june-2010

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVERETT COLLECTION
WHITE HEAT // The actress in a
headshot from the mid-’50s; The Mary
Tyler Moore Show; The Golden Girls;
and, opposite, Password.
HEMISPHERES: You’ve been called the First Lady of Game Shows
for your many appearances as a guest star on Password, What’s
My Line? and Match Game. Got a favorite?
WHITE: Of course, I have to be prejudiced in favor of
Password, because I fell in love with the man in the middle.
HEMISPHERES: You outlasted fi ve diff erent hosts on that show and
married Allen Ludden, who died in 1981. You’ve never remarried.
WHITE: He is the love of my life. When you’ve had the best,
who needs the rest? He’s still around, trust me.
HEMISPHERES: Well, somebody’s certainly watching out for you.
How did you end up together?
WHITE: We met when he was the host on Password, and then
he moved to New York. I wasted a year I could have been
with him, because he kept asking me to move and I refused.
I fi nally relented, and we did a summer stock show together
called Critic’s Choice. There was a scene at the end where he
would put his arms around me and kiss me. Well, I must say
that last scene sometimes would last a little longer…
HEMISPHERES: Sounds like you were a bit harder to get than your
Mary Tyler Moore character, Sue Ann Nivens.
WHITE: Well, she did get around, but she was also the happy
homemaker who could cook anything and clean anything.
They used to ask Allen in interviews, “How close to Sue Ann
is Betty?” He’d say, “They’re really the same person except
Betty can’t cook!” On the show, Sue Ann had a little aff air
with Cloris Leachman’s character’s husband, and she always
wondered why he came home with his clothes cleaner than
when he went to work.
HEMISPHERES: My, that’s sort of spicy. And yet, you told Diane
Sawyer that you laid down the law with SNL: “No nudity.”
WHITE: I turned down nudity back when it was even
a possibility. It’s like humor. I think it’s what you don’t
show that makes it interesting.
HEMI
Q&A
“If you don’t like something, then go in
another direction, but cool the complaints.”
HEMISPHERES: You clearly love what you do, but don’t you get a
little tired of working all the time? At what point in your career are
you going to have enough laurels to rest on?
WHITE: I love working. Love it. I go in prepared to enjoy it
instead of going in looking for the negatives. I always crack
up at the people who start the conversation with, “You know
what I hate?” If you don’t like something, then go in another
direction, but cool the complaints.
HEMISPHERES: What does bother you?
WHITE: Unkindness or cruelty of any kind to anyone or any
animal. The ones who mistreat animals mistreat each other
as well. Right now, I’m sitting on the couch with Pontiac, a
fi ve-year-old golden retriever. He has his head on my lap.
HEMISPHERES: You’ve done a great deal of charitable work on
behalf of animals.
WHITE: Thanks for mentioning that. The Morris Animal
Foundation is a health organization that helped develop the
feline leukemia vaccine and the spiral virus vaccine for
dogs, and we’re also involved in protecting the mountain
gorillas. I’ve been working with them for forty-fi ve years.
HEMISPHERES: What do you watch on TV?
WHITE: I shouldn’t say this…
HEMISPHERES: But now you must.
WHITE: I don’t watch much television. I don’t have time. I
haven’t had a day off in three years. I have a lovely weekend
place in Carmel, and I haven’t been there in a long, long time.
My friends go, but I never seem to fi nd the time.
HEMISPHERES: Good lord, Betty, where are your priorities?
WHITE: I never said I was good person.
DAVID CARR writes about media and entertainment for
The New York Times. Like Mary Richards, he got his start in
journalism in Minneapolis. 73