty voiced characters in “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Toy Story
4,” “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill” and “The Wild Thornberrys.”
16. In 1995, Betty was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
17. From 1956 to 1976 Betty was a commentator for NBC’s annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
18. Betty’s work on CBS forced her to leave her role as host on NBC’s Tournament of Roses Parade.
19. White was known to skip breakfast and eat a simple sandwich for lunch.
20. Betty claimed she only entered the kitchen to feed her dog.
21. As part of their Amazing Women of the Month program, the Girl Scouts of America unveiled a brand-new Betty White patch in 2022.
22. Betty was not a dieter and quipped to People magazine that she credited her longevity to avoiding green foods.
23. From 1973 to 1977, Betty starred as Sue Ann Nivens on “Mary Tyler Moore.”
24. Betty won two, back-to-back Emmy Awards in 1975 and 1976 for her role on “Mary Tyler Moore.”
25. Betty White was married three times.
26. Her first marriage to Army Air Force Pilot, Dick Barker was in 1945 ended quickly.
27. Betty’s second marriage to Lane Allen, a Hollywood talent agent, ended because she wanted to focus on her career.
28. She married Allen Ludden, a television host and personality in 1963.
29. Betty met Ludden in 1961 when she was a celebrity guest on “Password,” a game show that Ludden hosted.
30. Ludden proposed to Betty multiple times, sending her a stuffed Easter bunny with gold and sapphire earrings.
31. White initially refused Ludden’s marriage proposals, but he wore the engagement ring he purchased for her around his neck until she changed her mind.
32. Betty joked the only reason she married Ludden was because he had two poodle puppies.
33. Allen and Betty stayed together until his death in 1981.
34. Betty included potato chips among her favorite foods.
35. Betty played Ellen Harper Jackson on “Mama’s Family” from 1983 to 1984.
36. From 1968 on, White only lived in two houses, both in California.
37. Betty was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 Emmy Awards ceremony.
38. Betty remarked about the pilot of “The Golden Girls.” “It was a wonderful script. You read so many bad scripts. … For every good script, you read 10 bad ones, and that one was a knockout. It really was.”
39. White originally auditioned for the role of Blanche on “The Golden Girls.” Director Jay Sandrich was worried about typecasting, so during the auditions he asked White to switch roles with Rue McClanahan who was reading for the part of Rose Nylund.
40. An animal lover and activist, if Betty hadn’t been an actor, she would have been a zookeeper.
41. On her 90th birthday, the Los
Angeles Zoo named a baby orangutan to honor her “Hot in Cleveland” character, Elka.
42. White was offered the role in the Oscar-winning movie, “As Good as It Gets,” but declined it because of a scene where a small dog is thrown down a trash chute.
43. In 2010, a Facebook group gathered nearly a million fans calling for Betty to host “Saturday Night Live.”
44. At age 88, White was the oldest person to ever host “SNL.” She won her 5th Emmy for the performance.
45. Past SNL cast members Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler and Molly Shannon all returned to appear on the episode with Betty White.
46. Betty’s snacking habits included Red Vines, hot dogs, French fries and Diet Coke.
47. In 1988, Betty and the other Golden Girls performed for Queen Elizabeth II.
48. Betty’s first work in Hollywood was in a Parkay margarine commercial.
49. Betty never took acting lessons.
50. Betty visited the campus of Minnesota’s St. Olaf College in 1992.
51. Jimmy Fallon once said of White’s comedic style, “Betty plays the cute factor, then goes for the jugular.”
52. White turned down an offer to co-host the “Today” show because she didn’t want to live on the east coast. Her choice opened the door for Barbara Walters.
53. Betty hosted a show called “The Pet Set” in 1971 featuring celebrities and their pets.
54. Known as “The First Lady of Television” White famously said, “Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren’t going to get rid of me that way.”
