Top Quotes: “Here We Go Again: My Life In Television” — Betty White

“The title, Here We Go Again, was in reference to the burgeoning role something called “computers” were beginning to play even in uninformed circles — like mine. I had lived through the explosion of something called “television” early on and had seen it totally revise life as the world knew it. I began to sense another major change in the wind.”

“Shortly after we graduated, my senior class president and I were invited to take part in an experimental TV transmission taking place in downtown LA. It was to be a capsule version of an operetta.”

“The “studio” was a converted office on the sixth floor of the building, which was as high as that edifice went. The lights were, if not efficient, at least excruciatingly hot; both Harry and I had to wear deep tan makeup and dark, dark brown lipstick “so we wouldn’t wash out,” we were told. The beads of perspiration served to give us luster.

To view this epic, the audience, consisting of our parents and a small handful of interested parties, had to stand around the automobile showroom downstairs and watch a vintage monitor, since our telecast only carried from the sixth to the ground floor, unfortunately.”

“Eager to get started, I opted not to go to college, and while I’m sure my dad was disappointed, he supported me in my decision, as did my mother — typical behavior for both of these good friends.

The world, meanwhile, was going through a little altercation known as World War II, and though I was aware of it, even concerned, it all seemed very remote. However, once America became directly involved in 1941, my priorities did an immediate about-face and dreams of showbiz dissolved into the war effort.

For the next four years I worked with the AWVS — American Women’s Voluntary Services. I had had my driver’s license for about twenty minutes; nonetheless, I drove a PX truck, carrying toothpaste, soap, candy, etc., to the various gun emplacement outfits.”

“I belonged heart and soul (two out of three!) to a young man whose ring I had accepted before he went overseas in November 1942. Every single night I wrote him a V-mail letter, and he did the same, from somewhere in North Africa or Italy or who knew where. I would receive stacks of letters from him in intermittent batches as the mail got through. The really important man in my life during that time was the mailman.

Sad to say, true-life love stories don’t always work out as neatly as movie scenarios. After two whole years of V-mail, I chickened out and wrote the proverbial Dear John letter — in this case, Dear Paul. I sent the ring back to his mother to keep for him. Paul later married a girl he met in Italy; they are still together. I met and married a P-38 pilot; it lasted six months. Talk about getting your just desserts.”

“There was a little theater operation on Robertson Boulevard just outside of Beverly Hills — or just outside the high-rent district, if you will. The Bliss-Hayden Little Theater was run by two busy film character actors, Lela Bliss and Harry Hayden, husband and wife. (If you watch old films on American Movie Classics, you would recognize their faces immediately.)

Lela and Harry didn’t pretend to run an acting school per se, they simply gave aspiring performers what they needed most — a place to perform in front of an audience — and they presented a play every four weeks. By paying a “tuition” of fifty dollars a month, one could try out for the next production and land either a part in the play or the privilege of working on the backstage crew. It sounded like the big time to me, since I hadn’t been on a stage since high school — except, of course, for my triumph on the sixth floor in The Merry Widow.

So, clutching my fifty dollars in my hot little fist, I went in to see Harry and Lela. I’m not at all sure that anyone with fifty in cash was ever let out of the building without signing up, but as luck would have it, I landed the ingenue lead in their next production, a Philip Wylie play, Spring Dance. It was just what I needed, and I realized that this was what I must do for the rest of my life.

A play at the Bliss-Hayden ran something like eight performances, and then the next one was put into rehearsal. In this case it was to be the comedy Dear Ruth, fresh from Broadway. Just before closing night of Spring Dance, Lela and Harry called me into their office. Now, despite being a prototypical WASP, I was born with a major built-in guilt complex, so, naturally, I assumed they were going to point out something I was screwing up on stage. On the contrary, they had some wonderful news — they wanted me to play Ruth in the next production. And, as if that weren’t enough, I wouldn’t have to pay another fifty dollars! It all seemed too good to be true. I was going to be able to stay around these nice people for another month; I had the lead in a marvelous play; best of all, I was going to get to work for free!

For me, Dear Ruth was a delight in more ways than one. On opening night, a young agent from National Concert Artists Corporation stopped by to check out the play. This was just routine.”

“The show ran its course, and closing night rolled around. I made my first-act entrance and nearly blew my opening line, for there he was, smiling, in the first row. My concentration — the actor’s safety net — was, needless to say, shot to hell.

By the time the curtain came down, there he was, backstage.

“I’m here with a couple of friends, and I was wondering, since it’s closing night, if I could ask you to join us for a drink?”

