An early television critic was so harsh on young Betty White that she cried for three days

by Junna Base November 12, 2024

While Betty White became a sitcom superstar thanks to The Mary Tyler Moore Show And Golden Girls, She also pioneered the genre in the 1950s.

It started when White was co-host — and then solo host — of a daytime talk show in Los Angeles Hollywood on TV, According to comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff, writing for WFMU. Because the medium was still so new, White worked spontaneously for hours until an enterprising producer began writing short sketches about a married couple for White (Elizabeth in the scripts) and her boring partner Alvin. “They worked – beyond all expectations,” White explained.

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The sketches eventually developed into a locally produced situation comedy called ” Life with Elizabeth. It was a cut-rate rental, with White and producer/writer George Tibbles coming up with names to appear in the credits to make it seem like a more robust production. KLAC’s station manager became ambitious after a month and posted advertisements for the sale Life with Elizabeth to other stations. Because there were few programs, the show became one of the first successful syndicated sitcoms.

White admitted the comedy was more than tame. “We didn’t worry about relevance back then,” she said, noting that a typical episode might be about “Elizabeth’s cookies not turning out.” The show was structured more like a comic, with three mini-episodes about the inconsequential married life that filled the half hour.

Damn child critics Life with Elizabeth with faint praise like “passable” and “good enough.” The term “harmless” was a selling point for local broadcasters who didn’t want to deal with letters and calls from easily outraged viewers. But “boring” didn’t exactly make the show good.

John Crosby, a critic of the New York Herald Tribunereluctantly paid attention as the show spread across the country. He didn’t particularly like Betty White. “Miss White plays the healthy side of the street as best she can. Although I am somewhat hesitant to speak out against health, I think there are limits and I think that Miss White goes beyond that – well, we won’t pursue that idea any further,” he wrote. “Miss White is dimpled, fully clothed and well padded. She lives with her mother, loves dogs, has the nickname Betz and does her own hair, which looks like – well, we won’t pursue that idea any further.”

Whatever “terribly healthy” American apple pie White was selling, Crosby didn’t buy it. “In fact,” he wrote, “I suspect that if I took a bite of Miss White, I would get enough vitamin B to last me through the winter.”

The criticism hit White where it hurt. “I didn’t just get a bad review,” she said. “He didn’t like what I wore, he didn’t like my smile, he didn’t like what I looked like, he certainly didn’t like what I did. And I cried for three days. I cut it out and saved it. I still have the damn thing.”

Crosby didn’t seem to have anything personally against White – his tastes just leaned in a different direction. “And now, if you will pardon me,” he wrote, “I set out to stare at Jane Russell and see if any of that holiness can be washed away.”

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