55. When “The Golden Girls” ended White was 70 years old.
56. Betty told Katie Couric, “Kindness and consideration of somebody besides yourself keeps you feeling young.”
57. Her last TV role was as the voice of “Bitey White” in Disney’s “Forky Asks A Question.”
58. White’s appearance on “Hot in Cleveland” was only supposed to be a one-time guest role.
59. Betty won a 2010 Teen Choice Award for Best Dance for her performance with Sandra Bullock in “The Proposal.”
60. Betty’s 1977 Cadillac Seville, named “Parakeet,” is part of the Automobile Club of America Museum collection.
61. In 2010 Betty’s popularity surged after starring in a Superbowl commercial for Snickers.
62. In 2012 she returned to television as the host of “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers,” a show in which older people pranked younger people.
63. The American Association of Zoo Keepers, L.A. Chapter, named Betty an honorary zookeeper in 2013.
64. Betty White won a 2015 People’s Choice Award in the Television Icon category.
65. Betty supported Morris Animal Foundation for over 50 years, “sponsor[ing] animal health studies to improve the health of cats, dogs, horses and multiple species of wildlife.”
66. Betty was 63 years old when “The Golden Girls” began.
67. Betty’s memoir “If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t)” was published in 2011.
68. Betty won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2012 for her recording of her 2011 memoir.
69. Betty was the oldest Golden Girl in the cast.
70. Betty won an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series,
for the first season of “The Golden Girls.”
71. She was nominated for an Emmy every year “The Golden Girls” run.
72. Betty appeared in the horror film, “Lake Placid” in 1999.
73. Betty published her first book, “Betty White In Person,” in 1987.
74. White sat down with four “Tonight Show” hosts including Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and guest host Joan Rivers.
75. For her guest appearance on WWE RAW in 2014, White was nominated for a professional wrestling Slammy Award.
76. Following her death, President Joe Biden described Betty as a “cultural icon who will be sorely missed.”
77. She had her own daily talk and variety show, “The Betty White Show.” It ran from 1952 through 1954.
78. Calls to cancel “The Betty White Show” came because White refused to remove Black tap dancer Arthur Duncan from the show.
79. Red Vines presented White with a portrait of her made out of red licorice (her favorite treat) to mark her 99th birthday.
80. During the 1950s Betty formed a genuine friendship with Lucille Ball.
81. Betty was profiled on a 2003 episode of “Biography” on A&E.
82. Betty’s television acting career took off again when she joined the “Mary Tyler Moore” show in 1973. She was 51.
83. Sue Ann Nivens, was originally a guest role on the show, but was upgraded to a series regular the following season.
84. When Allen Ludden was asked if Betty and Sue Ann Nivens were the same, he would say, “They’re the same except Betty can’t cook, of course.”
85. When asked what she would like to hear God say to her when she arrived at the gates of heaven, White answered, “Come on in, Betty. Here’s Allen!”
86. The U.S. Forest Service made White an honorary ranger in 2010.
87. Betty hired a female director—a first—for her daytime talk show.
88. Betty appeared on the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” in 2006.
89. Speaking about her years on “The Golden Girls,” Betty said, “It was just heaven. It was like being with your family every day.”
90. White had an entire room in her Carmel home filled with stuffed animals.
91. Dinah Shore, Burt Reynolds and Gloria and Jimmy Stewart were close friends of White and Ludden.
92. Betty was given the honorary title of Mayor of Hollywood in 1955.
97. Betty won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance on “Hot In Cleveland.”
98. In 2010, Betty established the Betty White Wildlife Fund in response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
. Betty graduated from Beverly Hills High School.
93
94. Shortly after high school, Betty was recruited to shoot an experimental television show called “The Merry Widow.”
95. White never had any biological children but became stepmother to Allen Ludden’s three children from a previous marriage.
96. From 2010 to 2015, Betty starred as Elka Ostrosky on the TV Land series “Hot In Cleveland.”
99. When Betty died, Michelle Obama took to Twitter saying, “Betty White broke barriers, defied expectations, served her country, and pushed us all to laugh.”
100. During a CNN inter view with Joy Behar, Betty responded to being called a “legend” by saying, “I just laugh. Have I got them fooled.”
101. “Betty White: First Lady of Television,” a documen tary about White, is streaming on Peacock.