“Well — uh — I guess — yes — I think that would be okay.”

Those may not have been my exact words, but whatever I said was equally witty. It didn’t seem to matter.

I had met someone nice, as opposed to smooth. Handsome, not pretty. Someone who was — I seemed to have forgotten all about the fact that he was an agent. I don’t think he was thinking about that, either.”

“Lane Allan truly was all the good things I thought I had seen. I learned that he was an actor turned agent, and that his real name was Albert Wooten; he had changed it for the stage when he played in Brother Rat on Broadway, in the role that Ronald Reagan played later in the movie version. He had come to realize that being an agent on a full-time basis offered a little more security than being an actor once in a while. It didn’t take us long to fall very much in love.

Unlike Lane, I had been burned once, and the idea of marrying again panicked me. I spent the next few months running scared, while I continued my efforts to get my embryonic career off the ground.

Far from getting a foot in the door, I was so green that I didn’t even know on which doors to knock. It was Lane who suggested I try the various radio shows that were so current and choice at the time. Most of them had a regular casting day once a week, so, diligently, I began making the rounds of the different offices. I would give my name. They would say, “Nothing today.” I would say, “Thank you,” and leave. Each week I would go through the same ritual in the hope that I might begin to look familiar; they might think they had hired me before and maybe use me again. Even vain hope springs eternal.

Sure enough, the day came when I was actually ushered in past the front desk to meet a real live producer! It was at a large advertising agency, Needham, Louis, and Brorby, the people responsible for putting on the very popular radio comedy The Great Gildersleeve, starring Hal Peary. The nice producer, Fran Van Hartesveldt by name, took it upon himself to point out, as kindly as he could, the one insurmountable hurdle standing in my way: before you could be hired by anyone, it was mandatory that you be a member of the union, the American Federation of Radio Artists.”

“Just as I stepped out, my fellow passenger spoke up.

“Listen, I know the spot you’re in. It would help you one hell of a lot to get that union card, so here’s what I’ll do. I’ll take a chance and give you one word to say in the commercial on this week’s Gildersleeve. You won’t break even, but it will get you your card. Think you can say ‘Parkay’ without lousing it up?” (Parkay margarine was the program’s sponsor, which in those radio days ranked just next to God.)”

“At that time, network radio programs still did two broadcasts of each show — one early for the eastern time zones, then the same show again three hours later for West Coast consumption. I was to say “Parkay!” once on each broadcast, for which I would receive a total of $37.50. It cost $69.00 to join the union. I called my dad and asked if he would loan me the difference, and, bless him, he was almost as excited as I was.

“Sure, honey. If you don’t work too often, we can almost afford it.

Daddy lucked out. Today, that initiation fee is $800.

There were a couple of virtually sleepless nights to live through before the broadcast, during which I fantasized all sorts of disasters, including saying “parfait” instead of “Parkay,” but when the big day came, I actually made it through okay. Not too surprising, since I had the script in my hand.

I was in show business!”

“By my next radio commercial, I had graduated from just one word — this time I got to sing. It was for American Airlines, and the song was lilting, to say the least:

Why not fly to Meheeco Ceety

You weel like the treep, ee’s so preetv.

Perfect casting. Today, that would elicit a protest demonstration on ethnic grounds. Deservedly so.”

“After we got on location, Allan Dwan, the producer/ director/cameraman, asked me if, since there were a lot of scenes I wasn’t in, I would mind acting as script girl, keeping track of shots, footage, continuity, etc. — as a favor, that is? Sure — what the heck, I’d rather be busy than waiting around; besides, it would keep me close to the two tiny, adorable bear cubs, with whom I got along famously. It was fortunate that I did, because after a very few days it became abundantly clear that the hired “trainer” was far more dedicated to his bottle than to his bear cubs. Once again, Allan Dwan asked me if, since I seemed to get along so well with the cubs, I would mind handling them on the set — as a favor, that is? Sure — what the heck, bear wrangler, script girl, sometime actress, I’d rather be busy than etc., etc. Hey, this was show business!

Now, at that tender age bear cubs grow like weeds, and as the weeks went by they nearly doubled in size; to the extent that the script girl had trouble rationalizing the different-sized bears in what were supposed to be matching shots, while the bear wrangler was having more and more of a challenge controlling her charges and the supporting actress was having one hell of a time trying to cover her scratches with makeup.”

“On that red-letter day of the phone call from Al Jarvis, I couldn’t wait to break the big news, first to Lane, then to our families; there was, naturally, great excitement. If Lane’s initial reaction seemed a trifle measured, that could have been chalked up to surprise. He was thrilled with the fifty dollars part, of course, but almost immediately he began to fret about how much time would be involved. I should have heard the first faint warning bell; could it be that my taking a job when I could get one was okay, but an actual career for me was not high on his list of long-range plans?”

“By now, my folks had bought a little ten-inch Hoffman TV so they could watch their daughter — my loyal mom kept it on Channel 13 for the whole five hours every day — but Lane and I still hadn’t made that rather substantial investment.”

“The spot must have run ten minutes. If only tape had been invented at the time. I’d sell my soul to see it today.”

“With the delightful exception of Buster Keaton, the “entertainment” (a euphemism) portion of the program — the guests and the games and the giddiness — all had to take place between and around the inviolate core of our show, the commercials. As our audience multiplied, our commercial load increased proportionately, and if an interview ran a little long or Al happened to get carried away on a subject, or if we began having a little too much fun, we knew we would have to pay for it. Once we slipped behind, we’d face having to do three or four spots in a row to catch up. Invariably, by the last half hour every day things would become somewhat chaotic, to make sure none of our paving customers got short-changed.”

“Keep in mind, too, that early on there was no such thing as film or taped messages. They were all done l-i-v-e in the studio. Al would do some of them, particularly if they were sponsors from his radio show; à la Arthur Godfrey, he might run three or four minutes extolling the virtues of a given product. Other spots would fall to me to do. After a hasty briefing from the sales department or a quick look at a fact sheet, often sent over during the show with the ink still wet, I would valiantly try to remember enough of the information to impart to the audience. Neither Al nor I would ever be caught dead reading anything; we considered that cheating. As a result, to this day I cannot use cue cards — I have to memorize everything. Now, of course, it’s because I can’t see them, and I’m not about to put on my glasses.

As soon as a couple of other stations began daytime telecasting, there came into being a growing procession of pitchmen, carrying their products and shuttling between stations to hawk their wares. Sometimes they would come back two or three times in the same day to catch a different set of viewers. No one but my mother lasted through the whole five and a half hours every day.

As relaxed as Al was in his own commercial approach, he would get a tad testy with some of these salesmen if they began to stretch a little over their allotted two minutes. (Infomercials aside, can you imagine if every commercial were two minutes long today?)”

“At home, things were deteriorating fast. The faint warning bell I spoke of had grown consistently louder and had finally sounded a death knell for the marriage.

Lane at last had to admit that he simply couldn’t handle having a wife with a career.”

“Down the road, Lucy and I became dear friends, as did our two dynamite mothers, DeDe Ball and Tess White. After Lucy lost her mom, she sent my mother violets every year on DeDe’s birthday. Some kind of lady.

In light of today’s “political correctness,” it is interesting to note that there was real resistance on the part of the network and the sponsor to using Desi as Lucy’s vis-à-vis, for fear his strong Latin flavor might alienate the audience! Lucy really had to go to bat for him.”

“For the format, we opted to go for three separate situations, on the premise that when you or your friends tell a funny anecdote about something that happened, the stories last no more than five or six minutes — eight, max. My contention was that if you try to stretch that anecdote into a half hour, the joke wears thin. History has proven just how smart I was — a half-hour situation comedy would never work.”

“Life with Elizabeth went on the air at 8:30, live every Saturday night from the stage of the Music Hall Theatre in Beverly Hills. We were on locally for the first year, so we didn’t have to worry about time zones. After the show each week, Del and I would schmooze with the audience and sing a couple of songs.”

“Somewhere during this time I was elected Honorary Mayor of Hollywood! Some red-hot promoter got the idea to hold a charity election, with all the TV performers from all the channels in town as candidates. At ten cents a vote, the public could vote as many times as they wished. I won, but at a dime a throw, it was anything but a free election.”

“Something I did feel good about was being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Unlike today, it didn’t cost any money — in those days; it was just the honor of being selected, and I was delighted to be among the charter members. Today it costs $3,000.”

“Arthur Duncan, the wonderful black song-and-dance man, had guested several times on Hollywood on Television, but on the new show he became a regular member of our little troupe. He did a number almost every day, and he could always count on knocking me out when he did “Jump Through the Ring.” He also did The Lawrence Welk Show regularly.

It came as a frightfully ugly surprise, one day, when a few of the stations that carried our show through the South notified us that they would, “with deep regret, find it most difficult to broadcast the program unless Mr. Arthur Duncan was removed from the cast.” I was shocked, and it goes without saying that Arthur continued to perform on our show as often as possible. To its credit, the network backed us up. I was livid — this was 1954, for heaven’s sake! I wanted to tell them what to do with their stations, but wiser heads prevailed. To no one’s surprise, that was the last we ever heard of the matter. They continued to carry us without another word on the subject.”

“It wasn’t a child — it was an endearing baby elephant I had fallen in love with when she appeared in Life with Elizabeth. While she was very young for an elephant, she was very big for a baby. I could just manage to put my arm over her back if I stood on tiptoe and she stooped a little. She charmed everyone. Her keeper told me he was thinking of selling her, and suddenly I had an inspiration! Wouldn’t it be great if NBC had its own elephant? They could build special quarters for her on the back lot, and whenever they needed an elephant they would have one of their very own. It would also be a comfortable, safe home for the little/big girl, and sensational publicity for NBC — forget the peacock!

Even I can’t believe this as I write it, but I actually went to John West, a very important NBC executive at that time, and tried to sell him on the idea! He should have called for the wagon immediately, but instead, John explained as gently as he could that he, too, loved elephants, but purchasing one didn’t quite fit into the network’s game plan, somehow.”

“The cliché excuse in those days for anyone who still didn’t own a television set was “I’m waiting till color comes in.” Color television had been the dream for quite some time — talked about, but not realized. At last, the first compatible color had been demonstrated the previous October in New York. By the spring of 1954 the dream seemed to be getting closer when one day at NBC we all received an invitation to attend an in-house demonstration of color television right on the lot in Burbank. And I must say, it was mind-boggling.

It began in the regular black-and-white mode we were accustomed to, and was a picture of bacon and eggs sizzling in a pan. Suddenly, it switched to color before our eyes, and the gasp that went up could be heard all over Burbank. The demo went on to show other examples, and we were all duly impressed. The fact that the studio engineers had the color adjusted to perfection didn’t do any harm either, but, of course, they should have, since the color equipment was made exclusively by RCA, parent company to NBC. As excited as everyone was as they filed out for lunch (probably bacon and eggs), we would still have to wait awhile before color came in to stay. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that NBC finally went all color, and then it was primarily so that RCA could sell a new generation of television sets.”

“The show emanated from New York; there was just no way I could do that. Try explaining that to a roomful of New Yorkers.

The discussions went on for several days, lasting that long only because my agents wouldn’t give up. They kept trying to tell me how much it would mean to my career, where it could lead, and on and on. NBC even offered to put me up at the St. Regis Hotel and to fly me home to California every weekend if I so desired. That, I must admit, was a momentary temptation, until I thought about it and realized that even with the energy level I had been blessed with, it would be unrealistic. The final answer was no. It’s not easy to see a grown agent cry.

The poor network ultimately had to make do with Barbara Walters. What she proceeded to build a “girl-on-the-show” job into is legend.

Not then, not since, have I regretted that decision for an instant. There is no way of explaining it to anyone, but where I live — not how, but where — has always been so important to me.”

“Unfortunately, as audiences and competition both burgeoned, and the shows became really big business, the temptation to fudge the rules proved irresistible.

When a promising and charismatic contestant would begin to entice the audience into following his or her progress each week, it was only too easy to leak answers surreptitiously to that player to ensure a return next week.

Finally, the inevitable happened — someone blew the whistle, and it hit the fan, triggering the notorious quiz-show scandals of 1958.

We had all watched anxiously as Charles Van Doren agonized and sweated over his responses each week, building his winnings to $129,000 on Twenty-One, and we were bitterly let down when he later admitted that he had been given the answers ahead of time. It was the first time, to our knowledge, that TV had lied to us. The age of innocence was over.”

“The storm blew over quickly. It’s hard to stay mad when you are the only one fighting. Allen taught me that valuable lesson over the years. I assumed he would return the ring to wherever it came from, and that would be that.”

“Allen’s circle of friends was large and diverse. He had lost no time in having me meet some of the close ones. Mary and Grant Tinker were the first — and then I met Elaine and John Steinbeck. Allen and Elaine had been buddies since their early days at the University of Texas. That first evening, Allen took me to their apartment to meet them. Elaine’s ease and warmth soon made me feel that I, too, had known her that long.

It was hard not to be a little in awe of John at first. It didn’t help my state of nerves that at the moment we walked in, John was scratching out his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. After a brief introduction, John suddenly asked us to help him think of a synonym for a word he wanted to replace. We should help John Steinbeck think of a word? Don’t ask me what the word was — at that moment I couldn’t remember my name! Later, after receiving his medal, John gave us that rough draft of his speech, to commemorate the night we met. It’s hanging here as I write.”

“For years, Carol suffered from an allergy she developed to hair spray and had to maintain a specific diet of specially grown and prepared food. Wherever they went, Charlie would tote her bag of special dinner, put up in beautiful shining silver containers from Tiffany. This was universally known and accepted without a second glance. Waiters would automatically bring her a smile and a warm plate.”

“Password was the first game show to use reruns of previously aired shows. Before someone came up with that gold-mine idea, old shows were simply erased, including a bunch of early Passwords.”

“Allen lost the battle [against cancer] five days short of our eighteenth wedding anniversary.”

“It was assumed that I would be Blanche, the well-to-do Southern woman to whom men were the breath of life. The fourth character was Rose, and they had settled on Rue McClanahan. Rue had worked with Bea for five and a half years on Maude, and she and I had worked together for a couple of years on Mama’s Family, where she played mousey Aunt Fran. We hadn’t met Estelle as yet, but she had come from a highly successful run on Broadway in Torch Song Trilogy.

The next report I heard was a call saying a decision had been made to switch parts. I would be playing Rose, and Rue would do Blanche.

I was heartsick. From the script we had read, we knew the strong character of Dorothy, and her brutally frank mother, Sophia. We understood the lustful Blanche, but I hadn’t a clue who Rose was. Then I heard that Jay Sandrich was the one who had suggested the switch, pointing out that if Betty played another man-hungry character, it wouldn’t matter how differently she approached it, the audience would think it was Sue Ann Nivens revisited.

It suddenly made perfect sense — not just because I loved Jay, but because he was absolutely right. And he should know, after spending four seasons with Sue Ann.

It was also Jay who gave me the definitive clue to Rose Nylund. “She is not dumb — just totally naive,” he said. “She believes everything she is told and in her innocence, always takes the first meaning of every word.””

“In the first episode, which had been our pilot, there was one more character, the gay housekeeper, played by Charles Levin. When the script was originally written, no one could foresee how well the four women would mesh together, nor how strong Estelle’s character, Sophia, would become. Also, with a housekeeper there, the girls wouldn’t have had as much access to the kitchen, where so many of our close four-way scenes took place. We used to solve most of our problems around the kitchen table — over cheesecake. So, after the initial show, the part of the housekeeper was written out. The reasons were all valid, but it was a heartbreaker for Chuck Levin. Can you imagine the disappointment of seeing the show picked up, then finding you were no longer a part of it? He took it in good spirit, bless him, and came by the set to say hello from time to time. As for us, we spent the first year explaining that he had not been written out because he was gay. Which, just for the record, and who cares, Chuck wasn’t.”

“NBC gave us some great promotion, so that when we went on the air in September, The Golden Girls nudged Cosby aside, and for our debut that first week we were number one. Cos stepped right back in, of course, but we managed to hang on to a spot in the top ten every week for the first five years of the show. With audience approval like that, we had cleared the last hurdle. We were a genuine hit.

What came as a big surprise to all concerned was the way Golden Girls cut across all the demographic lines. Over half of our mail came from kids, but the twenty-, thirty-, and forty-something and beyond were well represented. It tickled me whenever some very small person, tugging at mother’s sleeve, would point and say, “There’s Wose!” Too young to pronounce it, they still knew the character — all the characters.”

“For the first five years of the show, we all were nominated every year, which was something of a record in itself. By the first three years into the show, everyone, producers, writers, director, actresses, had his or her own Emmy, and we could all relax and enjoy.”

“Billy was such a nice kid and a great little actor. However, it became more and more difficult to find ways of working him into the story line each week, so after a few weeks, he was written out of the show. It was a tough pill to swallow, but Billy took it like a trouper and still visited us often. He also came to all our subsequent cast get-togethers.”

“There had been many rewrites during the week on Golden Girls, and as a rule they were improvements — just minor fixes here and there. With Palace, far too often we would start out with one script Monday, with major changes on Tuesday, and several times we received a whole new, unrelated script on Wednesday. What had caught our interest originally — the idea that these three women were trying to compete in and cope with today’s world, as it was happening just outside the lobby doors — somehow got lost in the shuffle. In desperation, one or another of us would be given a funny run of dialogue, not necessarily connected to the story line, and it would be like doing Golden Girls in the Lobby. There were some good shows mixed in, but not enough.”